Aug
16th
Sat
16th
Perhaps Keith Thomas’s assertion that there was no concept of cruelty to animals in early modern England not only blanks-out the contradictions of that period but also helps us to blank-out the fact that we still live with these contradictions. There is, after all, nothing more reassuring than thinking that we are better humans than those men and women of the past. Nothing is more conforting than a history that allows us to mantain the status quo”.
— Erica Fudge, “Two Ethics: Killing Animals in Past and Present” in Killing Animals The Animal Studies Group