Last week I had the good fortune of stumbling upon a pair of hand carved ivory cufflinks, I acquired them immediately. I am not 100% convinced they are real ivory, but at the price I paid I will get over it if they are faux or bone (however, upon trying the burning needle test they seemed to be the real thing). Which I figure that at a minimum they are bone. Either way, I will still wear them and they are still pretty badass. And let’s for the sake of this piece assume that they are real ivory.
But on to my point. I posted a photo on my Instagram the other day of the cufflinks and the response was mixed. Now, admittedly, the people speaking up against them are some of my friends who were just joking around. But, I am sure there are people out there who would say those things in a serious manner. Which brings up the question of should Ivory (or other questionably unethical/illegal materials) be worn?
First, as a bit of background; to my knowledge, the actual possession of ivory here in the United States is not illegal, so I am in the clear on that (perhaps my title for this piece is misleading?). And I believe the cufflinks have been around for a while, but I have no idea how to date them, there is a chance they were imported before there were any type of laws against the ivory trade. With that said, the trading, sales and importation of certain types of ivory is illegal. If in fact the ivory I have is real, I have no idea what animal it came from (whale, elephant etc) and obviously have no idea if it was harvested and imported legally or illegally. But still looming is the ethical debate.
Animal rights activists would likely snarl at my ivory cufflinks. The cufflinks support an illegal and unethical black market for ivory products, the activists would likely argue. They would then probably go on to say that innocent animals are slaughtered solely for their ivory. I don’t mean to put words in these people’s mouths but we all know how their script goes. And to an extent I agree with them. The slaughter of innocent animals just for the byproduct of their demise is less than ideal; especially when said slaughter is done in a way that does not minimize the suffering of the animal.
But then I think to myself, ‘wait, isn’t slaughtering animals (and pretty much anything else that we humans can get our hands on) for their resources been what humans have been doing for millennia?’ And to that the answer is unequivocally ‘yes.’ Perhaps an overused and simplistic argument, but a solid one in my eyes nonetheless. Yet I quest for further justification. Fortunately, that I seek, I am rewarded with.
When it comes down to it, these ivory cufflinks do nothing to influence the global demand for ivory (unless millions of you read this and decide you need a pair of ivory cufflinks for yourself, which much to my dismay only thousands will read this) and to purchase them second-hand from some collectibles shop does nothing to support any form of a black market for ivory. Furthermore, these cufflinks were likely imported at a time when ivory was less frowned upon and much more commonplace. And lastly, then there is always the possibility that the ivory used for these cufflinks was obtained, imported and sold both legally and ethically. And if that is the case you can damn well bet I will be telling any haters to go f*ck themselves, in less coarse words of course.
So what do I think? I think that I will continue wearing my ivory cufflinks until they break, which will hopefully never happen. If they have not broken or been misplaced when I expire many decades down the line they will pass down my line. For these cufflinks are here to stay. Haters be damned.
-JLJ (@FYGblog)
PS – feel free to sound off your thoughts in the comments section.
Seriously – how is there an entire article about the ethics of owning ivory without once using the words “endangered species.”
The writer seems pretty calloused to such arguments.
Elephants are intelligent animals capable of communication both vocally with each other and through touch, they use tools, they recognize themselves (in a mirror) and others. Elephants also have tight communities and mate for life. And are able to grieve for their dead.
And human beings slaughter them and leave their enormous carcasses to rot merely so they can get their tusks.
Humans have been doing it forever is both a ridiculous argument and a false one. It is ridiculous because there are many things humans have done forever that we have grown past. We no longer live in caves, we no longer cook merely by fire, we have grown advances social structures. We evolve. It is a false one because for most of history humans didn’t just hunt and wastefully leave carcasses to rot for a mass economy of douche bags who want real ivory despite no one being able to tell the difference except BY FIRE.
So, yes, you are a bad person. Yes, you are supporting the slaughter of intelligent creatures for very little gain. Yes, it is different from eating beef because cows are not endangered, the entirety of their bodies are used, and sustenance is a different cause then accessories that, again, the value of can only be determined BY FIRE.
This post is a couple years old, and i doubt you care about it at this point, but i don’t see anything wrong with it. If they were brought in illegally they would have been insanely expensive to the point that if they weren’t real ivory you would have been outraged. So presuming they are real ivory its older, before any laws were passed that banned its trade, so legally you haven’t done anything wrong and since you didn’t buy illegal ivory you weren’t supporting the black market ivory trade, so ethically you did nothing wrong.
P.S. Betsy, i agree it is kind of pointless to have real ivory considering how hard it is to tell it apart from fakes, but it is nice to have, like the difference between a solid gold ring and gold plated tin, they might look the same, the gold plating is just an imitation none the less.
Likewise, whilst this may be an old thread, I think you’re missing the point so I will take up your offer to share my thoughts.
The damage you cause is precisely because you think they ‘are’ ivory and that wearing them is ‘badass’. This connection is exactly what is driving animals of all shapes and sizes across the world to extinction (with no exaggeration whatsoever). Whether it’s a ‘red ivory’ carving from the near extinct helmeted hornbill, manta ray gills, elephant ivory, pangolin scales, the list is practically endless – all of the demand for these products is because one way or another they are deemed as desirable by a market that cannot be satiated sustainably.
So in a website aimed at fashion advice (which I personally benefitted when desperately needing advice for shoes on a shopping trip a few days ago – thanks!), the fact that in a place of influence you promote the wearing of body parts of an incredible and endangered species as ‘badass’ not ‘abhorrent’ is just as damaging as contributing directly to the trade.
Likewise, whilst this may be an old thread, I think you’re missing the point so I will take up your offer to share my thoughts.
The damage you cause is precisely because you think they ‘are’ ivory and that wearing them is ‘badass’. This connection is exactly what is driving animals of all shapes and sizes across the world to extinction (with no exaggeration whatsoever). Whether it’s a ‘red ivory’ carving from the near extinct helmeted hornbill, manta ray gills, elephant ivory, pangolin scales, the list is practically endless – all of the demand for these products is because one way or another they are deemed as desirable by a market that cannot be satiated sustainably.
So in a website aimed at fashion advice (which I personally benefitted when desperately needing advice for shoes on a shopping trip a few days ago – thanks!), the fact that in a place of influence you promote the wearing of body parts of an incredible and endangered species as ‘badass’ not ‘abhorrent’ is just as damaging as contributing directly to the trade.
You do have a voice – more than most people who don’t run a public website, and you have the power to change trends as part of the social movement that is ‘the Internet’, conservation efforts aside, removing the demand (or even the ‘cultural demand’) is the most important factor to protect species that are killed for their body parts 🙂
We can come up with all manner of points pro and against these cuff links – as long as they are seen as “cool”, people will buy them.
If we all make ivory less cool, then the demand for it would fall.
Your article conveys your thoughts as an individual. If you realize the influence that you have upon the casual reader, you could start to think about the wider impact that you could have and think and act accordingly.