AF: Rifkin Precis, by AFletcher

In an editorial piece entitled “A Change of Heart About Animals” published in the Los Angeles Times (Sept. 1, 2003), Jeremy Rifkin suggests that recent animal research demonstrates that humans have more in common with animals “than we ever imagined.”  Rifkin offers examples of research that seem to debunk the notions of what makes humans unique among creatures:  our emotional lives, our sense of self and individualism, our awareness of mortality and grief, our brain chemistry, and our ways of teaching and learning between parents and children.  Rifkin suggests that the next step in the evolution of human thought is to recognize all that we share in common with animals, in order to broaden our empathy towards them, and to extend rights to animals under the law.  Rifkin’s argument is targeted at a fairly sophisticated newspaper audience (the reader who makes it to the editorial pages), and assumes that human rights are a shared value, and utilizing a conversational, informal tone, makes his appeal through emotion and logic, and carefully chosen examples.