Introduction to Thesis
This is the introduction to my PhD thesis that I wrote when planning to have it published as a monograph. If you would like to see what my thesis was about without reading the whole thing, then please read this introduction.
Readers familiar with Coetzee’s work (and readers sympathetic to the plight of animals) may be (pleasantly) surprised to discover an entirely new side to his work—the focus of which is animals. An imaginative sympathy with animals can be found throughout the fictional and critical writings of Coetzee, particularly pronounced since 1999, and in several of the Post-apartheid speeches and interviews to which the notoriously reticent author has consented. In fact, one of the two interviews he gave in Europe after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003 was to a relatively obscure Danish animal-activist journal called Satya (the website of which has subsequently lapsed). Followers of Coetzee may be excused for thinking that his concern for animals represents a sentimental departure from his more important concerns, perhaps a hobby on the side, bearing no relation to his previous work. However, the persistence of the concern for animals in his more recent writings, the centrality of animals to the two books he published in 1999, Disgrace and The Lives of Animals, the increasing frequency of his public pronouncements on these themes, and increasing numbers of critical pieces written about the animal theme in his work, suggest that this is certainly not the case. Readers familiar with Coetzee’s work will recognize similar themes in his writings that involve animals: the concern for the marginalized and voiceless, a distrust of power and authority, a concern for justice, and a belief in fiction as a vehicle for serious moral concerns.
His choice of the Satya journal is highly instructive, since in using his stature as a major contemporary writer, Coetzee gives voice to the powerless and voiceless animals in a publication that is itself marginalized. The ambivalent way, however, that he voices his concern for animals, indicates the unease he feels toward power and authority, including his own as an Author, for he is keenly aware that the widespread and systematic abuse of animals in the world today is largely a result of the unconstrained power that humans have over other animals.
The belief that animals’ interests matter ethically is both common sense and revolutionary. On a pre-reflective level, most people, especially children, have a natural affection toward animals, evident in the loving relationships they have with their pets. However, since most people are raised in cultures that exploit animals, elaborate ideologies and psychological mechanisms are constructed to justify this exploitation. Thus, the idea and sentiment that animals should be treated ethically requires a gestalt switch or paradigm shift in people’s thinking and behavior, in Coetzee’s own words, a “conversion experience” (Cavalieri, 2009, 89). This shift meets much resistance, since it threatens to decentre humankind from its position of power and privilege, and entails adjustments to people’s way of life that many may find uncomfortable. Once people set aside their anthropocentric bias, the world appears in a very different light; in fact, it takes on a more sombre hue. It brings the whole tradition of western ethics, both religious and philosophical, into question, with its blind-spot for nonhuman animals. Coetzee’s task is to use fiction to deconstruct the elaborate fictions put in place by human cultures to justify the exploitation of animals.
This thesis is as much about illuminating Coetzee’s concern with fiction and philosophy as it is about highlighting his concern for animals. Readers will discover that coinciding with his expressed interest in animals, and perhaps because of it, Coetzee has also shown an interest, mostly antagonistic, in philosophy, particularly British analytic philosophy. Furthermore, he dramatically renews the battle between the philosophers and the poets in The Lives of Animals, which Plato had initiated almost two-thousand years previously. However, Coetzee’s promotion of fiction as capable of attaining a truth beyond that which philosophy can manage is not without ambivalence, nor is his attack on philosophy straightforward. For throughout his work he shows an interest in Continental philosophy, and his criticism of Plato is as marked as his admiration. He appears to ignore, to his peril, though, the work of pro-animal philosophers in the Anglo-American analytic tradition. Nor are his views on animal ethics immediately clear from his fiction alone, not least because of his adoption of the enigmatic and controversial persona of Elizabeth Costello to express his views on the issues. Her most controversial contributions to the debate are her attacks on the rationality of the Western philosophical tradition and her repeated evocation of the Holocaust as an analogy for how humans treat other animals, an analogy that is as central to Disgrace as it is to The Lives of Animals.
Although each chapter can be read independently of the others, they all function together as a larger argument, each subsequent chapter building on the former. The conceptual scheme worked out in the first chapter is used for the purpose of analysis in later chapters and is further developed in them. Thus The Lives of Animals is taken as a reference point from which to interpret both Coetzee’s earlier and later fiction, the focus being animal ethics. In Chapter 1, I position Elizabeth Costello within the animal rights debate. I attempt to ascertain Coetzee’s views in relation to Costello’s and to understand why he fails to make use of the pro-animal philosophers in the Anglo-American analytic tradition. In chapter 2, I investigate the hypothesis that Elizabeth Costello is a Socratic figure in order to elucidate her controversial character and her antagonistic relations with other characters in the novel, and I explore Coetzee’s use of pre-twentieth century philosophers, particularly Plato. In Chapters 3 and 4, I use concepts taken from Bakhtin to explore the dialogic structure of The Lives of Animals as a means of presenting a controversial debate, reinforcing a distinction made in the previous chapter between the Platonic and Socratic. In Chapter 5, I explore the possibility of secular salvation that Coetzee appears to endorse. Finally, in Chapter 6, I trace the development of an ethics of eating (and hunting) throughout the fictional and critical writings of Coetzee.
The terms “meat,” “animal” and “animal rights” require some explanation before moving onto the body of the book. The word “meat” will not be used in its popular and narrow sense of “red meat,” but more broadly in the sense of the body (or flesh) of an animal used as food, whether fish, flesh or fowl. Although the term “nonhuman animal” is widely used in animal rights literature instead of “animal” in order to express the continuity between humans and other animals, I will use the term “animal,” for the sake of economy of expression, in its more usual sense of “animals other than humans.” The phrase “animal rights” requires special explanation. Strictly speaking, the term refers to the position of those who attempt to extend the notion of human rights to include all or some other animals. An example would be Tom Regan who attempts to extend Kant’s respect for persons to include other sentient beings. Utilitarians like Peter Singer, however, dismiss the notion of animal rights and prefer the phrase “animal liberation.” Their hostility to the idea of rights can be traced back to Jeremy Bentham who questions the basis of natural rights. Nonetheless, I will use the term more broadly, covering the entire ethical debate concerning animals.
Since 9/11 it has been convenient for the animal exploitation industries to label animal rights activists as terrorists. It seems clear to me that it is a ploy intended to prevent animal activists from speaking on behalf of animals and from harming the profits of the animal exploitation industries. In my opinion the term “terrorist” can only be applied very loosely to certain extreme movements like Animal Liberation Front (ALF), the members of which engage in what they prefer to call “direct action.” Such action may include sabotaging the property of laboratories that conduct animal experimentation or rescuing the animals incarcerated in these laboratories, but is not intended to threaten the life of people involved in harming animals. It seems unscrupulous to me to describe all animal activists as terrorists on the basis of the actions of a few extremists, particularly since compassion and respect for all life are the avowed goals of animal activists. At most the proponents of direct action can be accused of valuing the lives of animals above the property of those who exploit them. In 2004, a United States academic, Steven Best, was required by the British home Office to justify to them why he should be allowed to enter the UK to attend an animal rights conference for having written something justifying the actions of ALF. (In 2005, in the wake of the London bombing, he was banned from entering the UK.) In such cases, animal activists could justify their course of direct action by pointing to the example of Nelson Mandela who, when he first launched Umkonto We Sizwe, after having exhausted all other legal and peaceful means of protest, chose the first of four stages in terrorism - sabotage - because it was the least likely to harm people (see Chapter 45 of Long Walk to Freedom). He was labeled a terrorist by the apartheid government, whereas, in fact, the apartheid regime itself was a terrorist state, especially in relation to its black citizens. Ultimately, however, most animal activists and organizations do not resort to direct action but rely on the media and other legal means to attain their ends.
Approaching Coetzee’s writings from an ethical vegetarian perspective transforms one’s understanding not only of his work but of the workings of the world too. I hope readers will find this perspective both thought-provoking and illuminating.
His choice of the Satya journal is highly instructive, since in using his stature as a major contemporary writer, Coetzee gives voice to the powerless and voiceless animals in a publication that is itself marginalized. The ambivalent way, however, that he voices his concern for animals, indicates the unease he feels toward power and authority, including his own as an Author, for he is keenly aware that the widespread and systematic abuse of animals in the world today is largely a result of the unconstrained power that humans have over other animals.
The belief that animals’ interests matter ethically is both common sense and revolutionary. On a pre-reflective level, most people, especially children, have a natural affection toward animals, evident in the loving relationships they have with their pets. However, since most people are raised in cultures that exploit animals, elaborate ideologies and psychological mechanisms are constructed to justify this exploitation. Thus, the idea and sentiment that animals should be treated ethically requires a gestalt switch or paradigm shift in people’s thinking and behavior, in Coetzee’s own words, a “conversion experience” (Cavalieri, 2009, 89). This shift meets much resistance, since it threatens to decentre humankind from its position of power and privilege, and entails adjustments to people’s way of life that many may find uncomfortable. Once people set aside their anthropocentric bias, the world appears in a very different light; in fact, it takes on a more sombre hue. It brings the whole tradition of western ethics, both religious and philosophical, into question, with its blind-spot for nonhuman animals. Coetzee’s task is to use fiction to deconstruct the elaborate fictions put in place by human cultures to justify the exploitation of animals.
This thesis is as much about illuminating Coetzee’s concern with fiction and philosophy as it is about highlighting his concern for animals. Readers will discover that coinciding with his expressed interest in animals, and perhaps because of it, Coetzee has also shown an interest, mostly antagonistic, in philosophy, particularly British analytic philosophy. Furthermore, he dramatically renews the battle between the philosophers and the poets in The Lives of Animals, which Plato had initiated almost two-thousand years previously. However, Coetzee’s promotion of fiction as capable of attaining a truth beyond that which philosophy can manage is not without ambivalence, nor is his attack on philosophy straightforward. For throughout his work he shows an interest in Continental philosophy, and his criticism of Plato is as marked as his admiration. He appears to ignore, to his peril, though, the work of pro-animal philosophers in the Anglo-American analytic tradition. Nor are his views on animal ethics immediately clear from his fiction alone, not least because of his adoption of the enigmatic and controversial persona of Elizabeth Costello to express his views on the issues. Her most controversial contributions to the debate are her attacks on the rationality of the Western philosophical tradition and her repeated evocation of the Holocaust as an analogy for how humans treat other animals, an analogy that is as central to Disgrace as it is to The Lives of Animals.
Although each chapter can be read independently of the others, they all function together as a larger argument, each subsequent chapter building on the former. The conceptual scheme worked out in the first chapter is used for the purpose of analysis in later chapters and is further developed in them. Thus The Lives of Animals is taken as a reference point from which to interpret both Coetzee’s earlier and later fiction, the focus being animal ethics. In Chapter 1, I position Elizabeth Costello within the animal rights debate. I attempt to ascertain Coetzee’s views in relation to Costello’s and to understand why he fails to make use of the pro-animal philosophers in the Anglo-American analytic tradition. In chapter 2, I investigate the hypothesis that Elizabeth Costello is a Socratic figure in order to elucidate her controversial character and her antagonistic relations with other characters in the novel, and I explore Coetzee’s use of pre-twentieth century philosophers, particularly Plato. In Chapters 3 and 4, I use concepts taken from Bakhtin to explore the dialogic structure of The Lives of Animals as a means of presenting a controversial debate, reinforcing a distinction made in the previous chapter between the Platonic and Socratic. In Chapter 5, I explore the possibility of secular salvation that Coetzee appears to endorse. Finally, in Chapter 6, I trace the development of an ethics of eating (and hunting) throughout the fictional and critical writings of Coetzee.
The terms “meat,” “animal” and “animal rights” require some explanation before moving onto the body of the book. The word “meat” will not be used in its popular and narrow sense of “red meat,” but more broadly in the sense of the body (or flesh) of an animal used as food, whether fish, flesh or fowl. Although the term “nonhuman animal” is widely used in animal rights literature instead of “animal” in order to express the continuity between humans and other animals, I will use the term “animal,” for the sake of economy of expression, in its more usual sense of “animals other than humans.” The phrase “animal rights” requires special explanation. Strictly speaking, the term refers to the position of those who attempt to extend the notion of human rights to include all or some other animals. An example would be Tom Regan who attempts to extend Kant’s respect for persons to include other sentient beings. Utilitarians like Peter Singer, however, dismiss the notion of animal rights and prefer the phrase “animal liberation.” Their hostility to the idea of rights can be traced back to Jeremy Bentham who questions the basis of natural rights. Nonetheless, I will use the term more broadly, covering the entire ethical debate concerning animals.
Since 9/11 it has been convenient for the animal exploitation industries to label animal rights activists as terrorists. It seems clear to me that it is a ploy intended to prevent animal activists from speaking on behalf of animals and from harming the profits of the animal exploitation industries. In my opinion the term “terrorist” can only be applied very loosely to certain extreme movements like Animal Liberation Front (ALF), the members of which engage in what they prefer to call “direct action.” Such action may include sabotaging the property of laboratories that conduct animal experimentation or rescuing the animals incarcerated in these laboratories, but is not intended to threaten the life of people involved in harming animals. It seems unscrupulous to me to describe all animal activists as terrorists on the basis of the actions of a few extremists, particularly since compassion and respect for all life are the avowed goals of animal activists. At most the proponents of direct action can be accused of valuing the lives of animals above the property of those who exploit them. In 2004, a United States academic, Steven Best, was required by the British home Office to justify to them why he should be allowed to enter the UK to attend an animal rights conference for having written something justifying the actions of ALF. (In 2005, in the wake of the London bombing, he was banned from entering the UK.) In such cases, animal activists could justify their course of direct action by pointing to the example of Nelson Mandela who, when he first launched Umkonto We Sizwe, after having exhausted all other legal and peaceful means of protest, chose the first of four stages in terrorism - sabotage - because it was the least likely to harm people (see Chapter 45 of Long Walk to Freedom). He was labeled a terrorist by the apartheid government, whereas, in fact, the apartheid regime itself was a terrorist state, especially in relation to its black citizens. Ultimately, however, most animal activists and organizations do not resort to direct action but rely on the media and other legal means to attain their ends.
Approaching Coetzee’s writings from an ethical vegetarian perspective transforms one’s understanding not only of his work but of the workings of the world too. I hope readers will find this perspective both thought-provoking and illuminating.