Monstrous maestro: why is Cate Blanchett’s cancel culture film Tár angering so many people?; The Guardian, January 16, 2023

 Xan Brooks, The Guardian; Monstrous maestro: why is Cate Blanchett’s cancel culture film Tár angering so many people?

"Great art asks us questions. Confounding heroes do too. It’s not a film’s job to pander to our preconceptions, parrot back our opinions and reassure us that we’re right. Nor, for that matter, is a film obliged to stay in its lane and give us clearcut goodies and baddies; that simple, bogus moral structure. Fictional characters don’t have to be exemplars of anything. Cinemas, like colleges and libraries, should be physical safe spaces, but intellectual and emotional danger zones.

Books aren’t mirrors, they’re doors, as the critic Fran Lebowitz likes to say – and the same goes for films. Doors can be scary: we don’t know what’s behind them. But without opening a door, we all remain in our own silos. We miss out on a life of adventure and a world of interesting people we haven’t yet met. Some of them will appal us. Some we might quite like."

Should Chimpanzees Be Considered ‘Persons’?; The New York Times, April 7, 2018

Jeff Sebo, The New York Times; Should Chimpanzees Be Considered ‘Persons’?

"The idea of nonhuman personhood does raise difficult questions. One question is which rights nonhumans can have. For instance, if Kiko and Tommy can have the right to liberty, can they also have the right to property? What about the right to free expression or association, or the right to political representation or participation?

Another question is which nonhumans can have rights. For instance, if Kiko and Tommy can have rights, can bonobos and gorillas have rights too? What about cats, dogs and fish? What about chickens, cows and pigs? What about ants or sophisticated artificial intelligence programs?

These questions are unsettling. They are also reasonable to ask. After all, we might think that we need to draw the line somewhere. So if we decide not to draw the line at species membership — if we decide to accept that at least some nonhumans can have at least some rights — then it is not immediately clear where to draw it instead, or even, on reflection, whether to draw this particular kind of line at all."