In what I thought to be an article about a festival, I realized early on that Wallace was talking about the consumption of lobster and the ethical issues that come with cooking it. Wallace goes on explaining the different ways of making lobster, and then goes into detail about boiling a lobster. Almost toward the end of that description, Wallace mentions something that not everyone knows about; the lobsters are boiled alive. Wallace wants to inform his readers of the immorality of cooking the lobster and it is up to the reader to come up with their own conclusion on whether it is right or wrong.
There are many people who are not aware about the slaughtering process of the animals that we consume. This is a problem caused by the lack of priority that the school systems put on environmental studies. Students who are interested on the subject must take their own initiative to learn more about the effects that humans have on the environment. People who are more conscience of the impact that they have on the world are likely to live a more eco-friendly life.
Many people argue that meat consumption is something natural and will never change simply because humans started out as hunter-gatherers. Little do they know, shortly after the agricultural revolution the human population started to increase. The revolution was that humans no longer had to depend on hunting, they could now grow their own crops and this eventually led to the start of civilization.
So is it ethical to boil lobsters for the sole purpose of consumption?