Isn't everything "just" an interpretation at some level - including "data"?
of course there is a rhetorical component to the assertion, but there is a
rhetorical component to all assertions and arguments (except perhaps
mathematical demonstration). If you privilege data, that shows that you find
argument from data to be more compelling, certainly a Western rhetorical
stance. I don't think this is an area in which the certitude of mathematical
demonstration applies. Rather, the suasion of one's argument can be found
convincing - or not. -Tc
Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
Department of English
University of Houston-Downtown
One Main Street
Houston, TX 77009
713.221.8520/713.868.3979
"Question Reality"

> ----------
> From:         Steven Bissell[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent:         Wednesday, January 17, 2001 9:45 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Animal Rights and Civil Rights linked by Nash
>
> Well actually this does not show that. It shows Roderick Nash's
> interpretation of these issues. When _A History of Environmental Ethics_
> was
> published this idea in particular was widely attacked. One review
> suggested
> the title should be _A History of Radical Politics in America_ (I forget
> the
> citation, but I believe a review in Environmental Ethics). I find Nash's
> argument far from compelling. The figures you mention hark back to the
> discussion of models on this list. They are a way of representing
> relationships, but they are not data to support any sort of hypothesis
> about
> those relationships.
>
> Just because you can put the Declaration of Independence and the
> Endangered
> Species Act in a figure together does not mean there is any logical, much
> less political or rational connection between them. Nash does not, to my
> mind, show any real connections between these concepts. He proposes that
> there is a connection, but where is his evidence? In these figures? As I
> said before, that isn't evidence; it's just a way of presenting an
> example.
>
> Steven
>
>  . . .in the last days he lost his appetite
> and fed only on vegetables. He soon acquired
> the forlorn look that one sees in vegetarians.
> His skin became covered with a thin moss,
> similar to that which flourished on the
> antique vest that he never took off,
> and his breath exhaled the odor of a
> sleeping animal.
>                  Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1967
>                One Hundred Years of Solitude
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion forum for environmental ethics.
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Chiaviello, Anthony
> Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 9:16 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Animal Rights and Civil Rights linked by Nash
>
>
> Here is the citation that links animal rights to civil rights:
>
> Nash, Roderick Frazier. The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental
> Ethics. U Wisconsin P. p. 5 and p. 7; figures 1 and 2.
>
> Figure 1 places concern for self in the pre-ethical past, family, tribe
> and
> region in the ethical past, and nation, race, humans, and halfway to
> animal
> rights in the present. Plants, life, rocks, ecosystems, planet and
> universe
> are left to the future.
>
> Figure 2 shows the expanding concept of rights, from natural rights to the
> Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, Emancipation Proclamation,
> Indian
> Citizenship Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, Civil Rights Act, and
> Endangered
> Species Act.
>
> Hope that helps
>
> -Tc
> Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
> Department of English
> University of Houston-Downtown
> One Main Street
> Houston, TX 77009
> 713.221.8520/713.868.3979
> "Question Reality"
>
> > ----------
> > From:         Steven Bissell[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent:         Sunday, January 14, 2001 10:40 AM
> > To:   [log in to unmask]
> > Subject:      Animal Rights and Civil Rights
> >
> > I've been trying to find the URLs for a current controversy here in
> > Colorado, but no luck so far. Basically the issue started with the State
> > Wildlife Commission approving a 9 year study of coyote control as a
> factor
> > in deer declines. All that aside there is another topic that came up
> that
> > interests me.
> >
> > I've always been a skeptical about the Animal Rights movement claim to
> > ties
> > to the Civil Rights movement. I've found the claim more than a bit
> > offensive, but, there you go.
> >
> > In this case the current local Animal Rights group, Rocky Mountain
> Animal
> > Defense,  objected to the study and had attended the Commission meetings
> > to
> > give testimony against it. They did not prevail, primarily for political
> > reasons, and following the meeting one of the groups members made a
> > comment
> > about the decision called for a "lynch mob." Trouble is the chairman of
> > the
> > Wildlife Commission, Bernard Black, is an African-American and his wife
> > heard the comments. One of the RMAD members who was there admitted to
> > making
> > the comment, but says she wasn't being racist. She has, however,
> resigned
> > her position with RMAD. I think she shows incredible naiveté to think an
> > African-American wouldn't interpret a remark about lynching as racist.
> >
> > I guess where this is taking me is an examination of the claim that
> animal
> > rights is an extension of the abolitionist movement of the 19th century.
> I
> > find the claim lacking in merit. I think that the concerns of the
> > abolitionists movement and the concerns of the animal rights movement to
> > be
> > very different in context and in content.
> >
> > As to the animal rights movement being environmental; I suppose in this
> > case
> > it is more clearly environmental (embarrassingly so) than abolitionist.
> It
> > seems a shame that those interested in animal rights cannot seem to make
> > their case without recourse to claims of either environmentalism or
> > abolitionist ties. Perhaps if animal rights were to more clearly make
> > their
> > ethical claims on their own, there would be less antipathy toward them.
> >
> > Steven
> >
> >  "Our human ecology is that of a rare species of mammal in a social,
> > omnivorous niche. Our demography is one of a slow-breeding, large,
> > intelligent primate. To shatter our population structure, to become
> > abundant
> > in the way of rodents, not only destroys our ecological relations with
> the
> > rest of nature, it sets the stage for our mass insanity."
> >         Paul Shepard
> >
>