Can Squirrels Really Be Socially Unjust? Check Their Privilege?
A recent paper suggests that the animal world, untroubled for aeons by any notion of conscience, has a lot to answer forThe idea that humans are not really much different from other animals has resulted in an interesting reversal: Writing about non-human animals as if they were humans. A recent essay in Behavioral Ecology, for example, interpreted “wealth inequality” among animals as if the animals were people: “Squirrel privilege is real.” “Checking Privilege in the Animal Kingdom.” “Even Hermit Crabs Have Wealth Inequality.” These headlines hail from Salon and New York Times, respectively, and represent a growing trend among scholars and the media to tackle animal “inequality” — and also argue humans can learn important lessons about income inequality and privilege from such studies. Daniel Nuccio, “‘Checking privilege in the animal kingdom’: Biologists investigate animal ‘inequality’” at The College Fix (June…
