The Original Omelas: The Case of the Animals vs. Man
About this episode
The episode explores the ethical implications of a 10th-century Islamic fable where animals put mankind on trial for environmental and moral transgressions.
And when the child cannot speak for itself? Humanity’s first global lawsuit! In this 10th-century Islamic fable, animals put mankind on trial for the crimes of the extraction economy. We unsettle the habitus of human exceptionalism to ask: would we change the story’s ending because we couldn’t handle our own complicity? Discover the original Omelas in “The Case of the Animals versus Man.” It’s early Iraq and modern ethics, Peter Singer’s speciesism, Haraway’s companion species, and the colonizing “thingification” of nature. Was Le Guin’s story about animal rights? Or, are animal rights linked to our ideological privileging and moral shame? Episode 6.32 – The Original Omelas: The Case of the Animals vs. Man Readings & Resources: Ikhwān al-Safā’ – “The Case of the Animals Versus Man Before the King of the Jinn” ( Classical Astrologer pdf ) (10th century) Le Guin, Ursula K. – The Word for World Is Forest (1972) Le Guin, Ursula K. – The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (1975) Le Guin, Ursula K. – “Vaster Than Empires and More…
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