動物保護運動熱烈 要不要穿貂皮大衣

A couple of months ago I inherited some items that had once belonged to my mother. Most of these boxes invoked poignant joy. But one produced a moral dilemma.
I found a collection of fur garments, wrapped in plastic, that my mother had inherited from her mother. This included a fabulous floor-length mink coat of the sort that heiresses once commonly wore around New York or Geneva, and wealthy women still sport in Moscow or Davos.
Should I wear that coat? Toss it away? Just sell it on eBay? Twenty years ago my answer would have been clear: I would have conducted a ritual burning of the mink while enveloped in a smug glow of political correctness. I started my adult life as a tie-dye-wearing anthropology student and back then the animal rights movement was running such a slick anti-fur campaign that mink seemed taboo to westerners of my age. Who can forget those ghastly posters of slaughtered seals? Or the shots of fur-clad ladies being doused in red paint in the streets by angry protesters?
In those days, sporting fur in public seemed like an act of deliberate provocation — even before you factored in the issues of privilege and wealth. Indeed, fur was so controversial that I had forgotten my mother even had a mink coat because she barely wore it.
But today, my attitudes to fur — like those of many western consumers — have become less black and white. Or sable and cream, perhaps. That is partly due to experience: having lived in Russia I now realise that fur is extraordinarily effective at combating extreme cold. But it is also because I have become increasingly aware of the capricious nature of political campaigns and concepts of political correctness, particularly in an era of social media. The more I think about it, the odder it seems that someone should throw a paintball at a fur coat but still wear leather, eat factory-farmed meat or buy most types of fast fashion, given what is happening in some workshops.
In any case, a moral analysis of fur has become more complicated. Fur has been associated with some shamefully cruel practices in the past. But it is not always associated with animal cruelty: these days designers in places such as Vermont are making fur coats out of road kill, and parts of the industry are becoming better regulated.
The social ecosystem of fur is also more complex than it might seem. When fur prices tumbled in the 1980s, due to the anti-fur campaign, the biggest victims were not the rich women whose coats were doused in red paint — but indigenous groups, in places such as Canada, who had relied on the fur trade for their living.
But the other complicating factor is technology. In the past couple of decades it has become easy to produce a fake fur coat. Sometimes these are fashioned to look as artificial as possible (apparently, a hot item this winter is a peppermint-green fake fur). But often, such items look identical to my mink. Either way, the trend has lessened the stigma around fur, making it more widely worn. Indeed, since 1995, prices have risen.
In some ways this is deeply ironic. In centuries past fur was valuable because it seemed so exclusive and natural. Now its acceptability and price are rising because of plentiful fakes. If nothing else, this should remind us all of just how malleable many of our symbols can be, and how arbitrary our concepts of “value”. We are all trapped by deeply embedded cultural rules we inherit from our surroundings, often without much thought.
I am a case in point. For many weeks that mink sat untouched in my closet in New York while I uneasily pondered what to do. Then my own daughters stumbled on the bags and it suddenly occurred to me that wearing that coat, whatever its origins, could be an ecologically positive act. Burning the coat would not bring dead animals back to life. But wearing it would at least be recycling it.
So when the temperature plunged I finally swathed myself in the sensual layers of mink. Part of me still feels a touch uneasy sporting it in the street. But I comfort myself with the fact that, as one of my daughters acerbically pointed out, nobody knows if it is real. Perhaps that would have made my grandmother spin in her grave. I prefer to chuckle at the irony — and hope that the next generation of fur coats can be produced in the most humane way possible.

幾個月前，我繼承了一些曾經屬於我母親的東西。大多數箱子都讓我悲欣交集。然而其中一個箱子卻讓我陷入了道德上的兩難境地。
那個箱子裏有一些用塑料膜包裹的皮草外衣，是母親從姥姥那裏繼承來的。其中包括一件極讚的及地貂皮大衣，就是過去紐約或者日內瓦的女繼承人常穿的那種，現在在莫斯科或者達沃斯，富有的女性也依然穿着這種大衣在外招搖。
我是應該穿這件大衣？還是扔掉它？還是乾脆在eBay上賣掉？如果是20年前，我的選擇會很明確：我會舉行一個小儀式，燒掉這件貂皮大衣，沉浸在政治正確帶來的強烈自得之中。我剛跨入成年時期的時候，還是一個喜歡穿扎染衣服的人類學學生，那時動物權利運動發起的反皮草運動開展得如此成功，以至於貂皮似乎成了當時西方年輕人的禁忌。誰能忘記那些畫着屠殺海豹畫面的可怕海報？或者大街上穿皮草的女性被憤怒的抗議者潑紅漆的照片？
在那個時代，在公開場合穿皮草這種行爲本身似乎就是一種故意挑釁，更何況它還有炫耀特權和財富之嫌。的確，那時皮草極富爭議，我母親幾乎沒穿過，以至於我都忘記了她還有一件貂皮大衣。
但是現在，和許多西方消費者一樣，我對皮草的態度變得不是那麼非黑即白，或者大概說，不是那麼非“紫貂”即“白貂”了。部分原因源自經驗：在俄羅斯生活過以後，我現在意識到，皮草抵禦極寒的效果絕佳。此外還因爲，我越來越意識到政治運動和政治正確的概念是多麼反覆無常，尤其是在社交媒體時代。我越是思考這件事，就越覺得蹊蹺：有的人怎麼能一方面朝皮草大衣扔油漆彈，另一方面卻依然穿着皮革製品、吃工業化養殖動物的肉，不顧一些製衣廠正在上演的非人道事件，購買各種的快時尚時裝？
無論如何，對皮草進行道德分析變得更復雜了。皮草與過去的一些可恥的殘忍行徑被聯繫在了一起，但皮草並不是總是都和虐待動物有關：現在，美國佛蒙特州等地的設計師利用道路上被車軋死的動物製作皮草大衣，皮草業某些部分的監管狀況也正在改善。
皮草的社會生態環境也比表面看起來更加複雜。由於反皮草運動，上世紀80年代皮草價格暴跌，但當時最大的受害者卻不是那些皮草大衣被潑紅漆的富家女性，而是加拿大等地那些一直靠皮草貿易維持生計的原住民。
另一個讓情況複雜化的因素是技術。過去幾十年，製作仿皮草大衣變得更加簡單。有時，看起來儘可能有人造感還是一種時尚（顯然，今年冬天的一個熱門單品就是薄荷綠仿皮草）。但大多數時候，仿皮草單品看起來和我這件真貂皮並無二致。不論如何，這種潮流都部分洗刷了皮草揹負的污名，讓穿皮草的人越來越多。事實上，1995年後皮草的價格一直在上漲。
從某些方面來說，這真是一種莫大的諷刺。過去幾百年來，皮草因其稀有和天然而貴重。如今卻是因爲仿皮草製品衆多，皮草的接受度和價格雙雙上升。撇開別的不說，這起碼昭示出我們的許多“符號”是多麼容易改變，我們對“價值”的定義又是多麼的主觀。我們都受困於周遭環境潛移默化帶給我們的一些根深蒂固的文化規則，這個過程中我們往往都沒有細想。
我本人就是一個例子。許多星期以來，這件貂皮大衣原封不動地待在我紐約寓所的衣櫃裏，我忐忑不安地考慮該怎麼做。然後我的女兒們偶然發現了裝衣服的袋子，而我突然想到，不管這件大衣是怎麼製作出來的，穿上它是一種對生態有益的行爲。燒掉這件大衣無法讓死去的動物們起死回生，但穿上它至少讓它再次得到了利用。
因此，當氣溫猛降的時候，我終於把自己包裹在了舒服的貂皮裏。穿着貂皮大衣在街上走，我心裏還是有一絲不安。但我安慰自己，正如我一個女兒尖刻地指出的那樣，根本沒人知道這件貂皮大衣是不是真的。我姥姥若是聽到我女兒的話，或許會氣得在墳墓裏翻身。但我寧願對女兒的諷刺一笑置之，並且寄望於下一代皮草大衣能夠以儘可能最人道的方式製作。