• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Fur

What's your opinion of fur?

  • I love fur! Bring on the dead animals!

    Votes: 4 13.3%
  • I think fur is beautiful, but I'd never wear it myself

    Votes: 4 13.3%
  • Indifferent

    Votes: 9 30.0%
  • I'm against fur.

    Votes: 13 43.3%
  • I'm not from the Western world and in our culture fur is considered acceptable

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    30

Tallulah

Emerging
Joined
Feb 19, 2008
Messages
6,009
MBTI Type
INTP
Fur is no longer taken from wild animals in any quantity... it's taken from animals raised in captivity for the express purpose of producing fur.

I'm not sure it's immoral to kill an animal for its fur when, if it wasn't for the fur industry, that animal would never have existed at all.

To the last bit, that's one of the most distasteful things about it, to me. Why raise something just to kill it, when there's no necessity behind the thing you need it for. Like veal--why subject an animal to that sort of existence when it's not really necessary for survival? We don't NEED it, we just like it.
 
O

Oberon

Guest
To the last bit, that's one of the most distasteful things about it, to me. Why raise something just to kill it, when there's no necessity behind the thing you need it for. Like veal--why subject an animal to that sort of existence when it's not really necessary for survival? We don't NEED it, we just like it.

God save us from the day when we have to defend every possession we own and every act we perform on the basis of "need." There are a million things you don't need, but have or do nonetheless... you don't "need" an internet connection. You don't need coffee. You don't need to get out of town for the weekend. You don't need a pet dog. You don't need personal control over your thermostat, you don't need private property rights, you don't need your own vehicle... I'm not willing to entertain that approach to living.
 

Magic Poriferan

^He pronks, too!
Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Messages
14,081
MBTI Type
Yin
Enneagram
One
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
The edit in the OP has made me totally confused about what the moral calculus is here.
 

Tallulah

Emerging
Joined
Feb 19, 2008
Messages
6,009
MBTI Type
INTP
God save us from the day when we have to defend every possession we own and every act we perform on the basis of "need." There are a million things you don't need, but have or do nonetheless... you don't "need" an internet connection. You don't need coffee. You don't need to get out of town for the weekend. You don't need a pet dog. You don't need personal control over your thermostat, you don't need private property rights, you don't need your own vehicle... I'm not willing to entertain that approach to living.

You really don't see the difference here? We're talking about killing living beings on a whim, not sacrificing a cup of Starbucks. I'm not slippery sloping this issue--you are.
 

ajblaise

Minister of Propagandhi
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
7,914
MBTI Type
INTP
Lots of us use products where there was some suffering or exploitation used to get it in your hands. Like an iPad made under brutal sweat shop conditions, where the workers kill themselves regularly right in the factory. Is that worse or better than breeding animals just to kill them for fashion later on? Both are pretty scummy.

But the animal rights advocates should also look at what they do in life that supports or facilitates human suffering, which is an animal too. To their credit, a PETA member is also more likely to be a anti-sweat shop human rights type person.
 

Randomnity

insert random title here
Joined
May 8, 2007
Messages
9,485
MBTI Type
ISTP
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Lots of us use products where there was some suffering or exploitation used to get it in your hands. Like an iPad made under brutal sweat shop conditions, where the workers kill themselves regularly right in the factory. Is that worse or better than breeding animals just to kill them for fashion later on? Both are pretty scummy.

But the animal rights advocates should also look at what they do in life that supports or facilitates human suffering, which is an animal too. To their credit, a PETA member is also more likely to be a anti-sweat shop human rights type person.
Exactly. I think there's a somewhat arbitrary line here where many people make a big deal about fur but don't care about leather, eating meat, hunting, owning pets, human rights violations, polluting the environment, killing animals by ecosystem destruction or farming, letting animal populations get out of control so they starve to death...etc, etc, etc

Yes, some people care about many or all of these. But fur is not by any stretch the worst crime against animals out there so I'm not sure why it gets so much bad press/attention. Well, other than being cute and fuzzy.
 

ajblaise

Minister of Propagandhi
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
7,914
MBTI Type
INTP
Exactly. I think there's a somewhat arbitrary line here where many people make a big deal about fur but don't care about leather, eating meat, hunting, owning pets, human rights violations, polluting the environment, killing animals by ecosystem destruction or farming, letting animal populations get out of control so they starve to death...etc, etc, etc

Yes, some people care about many or all of these. But fur is not by any stretch the worst crime against animals out there so I'm not sure why it gets so much bad press/attention. Well, other than being cute and fuzzy.

I also don't blame people for targeting the specific issues that hit a cord with them. No one can be all things to all people. So if a PETA chick wants to do her thing, but doesn't do anything for abused women in Afghanistan, that's okay. Compared to the masses who do nothing on anything.
 

erm

Permabanned
Joined
Jun 19, 2007
Messages
1,652
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
5
But fur is not by any stretch the worst crime against animals out there so I'm not sure why it gets so much bad press/attention. Well, other than being cute and fuzzy.

True, but it often needs to be said that that does not justify the fur trade, it just puts it into perspective.

I'd guess it gets the extra attention because it is more obvious than the aforementioned things. Even compared to leather, it actually looks more like a corpse.
 

Randomnity

insert random title here
Joined
May 8, 2007
Messages
9,485
MBTI Type
ISTP
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I also don't blame people for targeting the specific issues that hit a cord with them. No one can be all things to all people. So if a PETA chick wants to do her thing, but doesn't do anything for abused women in Afghanistan, that's okay. Compared to the masses who do nothing on anything.

True, but when you're comparing two situations where animals are harmed....I dunno, it seems strange to be against one thing for animal rights but not other things that are animal rights. It just looks a little...silly to me. And silly to be wasting energy on things that aren't necessarily as...important? as other animal/human rights issues. If it's about animals being inhumanely killed, ok, but if it's that they're being killed at all...meh.

And well, I think it's better to do nothing than to assault people with paint for wearing fur. But that's just me.
 

Randomnity

insert random title here
Joined
May 8, 2007
Messages
9,485
MBTI Type
ISTP
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Actually the PETA people make me want to spitefully wear fur as a statement rather than for practical reasons.

Too bad it's so expensive.
 

ajblaise

Minister of Propagandhi
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
7,914
MBTI Type
INTP
True, but when you're comparing two situations where animals are harmed....I dunno, it seems strange to be against one thing for animal rights but not other things that are animal rights. It just looks a little...silly to me. And silly to be wasting energy on things that aren't necessarily as...important? as other animal/human rights issues.

And well, I think it's better to do nothing than to assault people with paint for wearing fur. But that's just me.

Heh, I think the paint stuff is amusing. And then they'll have naked PETA chicks at protests to be anti-fur!

But I mean, there's people fighting for marijuana legalization. Maybe not the most dire injustice, but it's close to them, and it doesn't mean the hippie or the PETA person doesn't care about Afghan women getting treated like dirt. That's why there's more money and foundations out there for treatment of women around the world, lots of people care about it.
 
O

Oberon

Guest
You really don't see the difference here? We're talking about killing living beings on a whim, not sacrificing a cup of Starbucks. I'm not slippery sloping this issue--you are.

It's not a whim. It's for fur, a high-value commodity. People make their livings in the fur industry supplying this market.

It's a commodity just as meat is a commodity, and to my way of thinking the exact same moral calculus applies.
 

ajblaise

Minister of Propagandhi
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
7,914
MBTI Type
INTP
It's not a whim. It's for fur, a high-value commodity. People make their livings in the fur industry supplying this market.

The fact that people make their living on it doesn't really justify it. People used to make a living owning slaves.

We could lose the slavery industry, and the fur industry where the animals get killed, and the economy would keep tootin. People would spend their money on other shit, like fake fur, sheered fur, blackmarket animal-got-killed fur (meaning there's less of it, an a high-fashion women isn't going to go into the backalleys for some fur), or other dumb fashion things, which creates the new jobs.
 

Shimmy

New member
Joined
Jun 9, 2009
Messages
1,867
MBTI Type
SEXY
I'm against fur. We can mass produce it cheaper and with better quality than the real thing, plus, that would free up manpower that can be used in a more economic & ecologic sustainable way, like teaching. And apart from that
 

Tallulah

Emerging
Joined
Feb 19, 2008
Messages
6,009
MBTI Type
INTP
The fact that people make their living on it doesn't really justify it. People used to make a living owning slaves.

We could lose the slavery industry, and the fur industry where the animals get killed, and the economy would keep tootin. People would spend their money on other shit, like fake fur, sheered fur, blackmarket animal-got-killed fur (meaning there's less of it, an a high-fashion women isn't going to go into the backalleys for some fur), or other dumb fashion things, which creates the new jobs.

Yeppers. And I'm all for re-thinking things that make people buttloads of money, but harm or kill living things. The latter should bear more weight than the former. New industries will always crop up to provide jobs. It happens at the speed of light these days. Eventually, we'll all spend less money on gas, but we'll spend more money on alternative fuel sources.
 
G

Ginkgo

Guest
God save us from the day when we have to defend every possession we own and every act we perform on the basis of "need." There are a million things you don't need, but have or do nonetheless... you don't "need" an internet connection. You don't need coffee. You don't need to get out of town for the weekend. You don't need a pet dog. You don't need personal control over your thermostat, you don't need private property rights, you don't need your own vehicle... I'm not willing to entertain that approach to living.

Good point, but when there is a need, you have to ask, "For/to what?"

Certainly, birds need air to fly, children need food to eat, etcetera. Much of the time, when people say they need something, it's in order to fulfill an emotional desire. To cut to the chase, the issue is whether that emotional desire is needed in itself.

If you are going to re-prioritize, you must determine what you want to achieve. Do you want to life? Do you want to become a rockstar?

O, what do you think is essential for the bear-necessity life?
 

lowtech redneck

New member
Joined
Aug 26, 2007
Messages
3,711
MBTI Type
INTP
Actually the PETA people make me want to spitefully wear fur as a statement rather than for practical reasons.
QUOTE]

This.

I picked the first option mostly for this reason (I like fur, but its not my favorite thing in the world).
 
Top