Contact Me
Friday, March 30, 2007
The Things We Do
In his article, Seeing the Suffering We Cause, Andrew Fiala brings up the South Carolina bill that, if passed, would require a woman seeking an abortion to first see an ultrasound of her fetus. Seeing the life within her body might make the decision harder, but are these decisions supposed to be easy?
Fiala goes on to bring up other areas of life where we are immune to seeing the suffering caused by our decisions: war, eating meat, using cosmetics that were tested on animals. Our society makes it very convenient to not feel any compassion for the objects that we affect - in fact, many times, we are not even aware that what we buy directly affects another living being.
I buy mascara maybe once every ten years and wear it maybe once every three years (I know, I should not be using such old mascara). I wasn't aware, until I read Fiala's article, that mascara was tested by applying it to the eyes of animals, which slowly blinds them. Why would I need to know? I just have to go to the store, pick out a package of this black gunk that lengthens, thickens, darkens, strengthens, etc., etc. and pay for it. Pain-free!
Until now. Now when I visualize myself applying make-up so that I can feel good about myself, I also see some young calf stumbling blindly in a poop-filled pen.
Then I don't feel very good about myself.
Does ignorance let us off the hook?
Fiala says, "To reach good conclusions about these tough practices, we need detailed knowledge about them. But for the most part we lack this knowledge because the "wet work" happens behind closed doors, where we cannot see it or judge it."
And I guess it will stay behind closed doors as long as we don't really want to know.
"The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision." Helen Keller
Fiala goes on to bring up other areas of life where we are immune to seeing the suffering caused by our decisions: war, eating meat, using cosmetics that were tested on animals. Our society makes it very convenient to not feel any compassion for the objects that we affect - in fact, many times, we are not even aware that what we buy directly affects another living being.
I buy mascara maybe once every ten years and wear it maybe once every three years (I know, I should not be using such old mascara). I wasn't aware, until I read Fiala's article, that mascara was tested by applying it to the eyes of animals, which slowly blinds them. Why would I need to know? I just have to go to the store, pick out a package of this black gunk that lengthens, thickens, darkens, strengthens, etc., etc. and pay for it. Pain-free!
Until now. Now when I visualize myself applying make-up so that I can feel good about myself, I also see some young calf stumbling blindly in a poop-filled pen.
Then I don't feel very good about myself.
Does ignorance let us off the hook?
Fiala says, "To reach good conclusions about these tough practices, we need detailed knowledge about them. But for the most part we lack this knowledge because the "wet work" happens behind closed doors, where we cannot see it or judge it."
And I guess it will stay behind closed doors as long as we don't really want to know.
"The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision." Helen Keller
posted by Carol at 12:26 PM
2 Comments:
Good post. How much suffering do we cause of which we are unaware? And if we are not aware, does that mean we are not responsible? Does it matter if we consciously choose to be unaware or not? (I think so.)
Good questions. I think they might be explored in another post.
Post a Comment
<< Home