Teeth

For millennia and in different discursive practices, a very common distinguishing mark between humans and animals has been the former's lack of weapons. The story goes that animals are "perfectly adapted" to their environment and behaviour, so that their own bodies furnish them with the tools they will need to survive. More often than not, that means weapons. The story then concludes that, to balance it out and conquer the animals, we have technology.

Bare life and animal life

I'm currently reading Agamben's Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life carefully for the first time and I'm having a hard time separating the many thematic strands that comprise such issues as the homo sacer itself, bare life and sovereignty. Let me just also add that I'm also currently reading (i.e. haven't finished) the 1st volume of Derrida's The Beast and the Sovereign and Ludueña-Romandini La comunidad de los espectros: Antropotecnia ("The community of specters: Anthropothecnics"), and both can be said to be responses to Agamben, so they may still hold answers to me.

First, I'm having trouble pinpointing exactly what the homo sacer is. I know it is a life which can be killed with impunity but not sacrificed in a religious rite, what kind of life is that exactly? I guess I'm trying to establish the frame-of-mind/rationalization behind the granting of the homo sacer status, but it's hard. Let's see what I could gather so far:

Animality, animals and racial Otherness

Renee, posting in two feminist blogs (Feministe and Womanist Musings), authored a comment on the connections between animal rights groups and the political fight of people of color that has sparked relative polemic in philosophy and Animal Studies blogs. She says she feel uncomfortable with animal rights groups' (such as PETA) discourse on the seemingly unquestionable fact that human, as animals, are the same as the latter. Quoting her:

Much of the time, they buttress their position by saying that we are no different than animals and therefore are undeserving of special treatment.   This line of thought does not solely apply to PeTA.  Many animal rights groups are fond of pointing out that humans are also animals.  This is a biological fact, however; using it to defend your position can be extremely problematic and it is rarely to ever acknowledged as such.