Citizen Canine: Humans and Animals in Athens and America by Stefan

Citizen Canine: Humans and Animals in Athens and America by Stefan Paul Dolgert Department of Political Science Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ____________________ J. Peter Euben, Supervisor ____________________ Peter Burian ____________________ Romand Coles ____________________ Michael Gillespie Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Political Science in the Graduate School of Duke University 2009 ABSTRACT Citizen Canine: Humans and Animals in Athens and America by Stefan Paul Dolgert Department of Political Science Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ____________________ J. Peter Euben, Supervisor ____________________ Peter Burian ____________________ Romand Coles ____________________ Michael Gillespie An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Political Science in the Graduate School of Duke University 2009 Copyright by Stefan Paul Dolgert 2009 Abstract ―Citizen Canine‖ explores the sacrificial underpinnings of politics via a critique of the boundary between human and animal in Homer, Aeschylus, and Plato. I argue that the concept ―animal‖ serves a functional rather than descriptive role: it is born of a sacrificial worldview that sees violence as a necessary foundation for human life, and which therefore tries to localize and contain this violence as much as possible through a system of sacrifice. I begin the dissertation with Martha Nussbaum‘s recent work on the ―frontiers of justice,‖ but argue that she is insufficiently attentive to the roles that animality and the rhetoric of sacrifice play in her discourse. I then examine the concept of sacrifice more thematically – using Jacques Derrida and Rene Girard among others – which justifies the move back to the Greeks to understand the specific manner in which sacrifice, human, and animal are intertwined at a crucial moment in Western history. In the Greeks we see an inception of this sacrificial concept of the political, and the movement from Homer to Aeschylus to Plato presents us with three successive attempts to understand and control cosmic violence through a sacrificial order. I contend that a similar logic continues to inform the exclusions (native/foreigner, masculine/feminine, human/nature) that mark the borders of the contemporary political community – hence my dissertation is directed both at the specific animal/human dichotomy as well as the larger question of how political identity is generated by the production, sacrifice and exclusion of marginalized communities. iv Dedication Dedicated to the memory of my two beautiful girls, Sofia and Roxanne. Dearest O and Boxer: You inspired me to begin what has now become my life‘s work. If I could have one wish, other than to see your smiling faces once more, it would be that the reflection of your beauty shines through in my words. I miss you more than I can ever say. v Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... vii 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 2. The Liberal Animal Rights Frame ............................................................................... 22 3. Questioning the Sacrificial Paradigm .......................................................................... 57 4. Homer ........................................................................................................................... 99 5. Standing Still at Aulis ................................................................................................. 146 6. Plato‘s Farmacy .......................................................................................................... 193 7. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 237 References ....................................................................................................................... 252 Biography ........................................................................................................................ 260 vi Acknowledgements I could not have completed this, poor thing that it is, without the patience, compassion, and love of many people. To my advisor, Peter Euben, goes the lion‘s share of the credit, for there is no doubt that without his care and tending this work could never have come to fruition. His supply of Grey Goose was also helpful. I wish that everything I have written here could sound as intelligent as it sounded when he would re- formulate something that I had said into a statement both simple and elegant; sadly I know this is not so, but it remains the case that I often hear his voice in my head as I try to think through exactly what I want to say. The other members of my committee have been similarly indispensible, from Rom Coles‘ ―wild patience‖ to the searching questions posed by Michael Gillespie to Peter Burian‘s willingness to take on a great burden with little lead-time. Without their gracious leadership this work would not be, though of course the blame for any missteps is solely my own. I owe my peers in the Department of Political Science a round of applause, and certainly a round of beers at the Joyce. Our department was home to me for five years and became my second family, and I cannot think of a better atmosphere in which to develop as a scholar and human being. I know I am forgetting someone but I will try not to…My Cohort: Dave McIvor, Christine Lee, Brendan Nyhan, Mark Dubois, Anne Boxberger Flaherty, and Efren Perez; Theorists: Laura Grattan, Joel Schlosser, Ali Aslam, Luc Perkins, James Bourke, Nick Troester, P. J. Brendese, Winter Brown, David Rice, Bill English, and Nora Hanagan; the rest of the crew: Lorena Becerra, Vicky vii DeFrancesco Soto, Kiril Kolev, Dan Lee, Matt Fehrs, Marco Fernandez, Cookie Beyah (my twin sister), Lauren Braun, Michelle Newman Brady, Mike Munger, Niambi Carter, and Tammy Perez del Cano. For the friendship of Mike Brady and Alisa Kessel I am especially grateful, and I have shared so much of my life with both them, good and bad, that I am continually reminded of how much I miss their company now. If only the Brotherhood of the Cut could travel with me all my days I would be a happy man. And who now remembers Shlomo and the Red Jeep? I must also thank Dawn Noble, Yarden Tahan, and Meredith Barthelemy. Each of them enriched my life and contributed in her own special way to Citizen/Canine, especially Meredith, without whom there would be no Ollie (THE Canine). My parents have been unstinting in their support over a graduate career that lasted far longer than any such thing should. Mom and Grey, simply: thank you. You have done more for me than I can ever repay. Dad, you bequeathed to me your name, the desire for an academic career, and so much more. Thank you, all. Monique Deveaux has been an amazing support and critical interlocutor throughout a very long odyssey – no one knows the meaning of ―Dissertation Widow‖ better than she. Her intellect and love have sustained me when I didn‘t think I could go on, and without her I am certain that I never would have finished. I only hope that if this dissertation can find its way into published life it will be in some way as thoughtful and important as her work has been. This ―thank you‖ is hardly sufficient, as I am well aware…I owe you a nice vacation now, don‘t I? viii Chapter One: Introduction In 1458 the murderer of five-year old Jehan Martin was brought to justice by being hanged from a tree, according to the prevailing legal practice of Burgundy. What marks this particular instance of capital punishment as special, at least to the modern eye, is that the perpetrator was a sow and that her co-defendants at trial were her six piglets (who were duly acquitted, though with stern admonitions to their owner to watch out for their future conduct). Though it strikes us as odd today, from 1266, the first record of an animal put on trial, through the 1700s, the criminal prosecution of animals in Europe was a relatively common affair. While some might be inclined to dismiss such prosecutions as products of local hysteria, or perhaps more general manifestations of medieval superstition, the existence of a substantial and enduring body of law around such actions should belie this initial response, as should the fairly frequent acquittals obtained in such cases (witness the differential penalties allotted to the sow versus her piglets). Even if we do not openly scoff at the notion of prosecuting animals the idea clearly seems absurd to us – a relic of an earlier way of thinking that we simply cannot share. But why is the practice so obviously ridiculous?1 Animals are as surely subject to human authority today as they were in 1458 – perhaps even mores – and pit bulls who kill children are put to death no less than the offending sow, though the penalty is not usually carried out with the same legal formality. What then explains the gulf that yawns between the world of renowned attorney F. Lee Bailey, and that of Bartolomee Chassenee, legal defender of a colony of sixteenth-century rats (and president of the 1 With

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