Journal #1
Question 1: Imagine you could invite David Foster Wallace to the discussion in our classroom. What questions would you ask him about this essay?
In David Foster Wallace’s essay, “Consider the Lobster” the reader is presented with ethical questions of the culture surrounding lobster eating, a tradition that is celebrated in Maine because of their abundance. Wallace pokes fun at locals and tourists who attend the Maine Lobster Festival by describing ridiculous outfits and advertising. If I could have a discussion with Wallace about his essay, I would ask him his opinion on boiling lobsters to death in our kitchens. Do you think that this is ethical? At one point Wallace draws comparison to a made up festival in which live cattle are slaughtered on the World’s Largest Killing Floor. Is this the same? Why do you think that we, as a society, do not see it the same way? Does it have to do with blood or maybe the fact that we have more empathy for animals with features/faces similar to our own (which lobsters clearly don’t)? What did you find so disturbing about the MLF when you attended? How did you think an essay asking such ethical questions would be received in a magazine dedicated to food?
Question 2: Use that experience to think about larger issues, specifically, what are the limits of a written discussion? How may you anticipate your audience’s questions when you write?
It is difficult to have a written discussion because the conversation and flow of thoughts are stalled. In spoken conversation, it is easier to react to each others responses and ask questions as they come up. In a written discussion, the person responding to the questions must try to anticipate “pop-up” questions that the reader might have and address them. When someone authors a piece of writing, they ideally want to be clear and anticipate some of these “pop-up” questions. The author must become the reader and revisit their writing from this perspective in order to ask themselves possible questions. Since we can’t possibly read our own writing without some bias, it is helpful to have peers read the work and ask questions. You can address these questions before submitting or publishing a piece.
Journal #16
Reconsider the Lobster
Reading “Considering the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace through the lense of project three has allowed me to look further into the authors argument about American values. DFW describes the views of members of PETA and those of Maine residents. The facts that they choose to believe about the lobster are the ones that they feel the most comfortable with. For Mainers, lobsters are a part of their lives and livelihood. For example, the cab driver who DFW comes in contact with during his visit, has family who relies on lobster fishing for money. Because he values the consumption of lobster, he chooses to believe that the lobsters can’t feel pain even if the facts say otherwise. People who protest the eating of lobster most likely do not rely on it or even like to eat it, so they are content without it. These people do not see the value in lobsters as a food source, so they are against boiling them alive. People can be selfish in the sense that they will believe what they want to believe and shield themselves from the truth as long as it doesn’t make them feel guilty. Lobsters are different from other animals that we eat because we kill them at home. We do not kill cows or pigs in our own homes because of the blood and the fact that they are too similar to us to be able to inflict that pain on them. They make noises of pain that we empathize with, so we give others this horrid job to put it “out of sight, out of mind”. These animals are different than the lobster in their reaction to being killed, but we still eat these animals. As long as we do not see the blood that we can empathize with and “feel” the pain, then we are okay with pretending that nothing bad happened between the farm and the plate.
