First draft
Reconsidering the Lobster
Earlier this year I read an essay called “Consider the Lobster.” This was written by David Foster Wallace who had a very interesting topic that he was trying to bring to our attention. Basically, he wants you to consider the lobster, because I don’t think a lot of us do. Do we have the right to boil a living creature? What does this say about our society and individual Morales? Reading “Consider the Lobster,” the interview featuring the mortician Caitlin Doughty, and “Animals Like Us,” there are some complex concepts that can be drawn out. I still agree with everything I agreed in after our earlier readings and conversation. I still agree that eating lobsters the way we do is wrong but now I have changed how strongly I believe that opinion. It is a difficult thing to process but like most people we have eaten them this way for years, so why worry now. In the natural world wolves will circle a deer until it’s tired and then proceed to eat it by ripping it apart while it’s still alive, that’s a very hard way to go. A lobster in a pot being boiled alive really doesn’t have chance though, now does it? I think as a society we overlook these hard choices because it’s easier and we don’t want to face them. As people we like to think of ourselves as pristine individuals, but when our Morales and values are tested, we run away as fast as we can. Should we care more about what we eat and just give a little more thought to it, but why would we? Maybe a little less lobster and more vegetables would help everyone, but who really cares? These are hard questions that no one wants to deal with. We all need food and it affects us all in very different ways, however I believe we mistake ourselves by believing that the problem we have with food is eating it. The subject we are truly uncomfortable with that everybody shy’s away from, is death or how things die. In these three articles we dissect the true questions that will test your morals and reveal your true values. We, including me, ignore and stay away from the horrific occurrence of death not for others sake, but for ourselves.
As I mentioned before David Foster Wallace wrote an extremely fascinating piece on his perspective on a very big part of our countries and more specifically Maine’s culture. The process of preparing a lobster for consumption. Every year Maine holds a big lobster festival where people come far and wide to partake in the activities and festivities including of course, eating the lobster. If you simply break down how a lobster is cooked, it pretty straight forward.
Second draft
Reconsidering the Lobster
Earlier this year I read an essay called “Consider the Lobster.” This was written by David Foster Wallace who had a very interesting topic that he was trying to bring to our attention. Basically, he wants you to consider the lobster, because I don’t think a lot of us do. Do we have the right to boil a living creature? What does this say about our society and individual Morales? Reading “Consider the Lobster,” the interview featuring the mortician Caitlin Doughty, and “Animals Like Us,” there are some complex concepts that can be drawn out. I still agree with everything I agreed in after our earlier readings and conversation. I still agree that eating lobsters the way we do is wrong but now I have changed how strongly I believe that opinion. It is a difficult thing to process but like most people we have eaten them this way for years, so why worry now. In the natural world wolves will circle a deer until it’s tired and then proceed to eat it by ripping it apart while it’s still alive, that’s a very hard way to go. A lobster in a pot being boiled alive really doesn’t have chance though, now does it? I think as a society we overlook these hard choices because it’s easier and we don’t want to face them. As people we like to think of ourselves as pristine individuals, but when our Morales and values are tested, we run away as fast as we can. Should we care more about what we eat and just give a little more thought to it, but why would we? Maybe a little less lobster and more vegetables would help everyone, but who really cares? These are hard questions that no one wants to deal with. We all need food and it affects us all in very different ways, however I believe we mistake ourselves by believing that the problem we have with food is eating it. The subject we are truly uncomfortable with that everybody shy’s away from, is death or how things die. In these three articles we dissect the true questions that will test your morals and reveal your true values. We, including me, ignore and stay away from the horrific occurrence of death not for others sake, but for ourselves.
As I mentioned before David Foster Wallace wrote an extremely fascinating piece on his perspective on a very big part of our countries and more specifically Maine’s culture. The process of preparing a lobster for consumption. Every year Maine holds a big lobster festival where people come far and wide to partake in the activities and festivities including of course, eating the lobster. If you simply break down how a lobster is cooked, it pretty straight forward. You take a fully functioning living creature and plop it into a pot and cover it where the lobster sits and dies as boiling water engulfs the creature until it no more than carcass. Now imagine that there are fifty lobsters placed in a giant boiling cauldron and a crowd of hungry spectators gather around to watch as the living things get boiled alive. Personally, I would be one of those spectators, I love lobster and don’t really care how they die if I get to eat it. This should sound cruel a heartless and should sound even worse in your own head because you agree with me. That’s just all of us falling into the mainstream practices or “culture” I guess. So, you capture these animals, band them up, put them in over cluttered environments until it is convenient enough for you take snag one and boil a living creature alive. My only question is what the hell is wrong with you? Would this happen with chickens or cows? Of course, not you’d say that would be so wrong, but it’s ok to hook them up to conveyor belts and have them sent through machines where they stabbed sliced and decapitated, and some come out suffering bloody and still alive. At that moment do you think you could finish the job yourself, could you kill that animal, or would you be a coward and run away from death. Just like you do when you put the pot cover over that lobster’s head because it makes you uncomfortable. This might be an extreme circumstance, but death is handled very differently through people’s different perspectives.
In “Animals Like Us,” Hal Herzog talks about his struggle with staying with a vegetarian lifestyle. Throughout the text he fails but also begins to ask a lot of questions. My favorite is when Herzog on page four shows how perspective is important. Herzog has a friend with pet Boa Constrictor who was accused that he feeds cats to it. Now this would be horrifying if someone fed a common house cat to a boa constrictor. That is inhumane and downright sickening. This rumor is quickly denied. This gets Herzog thinking. Do we have the right to cage up natural predator like we commonly do and let cats roam around even though they kill as well? Herzog points out that all pet cats in the world are fed by their owners which adds up to 3 million chickens a day. It’s a shame that all those chickens die for our more favorited pet cats. A medium sized boa constrictor however only eats five pounds of food a year. Cats also eat ten times more creatures throughout their life so why do they get freedom while snakes don’t? Cats eat birds and mice which in a lot of homes are some people’s family loved pets. Why does a cat get to kill freely, and a snake does not?
Final Draft
Brett Miller
Professor Jesse Miller
Eng-110 (H-6)
6 November 2018
Reconsidering the Lobster
Earlier this year I read an essay called “Consider the Lobster.” This was written by David Foster Wallace who had a very interesting topic that he was trying to bring to our attention. Wallace asked us to consider the lobster. Living on the coast of Maine, I don’t think a lot of us do. “Consider the Lobster,” the interview featuring the mortician Caitlin Doughty, and “Animals Like Us,” cause the reader to ask themselves some tough questions about our New England delicacy. How do we choose what lives and what dies? Do we have the right to boil a living creature? What does this say about our society and individual morales?
My opinions from our earlier readings and conversations in class have not changed. I still agree that eating lobsters the way we do is wrong, and these recent articles have only strengthened my opinion. However, I now find myself in an ethical dilemma. Why does this cruel treatment of lobsters not stop me from continuing to eat them? I think as a society we overlook these hard choices because it’s easier and we don’t want to face them. As people we like to think of ourselves as morally good individuals, but when faced with a topic like this, we tend to turn a blind eye. It seems that the subject we are truly uncomfortable with is death. Especially in today’s food business, the consumer tries not to think about the food we are eating as dead. Because most people are not hunting their food, they are able to pretend it was never alive. In these three articles we dissect the true questions that will test your morals and reveal your true values. We, including me, ignore and stay away from the horrific occurrence of death not for others sake, but for ourselves.
As I mentioned before, David Foster Wallace wrote an extremely fascinating piece on the brutal process of preparing a lobster for consumption. This topic is particularly fascinating due to our geographical location. Every year Maine holds a big lobster festival where people come far and wide to partake in the activities and festivities including of course, eating the lobster. Cooking a lobster is pretty straightforward. All you need to do is place the lobsters in a pot of boiling water. It seems simple enough. However, when you take into account David Foster Wallace’s perspective, the process becomes inhumane. Think about it. You take a fully functioning, living creature and plop it into a covered pot where the lobster sits and dies as boiling water engulfs the creature as it suffers a slow, cruel death. Now imagine that there are fifty lobsters placed in a giant boiling cauldron and a crowd of hungry spectators gather around to watch as the living things get boiled alive. The idea takes on a violent nature. Personally, I would be one of those spectators. I love lobster and have never really cared how they die as long as I get to eat it. This sounds cruel and heartless, but that’s just all of us falling into the mainstream practices or “culture” I guess.
In the natural world wolves will circle a deer until it’s tired and then proceed to eat it by ripping it apart while it’s still alive. That’s a very hard way to go. I find myself questioning which form of death is worse. The deer has the opportunity to run but a lobster in a pot being boiled alive really doesn’t have chance, does it? Think about free range chickens or cows. Many have campaigned for these animals to get to live a full and happy life before being slaughtered. Lobsters don’t get that choice. We capture these animals, band them up, and put them in over cluttered environments until a customer orders one to be boiled alive. For some reason we value one creatures life over another. What makes a chicken better than a lobster and what gives us the right to decide which creatures get happy lives and which don’t?
In “Animals Like Us,” Hal Herzog talks about his struggle with staying with a vegetarian lifestyle. Throughout the text he fails but also begins to ask a lot of questions. My favorite is when Herzog on page four shows how perspective is important. Herzog has a friend with pet Boa Constrictor who was accused of feeding cats to it. Now this would be horrifying if someone fed a common house cat to a boa constrictor. That is inhumane and downright sickening. This rumor is quickly denied. This gets Herzog thinking. Do we have the right to cage up a natural predator like we commonly do and let cats roam around even though they kill as well? Herzog points out that all pet cats in the world are fed by their owners which adds up to 3 million chickens a day. It’s a shame that all those chickens die for our more favorited pet cats. A medium sized boa constrictor however only eats five pounds of food a year. Cats also eat ten times more creatures throughout their life so why do they get freedom while snakes don’t? Cats eat birds and mice which in a lot of homes are some people’s family loved pets. Why does a cat get to kill freely, and a snake does not?
An a interview with Caitlin Doughty, a present mortician. She talks about her job and what she does. An obviously hard thing to do is be around death every day as Doughty does, but she has a different view on death. She unlike other people have no problem speaking openly about death. For most people death is an awkward and uncomfortable conversation, however Doughty feels the opposite. As Doughty talks about it she says “my philosophy is honesty, it’s liberating to talk about death honestly and openly.” Facing death makes her feel better then hiding it from it. Would it make us feel better watching the lobster boil rather then covering it with a pot? Doughty also talks about the preciousness of leaving peacefully. “Death in its natural state can be very beautiful.”
I understand that in specific cases, death can be beautiful. If someone passes in their sleep with no medical reason and it was their time to go, then that is graceful and peaceful. However, a lot of the time people are stuck in hospital beds struggling to keep going, which to me seems like a very dark and hard way to go. Doughty’s perspective seems to be more fantasy than reality. For instance, in the natural world lobsters are torn apart by groups of seagulls or other predators. Which death is more peaceful? Is letting lobsters getting eaten alive better than being boiled alive?
These are questions we must face and they surely aren’t easy. We must look inside ourselves and decide whether we face reality or keep living in our little fantasy. Is cooking an animal alive morally right even if it is for consumption? Why do we get to choose what and who has the right to kill and die? Has our society perceived death wrong and is Doughty’s philosophy a realistic perspective on the dreaded end? These questions can only be answered by you alone.
