A COMFORTABLE INERTIA

by Tiffany Smith

Why knowing more does not lead to greater change

"The purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge.”


- attributed to Aristotle

The Year of Avoidance

Every January arrives with the same rituals: fresh starts, clean slates, detoxes, resolutions, self-care. We are encouraged gently, even insistently, to feel better. To recover from the strain of the holidays, the financial hangovers, the emotional labor of performing cheer around family members who have some questionable views. We are tired. Burned out. Ready to rest.

As well we should. Our brains and bodies (and bank accounts) need it. There is nothing inherently wrong with rest. The problem is what rest has become a proxy for: avoidance.

We live in an age of unprecedented access to information. Harm is no longer hidden. It is livestreamed, documented, blogged about, algorithmically arranged in our feeds. We see the violence—toward women, toward children, toward animals, toward the planet—constantly. And yet, despite being more informed than any generation before us, almost nothing changes.

We clearly do not lack knowledge; we lack the willingness to take action upon that knowledge.

So as the new year dawns, this question arises: 

New year, new… what, exactly?

Knowing Is Not Caring

This distinction matters, and maybe in a deeper way than expected.

Knowing is passive. It asks nothing of us beyond acknowledgement. Caring, on the other hand, requires action. It requires that awareness alters behavior. Modern culture celebrates the first while quietly discouraging the second.

This is reflected in the familiar structure of our confessions:

I know fast fashion is unethical, but…


I know social media is harmful, but…


I know animal agriculture is bad, but…

The sentence always ends the same way; comfort wins.

We treat knowledge like a moral currency: something to be accumulated, displayed, and spent on a sort of cognitive absolution. As long as we can demonstrate awareness, we believe we’ve done our part. Action becomes optional. Responsibility gets passed off.

The consumption of knowledge itself can be a form of pacification.

Moral Outsourcing as a Lifestyle

Convenience is the most effective moral anesthetic ever invented.

Much of modern life is organized around moral outsourcing. We delegate ethical responsibility to systems, institutions, and abstractions so we don’t have to carry it ourselves. The familiar rationalizations of: If it were truly wrong, it would be illegal. That’s just how the system works. One person doesn’t make a difference.

Technology makes this easier than ever. Algorithms smooth the rough edges of consequences. Supply chains stretch far enough back from the consumer that harm becomes theoretical rather than personal. We know these systems are extractive, exploitative, and dehumanizing, but participation feels unavoidable, so we treat them as neutral (as “the way of the world”).

This outsourcing often masquerades as pragmatism. It’s avoidance dressed in "sustainably made” clothing. Accepting powerlessness can feel comforting. Building a personal ethical framework, and living inside it, is inconvenient in a world designed to reward compliance.

Nowhere is this tension clearer than in conversations about animals.

Why Discomfort Triggers Defensiveness

Most people readily admit that factory farming is cruel. They know slaughterhouses exist. They know animals suffer. And yet, thanks to modern convenience, this apocalyptic harm is carefully quarantined from daily behavior. The harm is acknowledged abstractly, while the benefits (taste, habit, convenience) remain immediate and personal; it’s why someone can rail against fur while wearing leather.

This dissonance reveals itself socially. When someone asks if you’re vegan, before you can answer they often respond with a list of reasons why they could never be, showing no curiosity in your views. They do not ask questions in good faith. They do not pause to listen. Instead, they preemptively defend themselves, as if accused, and use you as their personal confessor.

This reaction is instructive.

Defensiveness is not evidence of disagreement. It is evidence of internal conflict.

People are not responding to what you say; they are responding to what your existence implies. The presence of someone who has aligned their behavior with their stated values forces an uncomfortable question: 

If living in integrity is possible, then why am I not doing it?

Comfort Culture vs Ethical Adulthood

Rather than sit with that discomfort, many people redirect it outward. They blame “the system.” They accuse others of extremism. They invoke nuance as a shield. Tone policing emerges when moral arguments cannot be refuted on substance.

This pattern is not unique to animal ethics. It appears wherever action would require meaningful change. We celebrate the idea of justice as long as it remains symbolic: hashtags, posts, declarations. But when justice demands inconvenience, sacrifice, or consistency, it becomes “too much.”

Human rights are easier to endorse than animal rights because, for most people, they require less behavioral disruption. You can believe racism is wrong without changing what you eat, wear, or buy. You can signal solidarity without restructuring your life. The same is not true when exploitation is embedded in daily consumption.

This is where our culture of comfort collides with ethical adulthood.

The Quiet Cost of Looking Away


We have been trained to equate discomfort with harm, to believe that feeling bad is itself a moral injury. But remove the value judgment and we can see what discomfort truly is: information. It signals that something we accept may be incompatible with what we claim to value.

We increasingly treat discomfort as something to be avoided at all costs. We demand gentleness from truth and worry more about the delivery than the meaning. We ask that injustice be explained softly, politely, without disrupting our sense of self. When that doesn’t happen, we blame the messenger.

This infantilization of ethics keeps us stuck. Growth, by definition, is uncomfortable. Birth is painful. Knowing can feel like an open wound. 

No meaningful transformation occurs without friction.

And while we debate tone and intention, the consequences of inaction continue quietly. Rain forests are cleared to make room for livestock. Workers are injured and traumatized in slaughterhouses. Animals are bred, confined, and killed at scales that defy comprehension. These systems will not pause just because we feel overwhelmed.

Looking away does not stop the machinery. It allows it to run uninterrupted.

An Invitation

This is not a call for purity. Perfection is neither possible nor required. This is a call for honesty. Acknowledging that something is wrong while continuing to support and benefit from it is participation. No choice is neutral.

The work does not begin when we learn something new. It begins when we stop protecting ourselves from the discomfort of acting on that knowledge.

The question therefore is not, “What else do you need to be shown?”


It becomes, “What are you already aware of that you choose to ignore?”

In a broader sense, it’s vital to examine who benefits from your discomfort being rationalized and pacified. What would change if you stopped demanding comfort from truth? 

What would happen if you chose truth over convenience?