The dilemmas of trying to live ethically
My friend and I bought the same book on Amazon, and it changed us, but in quite different ways. The book was Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, an examination of the gruesome way poultry and cattle are slaughtered to produce cheap meat for people like me. A quarter of the way through I closed it, tucked it on to the shelf – I knew that if I continued to read I would no longer be able to enjoy roast chicken, or Peking duck, or oily lardons knotted in spaghetti. I knew I’d have to be a better person; I’d have to live a slightly less lovely life. I stopped reading. While it opened my eyes to my failings and limits, Becca, who finished the book, became a vegetarian.
...
When you stare straight into the horrors of the modern world, they can blind you.
...
Putting down that book has made me look at how much I choose not to see. It’s no revolutionary realisation, but as we find increasingly meaningless ways to balance our ethical chequebooks, I am embracing my limits. As long as we try not to be the complete worst and accept our scumminess, then there is little point in asking how to be good. The answer, surely, is to try and simply be good enough.
(so when does the hate campaign begin on Twitter?
)
My friend and I bought the same book on Amazon, and it changed us, but in quite different ways. The book was Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, an examination of the gruesome way poultry and cattle are slaughtered to produce cheap meat for people like me. A quarter of the way through I closed it, tucked it on to the shelf – I knew that if I continued to read I would no longer be able to enjoy roast chicken, or Peking duck, or oily lardons knotted in spaghetti. I knew I’d have to be a better person; I’d have to live a slightly less lovely life. I stopped reading. While it opened my eyes to my failings and limits, Becca, who finished the book, became a vegetarian.
...
When you stare straight into the horrors of the modern world, they can blind you.
...
Putting down that book has made me look at how much I choose not to see. It’s no revolutionary realisation, but as we find increasingly meaningless ways to balance our ethical chequebooks, I am embracing my limits. As long as we try not to be the complete worst and accept our scumminess, then there is little point in asking how to be good. The answer, surely, is to try and simply be good enough.
(so when does the hate campaign begin on Twitter?
)
