I really like the word “speciesism.”
Well, first of all, because it has this obnoxious hippie/SJW/Animal Liberation Front vibe which is very much the opposite of my typical signaling strategy, so it’s a fun word to use if I want to mix it up a bit.
But mainly, because it only means one thing. No one will call you a speciesist for thinking that chickens aren’t as smart as humans, or for not wanting to date a mosquito, or for privately thinking that cats are kind of creepy. Beliefs about empirical facts are never called out as speciesist. No one says that of course we’re all speciesist, because we all have implicit bias, and all benefit from human privilege or something, and then the next day calls someone evil for saying something speciesist. No one gets into interminable arguments about whether speciesism involves structural oppression, or if you can be reverse speciesist or is that just being speciesist or is that not even a thing at all.
Speciesism just means thinking that someone’s suffering doesn’t matter, that their pain and pleasure have no moral significance, that if someone is hurting we shouldn’t try to help them, that they’re worth less, just because that someone is different from us.
Because like, fuck that shit.