Let's begin by discussing what has remained the same. The Civil Society is summed up well by Nancy Fraser, who refers to it as the public sphere. The public sphere is a concept that has stayed integral to the idea of democracy, as it is what gives the people their power by allowing them to come together and discuss. It is only through discussion and debate that we can collectively obtain a holistic perspective on the situation at hand.

In older, more traditional forms of democracy, as discussed by Robert Dahl, the concept of the public sphere generally meant the physical gathering of individuals who could vote (typically white, land-owning males) to discuss, but that form has been altered with both time period and culture. In governments with both high-ranking officials (such as republics or monarchies) and elected officials, the idea of democracy looks slightly different. In theory, democracy allows every single individual to have their voice heard, but in many modern cases an official is elected to represent a wide variety of people. This means that discussions for a large number of people are more efficient, but a part of an individual's agency is given up when one person is chosen to represent thousands.

As American democracy has changed form over time, one of the primary focuses has been to consistently put humans above all else on the planet. From our perspective, this makes sense, as our societies are built by-and-for humans and as such we would continue to make decisions that benefit us. But, taking an anthropological approach to this concept, we can see that clearly we are benefitting ourselves at the expense of others. This is due largely in part to the fact that animals and the earth are not given a platform to express their viewpoints on, and while it may sound silly to imply that they could communicate with us even if they wanted to, we cannot discredit their perspectives. This is why it is crucial that we account for their perspectives ourselves, since they cannot tell us.

This idea of speciesism shows that humans have the power, and therefore are the ones writing the rules of life as we know it. We do not see animals as equals, we do not believe that they can experience the world meaningfully, and as such we ultimately ignore them. Small groups are advocating for the rights of animals to become more mainstream in political and social discourse, but ultimately we as humans deem ourselves superior.

One of the other key concepts that relates heavily to animal rights is dissent. This is relevant for two reasons: the first is that the animals cannot express their dissent for our actions, and are therefore excluded from our non-holistic solutions, and the second is that we are finally beginning to dissent amongst ourselves on behalf of the animals.