Here's a re-post of the original post I made. I'm editing the original to cut down on the text, make it more concise, and decrease any confusion I may have caused. I still want people to be able to reference it if they want, and I don't want to delete anything people originally disagreed with.
I have been wondering for a couple years what most people think about some of the things they do that aren't some wouldn't call moral, but they do regardless of the self-recognized negative ramifications of their actions. This is largely due to how the blame can just be pushed onto more guilty parties, or they can keep themselves uninformed to keep the guilt at bay. I've been guilty of this, and I'm sure that I'm still guilty of being uninformed about some issues, too.
Here's an example: a person does not feel comfortable with the way meat is processed after reading about how exactly cows go from their range to the meat package, but, because the person does not actually participate in the process, they feel vindicated. Or, a person who likes eating meat avoids becoming educated on meat processing in hopes that they can continue without any guilt.
I've spoken to many people in person who have told me that they don't want to watch documentaries about meat processing, because they want to continue eating meat. Ignorance is bliss, right? I've learned a lot more about the meat industries, and I went from eating meat most days to eating it a couple times a month over the past two years, though I'm not a vegetarian.
Even here on
Neogaf, I've witnessed people talking about their vindictive accounts of attempting to convert vegetarians or being entertained by vegetarians going back to eating meat. This was a major part of why I made this thread. Some of it is surely satire, but there are many people who become extremely defensive about eating meat.
On another topic, I live in Japan, so I know a lot of men who watch Japanese porn. I just posted
this article (Japan Times) about how many women in Japanese porn are threatened or tricked into doing pornography. In response, a very close friend of mine who lives in Japan, is married, and watches Japanese porn openly, defended his actions. He said that, while it is a problem, there are many other bad things humans continually do, despite knowing they aren't necessarily morally right—a kind of cognitive dissonance—like buying consumer products that may have been made in part by slave labor. Does knowing that many other humans do similar things a reason to continue doing them yourself, if you recognize the harm?
In the past, when I have brought up my opinions on pornography, or attempted to talk to most of my male friends about documentaries I've watched or articles I've read about the horrible treatment of women in the porn industry, they seems frustrated and do not want to have those conversations. I never preach about it or tell them that they should be stop, but they would rather not be informed of these bad aspects, because they would ostensibly affect their viewing pleasure.
Please answer honestly, and know that
I am not judging. I am just very curious about how other people feel.
Do you eat meat? If so, are you educated on the way your meat is obtained? Do you avoid educating yourself? How do you feel about eating meat?
Do you watch pornography? If so, are you educated on the way the actors and actresses that you watch are treated? Do you avoid learning about their working conditions? How do you feel about watching porn?
tl;dr: At least read the last part or something. This discussion is about deliberate self-imposed ignorance, so that'd be incredibly ironic of you to avoid reading.