"If slaughterhouses had glass walls the whole world would be vegetarian"
About this Quote
The intent isn’t polite persuasion. It’s a moral lever aimed at the hinge point of contemporary eating: cognitive dissonance. McCartney frames vegetarianism not as niche lifestyle branding but as the default human response once denial is removed. That’s the subtext: meat-eating persists less because people are cruel than because systems are built to keep cruelty invisible, sanitized, and professionally managed. Her phrasing assumes empathy is latent; it just needs an unobstructed view.
Context matters. McCartney, a photographer, thinks in images, and that’s the quote’s real engine. It’s not a data point about emissions or health; it’s an argument about witnessing. In an era when agribusiness scaled slaughter into an industrial process, “glass walls” reads like a demand for documentary truth: if you can package meat like a clean product, you should also be willing to show its making. The cultural punch lands because it targets a modern taboo: not killing, but seeing.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
McCartney, Linda. (2026, January 15). If slaughterhouses had glass walls the whole world would be vegetarian. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-slaughterhouses-had-glass-walls-the-whole-158887/
Chicago Style
McCartney, Linda. "If slaughterhouses had glass walls the whole world would be vegetarian." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-slaughterhouses-had-glass-walls-the-whole-158887/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If slaughterhouses had glass walls the whole world would be vegetarian." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-slaughterhouses-had-glass-walls-the-whole-158887/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.








