This was posted by Marc Bekoff to EthologicalEthics - sounds intriguing......
Book review - The Holocaust and the Henmaids Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities, by Karen Davis
http://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Henmaids-Tale-Comparing-Atrocities/dp/1590560914/ref=sr_11_1/102-4862274-3576921?ie=UTF8
Average Customer Review: *****
***** A most important book, October 11, 2006, Reviewer: Marc Bekoff (Boulder,
Colorado USA)
Karen Davis' short, intellectually rigorous, historical, sociocultural,
and imminently readable book is a **must** read. Davis is an excellent
writer with years of personal experience working for all sorts of animals
who find themselves in factory farms and feedlots, and her message is
clear and convincing - there are striking parallels between the
interminable and inexcusable suffering we bring to billions of food animal
beings each year and the treatment of human beings during the holocaust.
While it may move some - perhaps most - readers outside of their comfort
zones, this is good and necessary for stimulating us all to act more
strongly on behalf of all animals who suffer innumerable disturbing and
unspeakable atrocities at out hands. And, nowhere are these atrocities
more apparent and "in our face" than in slaughterhouses and factory farms
which are truly prisons of torture where animals interminably suffer and
die and also see, hear, and smell the senseless and ruthless pain,
suffering, and death of others, often family members and other friends.
One doesn't have to be sentimental to "feel" for food animals, for there
are plenty of scientific data that support that claim that they are
sentient beings who have preferences and a point of view on what is
happening to them and to their friends. Their emotional lives aren't
secret, private, or hidden, they're public. Animals tell us clearly what
they're feeling and we must not deny what is so very obvious.
Let me emphasize that Karen Davis' book isn't just another Holocaust book.
There are many new ideas and some of the major themes that distinguish
this book from others include Davis' account of the life of a battery hen
from the hen's point of view, her characterizations of internalized forced
labor, chapter 5 on "Procrustean Solutions," a rich discussion of ritual
sacrifice and genocide as identify destruction, not just physical
extinction, Davis' distinctions between pain and suffering, and her
chapter on her 9/11 controversy with Peter Singer, author of Animal
Liberation.
I'm sure that this book will make you shake your head from side to side in
disbelief, wondering how things ever got to be so horribly messy and how
any human being can ignore what we do to innocent nonconsenting animals
every second of everyday. How do we live with the moral boundaries we draw
almost solely for our convenience? How did this mentality arise?
Our relationship with nonhuman animals is a complex, ambiguous and
challenging affair, and we must continually reassess how we should
interact with animal kin. This book will make you do just that. Let's not
forget that animal emotions are the gifts of our ancestors. We have them,
and so do they. We aren't alone in the emotional arena. It's "bad biology"
to argue against the existence of animal emotions. Scientific research in
evolutionary biology, cognitive ethology and social neuroscience, along
with our own personal observations, support the view that many animals
have rich and deep emotional lives and that they are sentient beings.
I strongly suggest that you read this book, think deeply about the
numerous issues that Karen Davis raises, share it with your friends and
family, and thank Karen for writing such a moving and bold book. I
continually go back to it because it is so rich, deep, clear, disturbing,
and novel.