More and more, people are growing conscious of their consumer decisions, especially ones that have a moral aspect to them. We do mean refusing to buy things that have questionable origins or that have a story of abuse or animal rights infringement or the like attached to them.
And though refusing to support the evils of the world is an inherently good and responsible thing, the idea itself can become a serious burden—you can start questioning everything to such a degree that it will have an impact on your decision making. If not more.
Tumblr has been discussing this, with two users in particular raising and answering the question of morality and ethics in modern life.
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While more and more people are growing ethically and morally conscious, doing so may become a burden
Image credits: Tareq Salahuddin
User rubyvroom went to Tumblr to ask a series of questions that pertain to modern morality and ethics when it comes to everything from spending money and hence supporting something in that regard.
One Tumblr user pointed out just how crazy it can get thinking about all of the things we ought to think about before doing anything
Image credits: surelytomorrow
She asked thought-provoking questions like “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?”, and “Can I listen to my favorite albums anymore knowing that the singers were all beating their wives in between studio sessions?”
She pointed out just how much we need to think before making such decisions, so as to avoid empowering all that is wrong with the world. And, just like the paragraph of questions implies, it can drive a person to overthink, at the very least.
Yep, the feeling is mutual... erm, OK, more like universal
Image credits: surelytomorrow
However, another user, surelytomorrow, shared their take on these things, effectively saying that people don’t, and shouldn’t be so hardcore when it comes to buying things.
However, another user pointed out how this is actually 'activist guilt' and how taken to an extreme it would be anything but good
Image credits: surelytomorrow
“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 […] and [the speakers] had a lot of opinions about what we could do to help […]. And she looked at me and told me not to fall into the trap of ‘activist guilt.’”
They go on to elaborate that we should do what we can, as it’s better than the two extremes—not doing anything at all, or doing everything and eventually giving up because it’s too much.
Image credits: surelytomorrow
And, as long as one has a choice to support good things, perfect, do it, but it doesn’t have to be absolute because no society is pure, and hence we need to make the best of it by doing the best that we can and not beating ourselves up for not being able to attain an unattainable ideal.
It all boils down to trying out best without going overboard because nothing is inherently pure
Image credits: surelytomorrow
The Tumblr thread soon went viral. Since being posted, it has managed to garner over 220,000 likes and reblogs.
You can check out the thread here, but before you go, let us know what you thought of this in the comment section below!