Help me compromise my ethics!

September 7, 2008 2:20 PM

For nearly a decade now, I've avoided all leather goods for ethical and aesthetic reasons. But I'm at a point where I'm sick of wearing canvas athletic shoes and imitation leather dress shoes (which are often ill fitting and, frankly, silly looking), and am looking to have my guilt assuaged so I can return to wearing leather.

Basically, I'm looking for arguments in favor of wearing leather shoes, and for any arguments downplaying the ethical compromise that the purchase(s) would entail.

I feel like if I could justify the decision to purchase a few pairs on whatever grounds, my decision wouldn't feel like such a compromise and I wouldn't feel too guilty about it.

posted by anonymous to clothing, beauty, & fashion (27 comments total)

buy slightly used ones from ebay. no killing, no guilt, no embarrassment. :)
posted by 2003girl at 2:25 PM on September 7, 2008

Best argument I could give is just what you said, there's nothing you like in the guilt-free variety. Keeping an eye on the cruelty-free shoe market could provide you with some relief. Stay conscious of what's out there as you make the compromise. Personally, I still choose non-leather footwear, but admittedly, the selection is limited. I also have been known to wear casual shoes with nice clothes. (K-Swiss, Earth, Saucony) If this is unacceptable for your work environment or personal taste, then that really can't help.
posted by quanta and qualia at 2:28 PM on September 7, 2008

A small piece of animal product that can last you for 10, even 20 years? Leather shoes are a pretty sustsainable choice, to my way of thinking. You will probably care for your leather shoes properly given how deliberately you've come to this decision.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:29 PM on September 7, 2008

Plastic is probably worse for "animals" in the long run than leather production. That stuff never goes away and a lot of it ends up killing wildlife.
posted by fshgrl at 2:34 PM on September 7, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Probably sounds like a rationalization, but the cattle aren't being slaughtered for the leather but for their meat. Wearing leather goods is about as close to the philosophy of not wasting any of the gift of the life sacrificed as modern man can get, without going out there to get your own. You are not responsible for the demand for the slaughter of cattle if you aren't eating beef, but you can help make the loss of life slightly less wasteful by using the more artistic and lasting leather products. Let your shoes remind you that another being died and you honor their spirit every time you think of them. After all, when we die, little remains beyond a stone and fading memories of friends and family
posted by Redhush at 2:35 PM on September 7, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

Well made, leather shoes can last a lifetime. Whether they are "sustainable" in a strict sense can be argued either way, but the point is that you can substantially alleviate your guilt if when buying you're able to tell yourself, "These $350 Italian loafers will still feel great, and look good 10, maybe 20, years from now." Plus, if you shop carefully, you can wind up supporting artisanal craftsmanship.

You're not going to find a lot of tree-huggery in support of leather, but it's coming. People are realizing that leather is not just one of the oldest forms of craftsmanship, but also a legitimate sustainable investment.

I've even seen some effort (warning: fugly hand bags) at re-using and recycling leather...
posted by wfrgms at 2:35 PM on September 7, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I'm a long-term vegetarian, and I wear leather shoes. I'm quite comfortable with this seeming hypocrisy because (1) the cows aren't killed for their hides, (2) leather shoes last far, far longer and so overall are less wasteful and in my case reduce consumption, (3) leather shoes smell a lot better, (4) they are waterproof, and (5) leather shoes look a lot better and are easier to care for.
posted by goo at 2:49 PM on September 7, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

You wearing leather shoes has absolutely zero impact on the fate of the animal that they're made from, at least while alive.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 2:51 PM on September 7, 2008

Comfortable, durable shoes will make you more likely to walk instead of driving for short distances. This will help the environment.

If you buy some leather shoes and donate $25 of cat food to your local pet rescue place, you will come ahead in the karma stakes.
posted by Mike1024 at 3:06 PM on September 7, 2008

Probably sounds like a rationalization, but the cattle aren't being slaughtered for the leather but for their meat.

I actually looked into this years back (not out of conscience I must admit; more just to win a juvenile argument). Anyway, I asked an expert (an artist who worked with leather) and he assured me, you can make a perfectly good pair of shoes, jacket etc from the hide of an animal that died of old age. This includes humans by the way but we won't go there. Ooops, guess I just did.
posted by philip-random at 3:43 PM on September 7, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Cows are made out of vegetable matter (grass)...
posted by Confess, Fletch at 3:45 PM on September 7, 2008

I should start off by saying that the following might not be true, but I do understand it to be true.

Anyway, I have an Indian friend who doesn't eat beef, but he wears leather, so I asked him about it because I would just assume that Hindus don't wear cows. He said that in India, lots of people wear leather. It's just that they get it from cows who die of natural causes. Again, he might be full of crap, but there you go.
posted by Stylus Happenstance at 4:20 PM on September 7, 2008

Also, according to Morrissey, "there is simply no sensible alternative" to leather shoes. He has also said "I find shoes difficult to be ethical about - one just can't seem to avoid leather. One is trapped, ultimately."
posted by Stylus Happenstance at 4:24 PM on September 7, 2008

Maybe try saying a silent "thank you" to the animal when you put those shoes on. Gratitude is a fantastic guilt suppressant.
posted by jknecht at 4:38 PM on September 7, 2008

jknecht has it right. Remember how the 'primitive' hunter prays before and after the hunt to get and stay right with the spirit of the buffalo (or fish, or whatever's being hunted)? If you have gratitude in your heart and recognize the sacrifice the cow made then you will be OK karmically.
posted by RussHy at 4:47 PM on September 7, 2008

Many fine points herein but the gist of the situation is that a change to leather shoes need not be a compromise in your ethics any more that any of the other countless compromises you have made to date, make daily and will make in the world of tomorrow. We all do what we can within our bounds and reason.

Whatever you do, don't forgo a matching belt.
posted by Dick Paris at 6:17 PM on September 7, 2008

The goal is to do the best you can to avoid causing suffering. You cannot attain perfection in this regard, and trying to do so will only exhaust you and leave you with less energy and enthusiasm for doing the things that really make a difference. Also, think of all the leather shoes you have not worn in the past 10 years. If everybody eschewed leather for only 10 years of their life, that would make a huge difference. Buying a few pairs of leather shoes now won't undo the good you've already done.
posted by HotToddy at 8:16 PM on September 7, 2008

Just say "May you be reborn a Buddha" over each shoe.
posted by zengargoyle at 8:51 PM on September 7, 2008

There's a recent piece in The Guardian - The ethical wardrobe: Is it OK to wear leather? The author addresses a lot of the opinions mentioned in previous posts (her answer seems to be a pretty clear "Nuh-uh," but it's not stated explicitly).
This might or might not be useful, since you're looking specifically for pro-leather arguments.
posted by lindsey.nicole at 10:12 PM on September 7, 2008

Yeah, I've kinda been dipping back into the leather recently - in other words, I fail completely as a vegan and honestly do feel shitty about it - but I have simply been able to find no alternatives. One place in Melbourne makes vegan shoes and they have a good range but they are a) more expensive than their leather equivalents and b) I haven't heard too many good things about the product itself and, frankly, I'm not flying down to Melbourne to try on a pair of shoes. Everything else I've been able to find is really really ugly and ill-fitting and completely unsuitable for work. I bought a pair of non-leather dress shoes for forty bucks and they lasted me about two months, and as others have suggested, all the synthetics and fossil energy that went into producing those has a greater negative long-term impact.

I justify it personally by telling myself that this leather - by which I mean, animal skin - is "only" a byproduct of the animal flesh industry. So I use it because in this precise place and at this precise time there honestly isn't an alternative for me.
posted by turgid dahlia at 10:19 PM on September 7, 2008

Joseph Campbell once sagely said, "Life feeds on life." No way around it. So your guilt can be assuaged by the inevitability of feeding on life... and uhh wearin' their skins fer shoes! So... let's get some shoes.
posted by Askr at 11:04 PM on September 7, 2008

Redhush (and others) have it; a large amount of leather is simply a byproduct of meat and milk consumption; milk in particular.

The dairy industry generates a lot of corpses - calves which die during birth or abort are highly valued for turning into the softest leathers, but they haven't actually been killed for their leather; the bobby calf market mostly calves that a born male to cows bred to milk-breed bulls, most of which are simply fattened for a short period and then killed. Again, they're a byproduct of the main business (milk and breeding replacement females). Similarly a proportion of females will be sent off on the bobby calf truck for having bad genetics for milking (cows bred with meat-breed bulls).

From that you've got the males that are going to be big enough to be raised for meat, who will be killed primarily for that, and their hides are a profitable sideline, but not the main point; you've also got the old cows who don't get in calf or have dropped production and are culled.

So, yeah, there's a whole bunch of cow-hide that would be wasted if people don't wear it.

Finally, consider that many domestic species would simply become extinct if humans didn't have a use for them. Cows (and other leather-producing animals) won't dissapear so long as we eat and wear them. If you waved a magic wand and made everyone uninterested in animal products, they'd be gone in a few generations.
posted by rodgerd at 1:22 AM on September 8, 2008

Justification: Remember that Donald Watson himself defined veganism as a practice which "seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical" the use of animals for food and clothing. You've excluded leather footwear from your life for 10 years, but have ultimately found it impractical. Watson knew that in the world we're born into, one can really only ever asymptotically approach a pure vegan ideal. Just continue to do your best by your own moral compass—don't let a decision to wear leather shoes become a fuck-it-all excuse to go out and roast a sucking pig or anything—and to hell with anyone who tells you that they're better than you because they only wear naugahyde oxfords.

Tip: Unfortunately a lot of shoes these days seem to feature soles that wrap around the sides a bit, essentially making it impossible to replace them (Børn, I'm looking at you). After a year or two of wear, you're left with a perfectly good upper attached to a sole that's worn-down and irreparable. Keep this in mind when shopping for those new leather shoes of yours, and try to find a style with a traditional, easily replaced sole if at all possible. This way, you can make the very most out of the leather that you've decided to wear.
posted by mumkin at 1:48 AM on September 8, 2008

The way I see it is that leather shoes last a long time and leather may be taken from animals that died of natural causes. Finally, there are no reasonably good replacement material for shoes. If I buy a pair of shoes, its leather would have most definitely come from a killed cow. Whether it was killed for meat or for leather is not crucial, the crucial point is that available shoes are not marked to tell you how the leather came about. If it were marked, I would pay a premium for shoes made from naturally-dying animals, or well made shoes from synthetic materials, but since that's not how things are done, there's nothing I can do about it. I feel that I ought to be a vegetarian because the only reason for me to eat meat would be my own taste and perhaps paying a bit less (as nutritionally complete vegetarian diet can be more expensive). The reason for me to wear leather shoes despite the voilence-derived source of leather is not my taste for good looking shoes, or subsitute being too expensive, but simply that there are no suitable substitutes that I know of, for example, what are you going to wear when it's raining that's not leather and that won't get soaking wet in a split second?
posted by rainy at 2:11 AM on September 8, 2008

i have set the compromise for myself at 20 years old or older and uniform/army-navy stuff. this way these products can't possibly have been made for me to use and i won't encourage other people to go out and spend gross amounts of money on the death of an animal (you know, the argument that if you wear fur/leather/diamonds you're helping those things maintain a certain status that shouldn't be afforded them).

but - it's really for you to answer. i have vegetarian friends who eat gelatin. i eat certain seafood (the underwater insect variety). in our heart of hearts we think the other one is wrong, but we're happy with the choices we have made.

good luck.
posted by nadawi at 5:16 AM on September 8, 2008

Seconding buying used. It helps if you live near a Zappo's outlet. The shoes sold there are shoes sent back by customers that are anywhere from never worn to worn once to worn several times. I also happily buy from the thrift store, but then I utterly lack the ability to be squicked out by second hand shoes. YMMV.
posted by hecho de la basura at 7:12 AM on September 8, 2008

I don't think there is anything wrong with choosing to buy a pair (or a few pairs) of leather shoes.

But lots of people in this thread are mistaken in that many animals are killed for their hides, to make leather, and the rest of the carcass is essentially used as a by-product of the leather industry.

The flesh does usually wind up getting eaten (either by people or by animals) but that is often secondary to the motivation for the slaughter. Snakes, alligators, calves and horses come to mind as examples.
posted by paisley henosis at 9:04 PM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]