Can I watch a great film knowing the actresses in it were terrorized and mistreated the entire time? Can I watch a football game knowing that the players are getting brain injuries right before my eyes? Can I listen to my favorite albums anymore knowing that the singers were all beating their wives in between studio sessions? Can I eat at the new fancy taco place knowing when the building that used to be there got bulldozed eight families got kicked out of their homes so they could be replaced with condos and a chain restaurant? Can I wear the affordable clothes I bought downtown that were probably assembled in a sweatshop with child labor? Can I eat quinoa?
Can I eat this burger? Can I drink this bottled water? Can I buy a car and drive to work because I’m sick of taking an hour each way on the subway? Whose bones do I stand on? Whose bones am I standing on right now?
On one hand, it’s a privilege to be able to choose to acknowledge these horrors or not–we’re going to acknowledge that privilege. On the other hand, I once attended a lecture by the explorerer-conservationist Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s daughter and son and they had a lot of opinions about what we could do to help the environment and the ocean and I talked about how in my country, we have to drink bottled water, because it’s a desert and there’s only salt water all around, but we’re contributing to pollution and all of these things…
And she looked at me and told me not to fall into the trap of “activist guilt.” I couldn’t remember the exact words, but, it was the first time I’d heard the term and it took a weight off my shoulders.
We do what we can. It’s so much better than giving up entirely or not doing anything at all because we can’t do it perfectly. It doesn’t benefit anyone in the end if we just sit around feeling guilty about every little thing in life. I’d just joined tumblr back then (haha, so like, eight or nine years ago at this point?), I was being exposed to way more than I’d ever been before (I was previously just into feminism and animal rights/wildlife conservation/environmentalism since I was a kid), and it was weighing on me.
As long as humans are humans and living flawed lives, many consumed by greed, there will not be anything in this world untouched by evil.
I usually avoid stuff that says it was made in China or other cheap looking knockoffs, out of fear of them being made in sweatshops (now, I know even a lot of big brands use those…), it’s exhausting. Then, I read something about how people who actually lived and worked in those would still buy this cheap stuff and how this shocked the foreigner reporting on it, but they just looked confused like, it’s what they can afford and them avoiding consuming it isn’t going to change the whole system from the ground-up.
… it went on about how “money talks” and choosing where to put your money still feeds the whole capitalist system and is nearly a way of comforting yourself, but you not buying doesn’t mean everyone else isn’t. What needs to be tackled is at a much higher level than any of us can reach.
Of course, I’d still, given the choice, give my money to companies I agree with and I’ll boycott what I know to support awful stuff, but I also feel no superiority over this and know now it’s not as black and white or easy as I thought it was.
This is the same reason that moral purity “you can’t enjoy [x] because it’s Problematic ™” is such nonsense, because nothing is pure. There’s something bad about everything if you dig deep enough. As long as we lived in flawed human societies we’ve got to make the best of what they offer us. If you have the choice and means, please, do support those who do good, but also, don’t beat yourself up over not living up to an unattainable ideal.
No one can. You’ll just make yourself so miserable, you either burn up and stop fighting entirely or you’ll make yourself a non-productive, depressed heap just out of a bleeding heart left unchecked. You can’t make a change to this world if you refuse to engage in it.
There are a lot of times I feel like just…flipping the vegan script.
It’s not ‘polyester’ it’s plastic
It’s not ‘vegan leather’ it’s plastic
Its not ‘faux fur’ it’s plastic
Plastic is a pollutant and causes far more damage to the environment both now and in the future than leather or wool.
Please stop telling me that the Plastic Lyfe is the only life, it is not. My leather shoes will last a decade where pleather is lucky to last 12 months. Leather (and wool) decompose and are renewable. Plastic is neither of those.
THANK YOUUUUUUU~
A single wash cycle of plastic-based fiber (polyester, poly fleece, faux fur) may release 700,000 pieces of microplastic into our waters. Nasty stuff.
aw dangit
Wool is the most environmentally friendly fabric despite being an animal product.
Using wool isnt even harming sheep
Wool in different weights is also one of the best fabrics for different climates and if woven tightly water resistant. Which in turn means no harmful waterproofers needed on the cloth. Unless it’s something like bees wax. But felted is basically one of the best fabrics for cold weather. It self regulates temperature. Plastic? You bake in plastic. Even the lightweight stuff. I’ve worn full Elizabethan clothing in Florida and the worst bit was the poly brocade doublet. The wool dress and linen shift kept me cool.
A good farmer and this is most farmers do NOT harm their sheep shearing them and it benefits the sheep. So what would you have? An irreparably damaged planet full of plastic? Or happy sheep and decent cloth that won’t pollute once finished with?
very soft very round,, small feets good boy smells like mochi
15/10
mebbe a lil loud sometims.. gives u the skittles w the nasty green apple flavor,, byt he apologizes after
10/10
tries very hard.. a little brother who maybee smells a lil funky cause hes a messy eater but he loves u
10/10
he boop. very smol… TOO smol?? no…… impossible.. fit in ur hand for smol snuggles.. perfect smol
12/10
he likes old memes.. but like.. not the good old kind. drinks punch all the time? he loves to make u smile tho he keeps trying to find gooder memes for u
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