Relevance of films: 1960s Environmental Activism
______________________________________________________
Announcements:
(1) One handout today: "Clubbing of Seals Lands Canadians Back in Hot Water"
I. The “Relevance” of Film and Entertainment:
Student comment: I don’t see the relevance or the connection of lectures to the themes of the course
Dunlap discusses the rise of the modern humane movement in Saving America’s Wildlife (chapter 6, pages 93-97).
During the 1960s the environmental, anti-war, and humane movements got very good at working with film to publicize their causes.
Film from International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), available in Quicktime or Windows RealMedia format
IFAW founded in 1969 by Brian Davies. Televised film through the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC).
Davies, Brian. Savage Luxury: The Slaughter of the Baby Seals. London: Souvenir Press, 1970.
Scheffer, Victor B. The Year of the Seal. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972.
Mowat, Farley. Sea of Slaughter. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1984.
See handout from Washington Times
The use of celebrities in environmental and animal advocacy: e.g., Martin Sheen for IFAW
V. Philosophical Issues Raised by the seal hunt controversy
A. Can pictures be arguments?
Birdsell, David S., and Leo Groarke. "Toward a Theory of Visual Argument." Argumentation and Advocacy 33, no. 1, Summer (1996): 1-10.
Blair, J. Anthony. "The Possibility and Actuality of Visual Arguments." Argumentation and Advocacy 33, no. 1, Summer (1996): 23-39.
Fleming, David. "Can Pictures Be Arguments?" Argumentation and Advocacy 33, no. 1, Summer (1996): 11-22.
B. The question of pain and of animal pain and suffering
Wall, Patrick. Pain: The Science of Suffering. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
Wall, Patrick D. "Defining 'Pain in Animals'." In Animal Pain, eds. Charles E. Short and Alan Van Poznak, pp. 63-79. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1992.
Wall, Patrick D., and Ronald Melzack, eds. Textbook of Pain. 3rd ed. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1994.
C. The logical issue of the “appeal to pity”
The place of emotion in argument
The appeal to pity: argumentum ad misericordiam
Walton, Douglas N. Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argumentation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Walton, Douglas N. The Place of Emotion in Argument. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992.
Walton, Douglas N. Appeal to Pity: Argumentum Ad Misericordiam. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.
VI. Segue back to film history
Jacques Cousteau
Robert J. Flaherty’s Nanook of the North, (1922) [EXCERPT]