Episode 35: John Sanbonmatsu discusses how bad faith perpetuates the ideological system of speciesism

This week, I am pleased to present my interview with John Sanbonmatsu, Associate Professor of philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. John is the editor of the book Critical Theory and Animal Liberation and the author of The Postmodern Prince: Critical Theory, Left Strategy, And The Making Of A New Political Subject. You may remember that John was previously a guest on Episode 25 of the show to speak about why vegans shouldn't promote lab-grown "meat".

I interviewed John for this week's episode about a book chapter that he wrote, titled “The Animal of Bad Faith: Speciesism as an Existential Project”, which was published in a 2014 anthology (edited by John Sorenson) called Critical Animal Studies: Thinking the Unthinkable. In his chapter, John Sanbonmatsu makes the case that speciesism is not simply a prejudice due to ignorance; instead, speciesism is an ideological system that holds "[a]bsolute, total violence" as its "innermost logic".

On this week's show, John discusses how bad faith upholds speciesism in society, why speciesism is an existential project, and what implications this has for the animal rights movement. He also speaks about Critical Animal Studies, why animal rights activism should be a part of a broader leftist project, and why we need to continue being activists despite the obstacles to our success.

Lots of important topics were discussed in this interview. I hope you'll listen in!

How to listen to this episode

There are two ways you can listen to this episode.

1. Listen to the episode on CKCU FM's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/48817.html.
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-august-26-2020.

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Go vegan, stay vegan, and let's remember to stand up and speak up for animal rights today and every day. Thanks for listening to the show!