Euphemism

Animal eaters usually like to plead ignorance, saying that they “didn’t know”. The truth is usually that they don’t want to see what is happening. If this convenient ignorance is widespread enough there won’t be too many other’s having expectations of them.
They say that if farms and slaughter houses had glass walls no one would eat meat. More importantly, if we did know what was going on and yet still chose to buy unethical items, it would mean that we are capable of being deliberately cold. Most people don’t want to see themselves that way.
Today it’s difficult not to know that whatever we buy has to be replaced from a product pool, and in the case of animal product that means a slave-pool. If we buy, we help to promote the acceptable face of it, and if enough people buy it, we can all believe it to be benign and safe. It’s a case of safety in numbers.
For public relations purposes new names have been given to the most ugly aspects, so animal death camps are called "farms" and slaughter houses are called "processing plants". These places have to seem to be “efficient and humane facilities which are servicing the public with the best in food provision”, which coincides with what the customer wants to hear. Meat-eaters prefer to hold an unbelievable picture in their head (like that of the happy farm yard animal) rather than face images of animals being tortured and executed. The consumer must be helped, at all costs, to continue enjoying eating their favourite foods.
But it comes at a price. One has to let go of the actual truth of things, so that we can continue eating at restaurants or wearing fashionable shoes or visiting zoos. By performing some nifty mental gymnastics we can navigate past the realities.
Double think is especially useful here. For instance, when we are confronted with a tricky conversation, where we find ourselves defending an ‘impossible’ argument, we can mask our lack of compassion with double-think. Unconvincing though it may be, we can run a standard line of argument, saying that “animal products are essential for health”, or “animals can’t reflect on their life or feel pain as we do”. In this way we avoid both the issue and the people who want to talk about it.