I don’t agree with all of MacCormack’s conclusions – or even the premises those conclusions are drawn from – but she offers, at the very least, food for thought. She does have a tendency to veer off into tangents, though. The book could have benefitted from more focus on ahumanism and what exactly that means. I wanted to learn more about the categories of “human” and “animal” and what they represent.

The author isn’t afraid of controversy. She tackles taboo subjects and her arguments are generally quite convincing, or at least nuanced. At first, her defence of cannibalism seemed to contradict her earlier weaponisation of the term against meat eaters, but a second look at her argument that it “is not against nature; it is against the law” reveals a more interesting angle: MacCormack is showing us that our eating habits are shaped by the societies in which we live. If we apply this lens to meat consumption, we see that the lines we draw between what is food and what it is unthinkable to eat are just that, lines we draw. They aren’t natural distinctions, they are societal. And, as such, our attitudes and behaviours can change. What is normal today (eg: the meat industry) may one day be seen as monstrous. There is no reason to simply take it for granted.

On a related note, while I understand the usage of terms like “cannibalism” and “murder” when talking about the killing of nonhuman animals for meat, I do think invoking the holocaust is another matter entirely, and I did wince when the author defended the practice by pointing out that a couple of Jewish scholars have done so.
The discussion of overpopulation also made me a little wary. Take this quote, for example: “Yes there are too many humans to sustain the planet, but the moment we need to decide who reproduces and who doesn’t, we enter dubious moral territory.” She does note that eugenics is “dubious moral territory” which is an understatement but at least she recognises that there are ethical issues to be considered. That’s good. But then what’s this about “the moment we need to decide who reproduces and who doesn’t”? Do we “need” to do that? I don’t think overpopulation is nearly as pressing a matter as some people make it out to be – we have the resources to feed and house everyone, it’s just that those resources aren’t effectively distributed (largely due to capitalism). I don’t know... I feel like any line of thinking that starts by taking an ecofascist talking point at face value is going to lead to some pretty rancid philosophy.

Towards the end of introduction, establishing the tone of the book proper, MacCormack states the following: “Like many manifesti, the tone of this manifesto oscillates between the colloquial, the academic and also the hopeful (perhaps even delusional) and the angry. The reader is invited to read with similarly inconsistent intensities.” This quote holds true. I remember enjoying the chapter “Occulture: Secular spirituality” as it spiralled into crazed ramblings about “Leviathan and other cunts.” That was a lot of fun. And while I do appreciate this tongue-in-cheek attitude, I also recognise it as potentially dangerous, especially when talking about highly sensitive subjects like eugenics. It can function as something of a Get Out of Jail Free card – she’s deadly serious but, at the same time, it’s just a bit of fun and it’s not meant to be taken too seriously. MacCormack wants to have her cake and eat it too. She wants her animal rights manifesto to be silly and solemn and accessible and provocative all at once. That is difficult to pull off and, despite an admirable effort, I don’t think she entirely succeeded.

The Ahuman Manifesto is an odd book. I’m not sure what I was expecting and I’m not sure what to make of what I read either. It was interesting, I suppose, but I don’t think I’d recommend it. Three stars, just about.