If I could invite David Foster Wallace into the discussion in our classroom I would have quite a few questions for him about his essay. Starting with what sparked his interest in the topic of cooking lobster and the pain they may or may not feel. I personally love to eat meat and I am aware of the unfortunate pain the animals have to go through in order for us to eat it, but when it comes to eating it I don’t find myself feeling guilty because I am not seeing the animal suffering while I cook it. Lobster, on the other hand, in order for it to be fresh you have to boil it alive and I find that horrifying. Which leads me to some of my other questions like does David feel guilty about eating lobster? If so did learning that they may not feel the pain change his mindset? Does he believe that boiling the lobster is the best option or does he think that using a knife is a better solution? Or what about suffocating it with salt water as he mentioned? These are all solutions, but I personally couldn’t get myself to do any of it.
A larger issue out there that first comes to mind is the scandal that occurred earlier this year at one of the Fair Oaks Farm locations where a graphic video was released of the workers harming and starving the cows. The major question that lies with that is should we continue to use their dairy products after seeing how poorly these cows are being treated? What about should we even be using dairy products in general? It was a horrifying thing to watch and although lobsters might not feel pain, I’m sure these cows do. Although this may be a touchy subject for some people I believe that no subject should really be out of the question for a discussion. Conversations like this should be discussed with others especially to raise awareness and questions about things that people may not be aware of. I think that you could anticipate your audience’s questions, by touching base on everything that could be important to the topic like David Foster Wallace did. He went to the festival so he was able to experience it for himself then did further research and made us aware of the facts, and different opinions from multiple sources.
