Protecting repulsive species offers an antidote to xenophobia aimed at humans

Evidence

Salamanders are so very much the “other,” cold, slimy creatures verging on repulsive to the warm-blooded Homo sapiens. Their startling otherness makes it all the more remarkable that we were here tonight in their defense. Amphibians offer few of the warm fuzzy feelings that fuel our protection of charismatic mammals that look back at us with Bambi’s grateful eyes. They bring us face to face with our innate xenophobia, sometimes directed at other species and sometimes directed at our own, whether in this hollow or in deserts halfway around the globe. Being with salamanders gives honor to otherness, offers an antidote to the poison of xenophobia. Each time we rescue slippery, spotted beings we attest to their right to be, to live in the sovereign territory of their own lives. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1316

Categorization

• XREF: Crosses the species line to the reader’s legal-systems course: ‘sovereign territory of their own lives’ extends land-rights and standing arguments (ch44, ch79) to animals; also connects to Soundscape course’s respect for more-than-human voices. — connects to: Pan-Slavism fused xenophobia with a claim to universal salvation — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2444; Prejudice is a cultural mechanism protecting dominant groups’ privileges — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 653; Enslaving and impoverishing nature is no more tolerable than enslaving humans — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 72
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that honoring other-species otherness trains away human-directed xenophobia — ecological kinship as direct moral education for inter-human justice — is the hinge idea linking the four courses.

Broader Connections

• Enslaving and impoverishing nature is no more tolerable than enslaving humans #corroborates (0.80) — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations, 72
• Prejudice is a cultural mechanism protecting dominant groups’ privileges #expands (0.72) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 653
• Pan-Slavism fused xenophobia with a claim to universal salvation #responds-to (0.70) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2444