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devonmeyerSoooooo I forgot about this post. But I was definitely at the conference. I promise.
Unfortunately, the only panel for which I was available to be present was my own, which means that I only got to hear four other presentations. But all of them were quite intriguing, if I must say. It was kind of awesome, too, due to the fact that three of my four fellow presenters were in my same CORE-102/111 class. We kick ass.
Anywho, I really liked the presentation about Never Let Me Go-- probably because it was the only work from the panel that I had actually previously read. But it was all very interesting. I liked the fact that everyone seemed to have the same theme: humans shouldn't treat every outsider like they're sub-human. It's all about the dehumanization of non-humans that we all seemed to find so atrocious.
However, interestingly enough, one questions whether it is immoral to dehumanize that which is not human. Obviously reading Never Let Me Go, one is swayed to the side of the humane argument, but I always like to question the popular readings. Dehumanizing is only a bad thing when it applies to humans, it seems. We treat our horses and cattle quite nicely, but we still use them as tools and if there were one who resisted doing its job, we'd consider it a bad horse/cow and probably just off the blasted thing.
But because it looks, smells, and sounds like a human, it's a human? I dunno... It just raises the question: How human-like does something need to be in order to be considered human? Is it a gradient, as in: the more human something is, the less mean we can be towards it. Or is it black and white: human or non-human, nothing between.
And can anything other than a natural, biologically-conceived human being be considered human? I don't know! I guess that's probably about the point of this class haha.
Oh life.
Unfortunately, the only panel for which I was available to be present was my own, which means that I only got to hear four other presentations. But all of them were quite intriguing, if I must say. It was kind of awesome, too, due to the fact that three of my four fellow presenters were in my same CORE-102/111 class. We kick ass.
Anywho, I really liked the presentation about Never Let Me Go-- probably because it was the only work from the panel that I had actually previously read. But it was all very interesting. I liked the fact that everyone seemed to have the same theme: humans shouldn't treat every outsider like they're sub-human. It's all about the dehumanization of non-humans that we all seemed to find so atrocious.
However, interestingly enough, one questions whether it is immoral to dehumanize that which is not human. Obviously reading Never Let Me Go, one is swayed to the side of the humane argument, but I always like to question the popular readings. Dehumanizing is only a bad thing when it applies to humans, it seems. We treat our horses and cattle quite nicely, but we still use them as tools and if there were one who resisted doing its job, we'd consider it a bad horse/cow and probably just off the blasted thing.
But because it looks, smells, and sounds like a human, it's a human? I dunno... It just raises the question: How human-like does something need to be in order to be considered human? Is it a gradient, as in: the more human something is, the less mean we can be towards it. Or is it black and white: human or non-human, nothing between.
And can anything other than a natural, biologically-conceived human being be considered human? I don't know! I guess that's probably about the point of this class haha.
Oh life.
