Daniel Richardson

Professor Jesse Miller

ENG 110, H4

13 November 2017

 

            In his “Animals Like Us”, Hal Herzog presents a moral dilemma many people face: Should we eat animals, and if we do, how do we justify it?  Judith Black personally feels afflicted, as for years she classified herself as a vegetarian, yet would eat fish, as she did not believe them to have the same animalistic qualities of a cat, dog, or cow. But what divides the fish from other animals, or even humans? Humans and animals both have hearts, brains, and blood flowing through their bodies, they both have families, and both feel pain. It is but a word that separates them. In creating a separate nomenclature for similar groups, one inherently reclassifies the part of the population as primitive, in a direct or indirect means. To some, this separate classification facilitates the justification eating animals. Others, such as Black mediate these two groups, finding animals as humanistic and lovable. However, by convincing herself that, fish is not an animal, Black again reclassifies the population to fit her narrative, to justify her desires. To Black, realizing that fish are animals would probably be an unraveling experience. If animals are such as humans, and fish are classified as animals, where does it stop?  David Foster Wallace ponders this quandary in his “Consider the Lobster”, wondering “Why is a primitive, inarticulate form of suffering less urgent or uncomfortable for the person who’s helping inflict it by paying for the food it results in?” In other words, why is the suffering of animals less important than that of humans. It is true that Wallace is in fact referring to the processes relating to the deaths of these animals, while Black is most likely uncomfortable with the thought of eating animals. However, both thinkers in question, not always outright, examine suffering relating to “primitive” beings that we eat, both thinkers acknowledge directly or indirectly that people stand to gain from the death of animals. Be it nutrition or capitalistic gain. The dilemma in question, the unraveling chain is especially difficult to solve because, well you “eat or die”. In addition, rethinking eating habits would require the undermining of a whole separate industry.