Kinship & Killing: The Animal in World Religions

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2010:

 

 

Kinship & Killing:

The Animal in World Religions

by Katherine Wills Perlo

Columbia University Press (61 West 62nd St., New York,

NY 10023), 2009. 256 pages, paperback. $27.50.

 

 

Kinship & Killing: The Animal in World Religions is

unfortunately more learned than readable, cutting back and forth

among the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism,

and scholarly commentaries with what might be dizzying speed if the

connecting passages were not plodding academic jargon. Hinduism is

mentioned in passing, but not discussed in depth, for reasons not

very clear.

Author Katherine Wills Perlo, says the back cover, " proves

that our relationship with animals shapes religious doctrine,

particularly through the tension between animal exploitation and the

bonds of kinship. She pinpoints four different strategies for coping

with this conflict.

" The first is aggression, in which a divinely conferred

superiority or karma justifies animal usage. The second is evasion,

which emphasizes benevolent aspects of the human/animal relationship

within the exploitative structure. The third is defense, which

acknowledges the problematic nature of killing, leading many

religions to adopt a propitiation mechanism, such as apologizing for

sacrifice. The fourth is effective-defensive, which recognizes

animal abuse as inherently unethical. "

But the 228 pages inside are more an exercise in counting

angels dancing on the head of a pin than useful illumination of the

central question. In truth, all four of the coping strategies that

Perlo outlines are so thoroughly intertwined and mutually supportive

as to constitute the strands of a single thread, stretching back

into the earliest written religious texts. Tenuously teasing them

apart does not really accomplish very much.

The problem remains: did religion ever really have any other

purpose than rationalizing human use and abuse of others, whether

animals, slaves, or other occupants of coveted land? Were

pro-animal prophets such as Isaiah, Mahavira, the Buddha, and

Mohammed actually representative in any way of the religious

traditions from which they came, and into which their teachings are

subsumed? Or, were they the dissident voices they appeared to be in

their own times, whose attempts to " reform " religion were really

attempts to reinvent it?

As the back cover again summarizes more succinctly than the

book itself, " As humans feel more empathy toward animals, Perlo

finds that adherents revise their interpretations of religious texts. "

Indeed, every cause revises readings of religious texts to

try to advance itself. But does this really mean that religion is

evolving, as Perlo seems to believe, or just that new uses are

transiently made of old tools?

History has amply demonstrated that the faithful are ever

ready and willing to pervert and ignore the teachings of any prophet

who teaches against the popular rationales for animal and human

exploitation. Perlo describes several of the ways in which this is

done, but so have many of the pro-animal prophets themselves, to

little avail in persuading those who were unwilling to be persuaded,

if becoming persuaded meant giving up meat.

--Merritt Clifton

 

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephones: 360-579-2505, 360-678-1057

Cell: 360-969-0450

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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