The superficial consumer

The best time to consider our own attitudes to animals is when we are shopping. Mostly we insist on getting what we want, emulating that carefree hedonism of the richer classes, buying almost anything that takes our fancy. As we attempt to ‘live life to the full’ we might force ourselves to ignore ethics, environment and health, just for the shere joy of pleasure or ‘being filled’. When decisions involve food, especially when we’re buying ‘steaks’ stakes are high! NOT the time to be closely considering things like: responsibility, animal issues, etc. A person like this seems shallow, but that’s the extreme – superficial … and it’s our superficiality that leads us to danger (rarely our genuinenesses).
Seventy years ago people would have been horrified at the thought of putting their hens into tiny cages for their whole life. It would have been considered diabolical, and yet today we accept it. We eat eggs and think nothing of it. It is one of those things we can’t look at too deeply for fear of questioning our own inhumanity. No one wants to be reminded of this. And on that superficial level of thinking is, for most people, where animal rights questions arise (don’t arise!).
If they arise at all, the principle of veganism must seem ridiculous.