Lately the fashion world has been excited about ethical furs. Even I – a semi hardcore animal rights supporter – have to admit that furs look and feel something else. The softness and the movement of the texture are absolutely gorgeous. But everybody knows how terrible a system is needed to produce those magnificent garments. Could ethical furs be the answer to my prayers of getting it all: elegance and morality?
Some “ethical fur” designers make their clothing of wild animals. Every year thousands of animals get killed due to traffic or hunting, meaning thinning out the population for ecological reasons. Normally those animals would be just left in the shoulders of roads or in the woods. Some argue that letting the furs rot instead of using them as a luxury item is disrespectful for those animals.
Other “ethical fur” producers use second hand furs to create some new pieces of clothing. The idea is that if the atrocity has been already done, it’s almost our duty to enjoy the fur to the very end of its lifecycle. The bottom line behind these two views is that using furs is not inherently wrong.
It’s true that nothing is in itself wrong but the case is not that simple. People who think this way miss the bigger picture of animal rights. As long as we see animals as possible sources for tending to our needs rather than as respected fellow-creatures, we are not being honest with ourselves. If one of our values is to respect organisms with the capacity to feel and to have intentions, no matter how intelligent they are, how is it that we can’t extend that to the animals too? In a nutshell, using furs communicates a certain kind of relation to animals.
To make my point of view clearer, I ask you to imagine what would happen if somebody would start to sell, for instance, jewelry made of human bones or human skin purses? (Okay, I just googled it and there are many online stores selling human bone jewelry. Hmm…)
But the point is that, in our culture, the use of embellishments made of human body is widely considered disgusting. I think it’s because we don’t want to modify subjects as ourselves into objects like jewelry or decorations for our homes. “I” can’t be turned to “it”. We respect our deceased ones so much that we don’t want to play with their corpses but hide them into the ground or burn them into dust.
But why should we embrace the new animal relations where we treat animals with the same kind of dignity we have dedicated to ourselves? Human race has always used animals for their purposes to survive in tough living conditions, so why change that now?
As Gandhi has said: “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” Animals can’t vote, make riots or lobby their agenda in the cabinets of power. But they are able to feel pain and pleasure. We have created a world where we are not obligated to use animals as tools, so it’s our privilege and duty to learn to respect them in an honest way.
The relations we have to other species are connected to relations among ourselves. I’m sure that in a world where there is no animal exploitation it would also be extraordinary to oppress other people. As we know, unfortunately that is not the case yet today.