This is a brilliant article by John Halstead. One of the best articles on Paganism and Political philosophy that I have ever read. Please give it a read too.
“[I]t turns out that extending rights to other-than-human beings is much harder for most people to imagine than giving rights to a corporation. The reason is that we’ve all been indoctrinated in a particular theory of rights: classical liberalism.”
from John Halstead
“The world is full of persons (people if you prefer), but few of them are human.” — Graham Harvey, “An Animist Manifesto”
When I first encountered contemporary animism, it boggled my mind. Animism posits a world full of persons: human persons, yes, but also hedgehog persons, salmon persons, rock persons, mushroom persons…and yes, tree persons. Those whose circle of friends includes many animists, pagans, and polytheists may easily forget just how radical the idea of “tree persons” is.
Hedgehog persons? Salmon persons? Mushroom persons? Even rock persons? When I first heard this, it caused me to wonder what exactly a “person” is. To the animist, a person is…
View original post 7,010 more words
Nature is Sacred 