Pages+44-49

Dolf · “abhorrent to morality or virtue” (Merriam Webster) In the context, Costello states that the difference between wearing leather and eating meat is just “different degrees of obscenity”, meaning that these two things represent only different degrees of abominable behavior, not that one is acceptable while the other is abominable. · Dean Arendt is assumed to be a dean at the university Costello is lecturing at. He enters the debate that ensues over dinner with the statement that while he understands that behind vegetarianism lie genuine moral issues. He is the one that utters the phrase “Lives of Animals”, in the context that vegetarianism is odd because those that benefit from it (the animals that are being spared, not killed) are totally unaware of them being saved. · Mentioned by Arendt in the context that the human “superstructure of concern and belief” is something animals are and remain completely unaware of. In the context, superstructure (“ an entity, concept or complex based on a more fundamental one” – Merriam Webster) alludes to the human conscience’s superstructure regarding harming and abusing animals, which is based on the more fundamental concept that we don’t harm others (be it animals or fellow humans). **45** · “something designed to obscure, confuse, or mislead” – Merriam Webster. Wunderlich argues that humans use the “smokescreen” that animals do not have the same consciousness and sense of self that we do to delude ourselves into not feeling guilty about devouring them. **47** **48**  **49**
 * Obscenity **
 * Dean Arendt **
 * Superstructure **
 * Smokescreen **
 * Rubik cubes **
 * 3D puzzle invented by Hungarian professor Erno Rubik, often considered very challenging, giving great esteem to those able to solve it. Costello alludes to the fact that there is a definite solution and understanding to the Rubik’s cube, comparing that to understanding something in black and white only, while ignoring the philosophical and ethical shades of grey.
 * Relativism **
 * “a view that ethical truth depends on the individuals or groups holding them” (Merriam Webster). Norma, in the context, refers to the fact that she considers Elizabeth’s viewpoint naïve (as in that we should respect animals and their worldview, because they have thought processes too, that we underplay because they can’t communicate them to us). Norma says this is overconsideration of other worldviews (relating to the definition of relativism), which eventually leads to intellectual paralysis.
 * //Sojourner// – Mars **
 * A space shuttle deployed in 1996 to perform roving and exploring missions on Mars’ surface. Norma uses this information to emphasise her point that humans are capable of reasoning and inventing, thereby showing their minds are different from those of animals, whose world she says consists of only the phenomena with which it needs to interact and how it needs to interact with them.
 * Irrationalism **
 * The context refers to French irrationalism, which is a streaming that apparently considers the option that we can step away from reasoning and view the world without reasoning it and thus be able to reasoning at work & judge it, which would enable humans to draw parallels between them “thinking up the Sojourner and sending it to Mars” and squirrels planning a raid for nuts and then going out to do it.
 * Stern Abraham **
 * Stern Abraham is a fictitious character in the Lives of Animals – a Jewish poet who takes offense to Elizabeth Costello making the parallel between Jewish people being slaughtered in the Holocaust and animals being slaughtered nowadays, stating that this is cheap and a wholly offensive statement, in that she likens humans to animals. However, drawing the parallel between the two and thus elevating animal suffering to the status of human suffering is exactly what Costello means to do. Costello’s reaction to the letter is never discussed.