Speaking Truth to Power - Dr. Melanie Joy

[Animal Rights Zone]

Speaking Truth to Power: Understanding the Dominant, Animal-Eating Narrative for Vegan Empowerment and Social Transformation.

 

As vegans, our goal is not simply to get people to stop eating animals; we aim to bring about a revolutionary shift in social consciousness to transform a culture of violence and oppression to one of nonviolence and liberation. Our goal is to catalyze a revolution to change the course of history.

History is shaped not by weapons, or tyrants, or rebellions. History is shaped by stories. Beneath every oppression and every revolution are narratives that guide them: we cannot invade and take up arms against another without first believing the story that the other is our enemy who must be conquered, just as we cannot stand together in protest of violent invasions without believing the story that the war is unjust.

Dominant narratives are the stories told by the dominant culture; they define our reality and guide our lives like an invisible hand. And when the dominant culture is oppressive, so, too, are its narratives. Such narratives are fictions, constructed to delude people into supporting the dominant way of life even though that way of life runs counter to what they would otherwise support, and to silence the voices of people who seek to tell the truth. Thus, social change is made possible by those who challenge the dominant narratives, replacing fictions with facts by bearing witness to and speaking out against oppression. Revolutions that change the course of history are made possible by those who speak truth to power.

Learning from History: A Case Study of Feminism

Only by examining history can we hope to change its course, and there is much to learn from the revolutionaries who came before us. The twentieth-century feminist movement offers a particularly useful example.

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Melanie Joy, Ph.D., Ed.M is a Harvard-educated psychologist, professor of psychology and sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, celebrated speaker, and the author of the award-winning primer on carnism Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows.

Originally Posted at One Green Planet

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/speaking-truth-to-po...

[Billy L]

ARZone Podcast Episode 63 features professor of psychology and sociology, Dr. Melanie Joy. ARZone speaks with Dr. Joy about her recently published article “Speaking Truth to Power” and how the dominant ideology of carnism constructs and employs narratives to marginalize other animals and the humans who advocate on their behalf. Audio podcast, approx. 51 minutes.

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