Brutal Forgetting

I've just become aware of Jonathan Safran Foer's new book, Eating Animals and am really looking forward to reading it.



There's a sentence in the book's description that really grabs me, "Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits-from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth-and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting." Brutal forgetting. What a very precise description. I've been thinking about this act a lot recently, with regard to more than just dietary practices, and have been labeling it "compartmentalizing" or "wishful compartmentalizing". But that doesn't really put a fine point on what I want to express.

How satisfying to finally have the right words.