Is this an attempt at satire? I mean, the lobster actually reacts to imminent death whereas you've chosen to personify inanimate and already dead lettuce. Do you believe they are the same? I am baffled.
Consider the Lobster (2004) [pdf]
31–40 of 41 posts
Re: Consider the Lobster (2004) [pdf]
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one argues there against eating them, but the cruelty of boiling them alive (as they are sentient).
Do you put think that putting acid into the wounds of a sentient organism is cruel? Then we must jail anybody using vinegar in their lattice also. Plants are sentient organisms!. How does it feel if we take the previous attempt of emotional manipulation and substitute that for this? "If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the cabbage will sometimes jump trying to escape its destine or even to…
Well, a pretty obvious objection to your reductio is that cabbage doesn't do any of that.
Re: Consider the Lobster (2004) [pdf]
#33This may be the most gen-x piece of writing ever. It reminds me of early Simpson's episodes. The juxtapositions of pointless and detailed erudition, obvious humor and subtle satire, and breaking the fourth-wall moral mirror. It's equal parts brilliant, snarky and trivial. I generally find DFW unbearably pretentious, but there is something sublime about an article like this getting published, with all of those footnot…
Pretentious means to pretend to be someone/something one is not. DFW was definitely as brilliant as he "appeared to be".
I won't get into details because it is very personal, but DFW did something staggeringly generous and selfless and thoughtful for a close friend of mine -- a friend who was also a complete stranger to DFW at the time.
The pat "DWF/pretentious" critique which is heard from time to time seems to be to be pretty ignorant of what he wrote, why he wrote, and who he was. And that little insight I got of him gave me a deeper appreciation for what he published.
Re: Consider the Lobster (2004) [pdf]
#34The morality of meat consumption is something I've struggled with in the past as well. If I'm being completely honest the reason I've never stopped is simply convenience in both macro and micro nutrient availability. This has completely put me off lobster though, won't lie.
Other fat sources are healthier, and other protein sources are less perishable/risky. It is annoying to abstain meat in most restaurants, but this is rapidly improving. My own sweet spot compromise is ovo-lacto-pescatarianism. I eat lots of nuts, and supplement protein when I work out. Sugar being poisonous, I mostly substitute fats for calories. Works for me anyhow, once I got used to it. Maybe insects will be a thi…
Vegetables and fruit rank next to poultry on the top of the food pathogen list. Raw flour can and does carry Salmonella. Food pathogenicity is where you think it will be and often where you don't think about it at all.
Re: Consider the Lobster (2004) [pdf]
#35This may be the most gen-x piece of writing ever. It reminds me of early Simpson's episodes. The juxtapositions of pointless and detailed erudition, obvious humor and subtle satire, and breaking the fourth-wall moral mirror. It's equal parts brilliant, snarky and trivial. I generally find DFW unbearably pretentious, but there is something sublime about an article like this getting published, with all of those footnot…
Pretentious means to pretend to be someone/something one is not. DFW was definitely as brilliant as he "appeared to be". I won't get into details because it is very personal, but DFW did something staggeringly generous and selfless and thoughtful for a close friend of mine -- a friend who was also a complete stranger to DFW at the time. The pat "DWF/pretentious" critique which is heard from time to time seems to be t…
"DWF/pretentious" is about people who brag about reading his work and how smart you have to be to understand it, not DFW himself.
Re: Consider the Lobster (2004) [pdf]
#36This may be the most gen-x piece of writing ever. It reminds me of early Simpson's episodes. The juxtapositions of pointless and detailed erudition, obvious humor and subtle satire, and breaking the fourth-wall moral mirror. It's equal parts brilliant, snarky and trivial. I generally find DFW unbearably pretentious, but there is something sublime about an article like this getting published, with all of those footnot…
Pretentious means to pretend to be someone/something one is not. DFW was definitely as brilliant as he "appeared to be". I won't get into details because it is very personal, but DFW did something staggeringly generous and selfless and thoughtful for a close friend of mine -- a friend who was also a complete stranger to DFW at the time. The pat "DWF/pretentious" critique which is heard from time to time seems to be t…
I am not trying to speak ill of the dead. I am expressing my opinion on their work. The work of an artist is not immune to criticism because they were a nice person.
I read Ian M. Banks for the first time recently. About halfway through "Player of Games" I realized what an enormous talent that man has for writing. It snuck up on me, it took me by surprise. I think of the Italian word Sprezzatura and the Wikipedia summary: "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it". In my estimation Banks does this, he artfully conceals just how good he is at what he is doing.
In contrast, when I read DFW I feel as if he is poking his talent into my face over and over again. Even in this essay, I feel an overbearing sense of how good it is. The DFW writing I am familiar with lacks the ease I appreciate.
I prefer when artists downplay their ability and express it subtly. That doesn't mean that an artist must do this to be good writer or a good person. Some artists will stretch themselves to the very limit of their abilities in an attempt to express themselves in a way they find satisfying or meaningful. And if I find that tedious or unbearable to read then that doesn't necessarily make me ignorant.
Re: Consider the Lobster (2004) [pdf]
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you put think that putting acid into the wounds of a sentient organism is cruel? Then we must jail anybody using vinegar in their lattice also. Plants are sentient organisms!. How does it feel if we take the previous attempt of emotional manipulation and substitute that for this? "If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the cabbage will sometimes jump trying to escape its destine or even to…
Well, a pretty obvious objection to your reductio is that cabbage doesn't do any of that.
You are hurting the feelings of all the cabbages and cabbage patch kids in the planet now.
And lobsters are not killed clinging from dishes like that fake relate claims, (but don't allow the truth to stand in the way of a good crowfunding).
Plants are much more sophisticated organisms that most people think. What if we just don't understand their suffering when we put a photosynthetic organism in the dark for months? Plant lives matter! please send me money (or seeds).
I assume that by law octopus in UK must be killed in a fair duel now, because we didn't had enough problems with wet markets yet.
Re: Consider the Lobster (2004) [pdf]
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretentious means to pretend to be someone/something one is not. DFW was definitely as brilliant as he "appeared to be". I won't get into details because it is very personal, but DFW did something staggeringly generous and selfless and thoughtful for a close friend of mine -- a friend who was also a complete stranger to DFW at the time. The pat "DWF/pretentious" critique which is heard from time to time seems to be t…
I am not trying to speak ill of the dead. I am expressing my opinion on their work. The work of an artist is not immune to criticism because they were a nice person. I read Ian M. Banks for the first time recently. About halfway through "Player of Games" I realized what an enormous talent that man has for writing. It snuck up on me, it took me by surprise. I think of the Italian word Sprezzatura and the Wikipedia sum…
Immodesty is not pretension.
Re: Consider the Lobster (2004) [pdf]
#39[deleted]
Re: Consider the Lobster (2004) [pdf]
#40This may be the most gen-x piece of writing ever. It reminds me of early Simpson's episodes. The juxtapositions of pointless and detailed erudition, obvious humor and subtle satire, and breaking the fourth-wall moral mirror. It's equal parts brilliant, snarky and trivial. I generally find DFW unbearably pretentious, but there is something sublime about an article like this getting published, with all of those footnot…
Well, the writing is awful -as expected from a professional writer with
mainstream awards etc that are routinely handed out to people who just. can't.
write. But do it anyway. At length. Great length. On and on.
I mean the entire article could be reduced to one page, were it to be stripped of all the unberable snobbery and laughably superficial invocation of "scientific facts". As a piece of philosophical writing, it's complete shit. It puts forth its author's beliefs, straw-mans all the possible objections that the author has thought of and makes no effort to think of any ones the author doesn't have a good answer for. It makes it very obvious that the author thinks that he is one of the very few, chosen people, intellectually gifted enough to ponder these difficult, oh, difficult, questions so deeply. It makes it plain that everyone else is an idiot who doesn't know shit. The article preaches and moralises, and grandstands and my god, the voice, the smugness, the know-it-all-ness, the manic-depressive irony, the self-serving banality, is like listening to Ferris Buehler telling himself off for masturbating to his dad's porn.
And you know what? It's fucking wrong to kill lobsters (and crabs) by boiling them alive. If there's any other way to do it, then there's a better way to do it. That is my deeply held belief. But by reading this article by someone so obviously so up themselves they see the light from the other side, for a moment I doubted my belief and started thinking that I may be wrong in my convictions. Not because the article gave me any new perspective on the subject. But because it made me think: "this idiot agrees with me. Why?".