Fashion, normalcy and unthinkingness

17.

Despite a certain wave of change taking place today, it is still fashionable to be unaware of the conditions in which farmed animals live and die. Fashion says it’s okay to eat meat, to wear wool, to buy fashionable shoes made of leather, to eat eggs for breakfast and take cow’s milk in our coffee. But what about the big food temptations, the salivation stimulators, the rich foods, the treat foods and exotic foods like lobster or wagyu beef? Or simple mouth-watering confections which contain cruelty-based ingredients? By deciding to buy any of these tempting items, we implicate ourselves in cruelty and even atrocity.

At that most private moment, standing at the shop counter, imagining the taste of an item we’re about to buy, it’s likely we could resent the idea of denying ourselves something which we can, nevertheless, afford to buy. For children, any of these items may have been unattainable through lack of funds or lack of permission. But as we grow up and those restrictions disappear, we are faced with ‘missing out’ and we’ve got into the habit of having whatever we want. It’s then strange for us if we decide, on ethical grounds, not to buy. The allure of certain benign looking and oft used products is often stronger than our impulse to check ingredients.

In our society today, when there’s no fuss being made, where there’s no pressure to ‘do the right thing’, it’s only our own ethical inner-voice which can call the shots. Often it’s a weak, barely heard voice that we can easily ignore. It’s been trained to be weak and it needs amplification by a well respected group that stresses the importance of implementing a ‘non-use-of-animals’ rule, to counter the majority’s sense of normality and unthinkingness.