9:00am | The other day I read this lbpost.com story by Judy & Kate regarding a “game” called Lobster Zone. My piece is not a redux of that story but a personal reaction to some of the issues in question, so for background, please see Judy & Kate’s detailed coverage.

I’d never heard of Lobster Zone until a couple of weeks ago, when a vegan friend asked if I knew anything about the then-upcoming protests. I didn’t follow up on it, and it wasn’t until seeing the above-mentioned story that I came to learn Lobster Zone wasn’t a physical place but a “game” that allows patrons to take a (mechanical) hand in dropping live lobsters into boiling water.

For context, I am not a vegetarian, although like almost everyone on Earth I draw a line between what I will consume and what I won’t. Having always prided myself (not always justifiably) on being an independent thinker, two decades ago it occurred to me that unthinking inheritance of my culture’s gustatory mores did not qualify as independent thought, and so I ought to cultivate my own logic for what I will and will not eat. How, for example, could I justify eating pig and not dog once I came to understand that pigs were apparently capable of the same emotional, intellectual, and personality ranges as dogs, considering that it was those very qualities that made the idea of eating dog so abhorrent to me?

So I drew my own line, to wit, that I did not wish to contribute to the death industry of any creature seemingly capable of any level of thought/feeling/individualism. For me that included the great apes and cetaceans on “down” through pigs, dogs, etc., to a level typified (for my purposes here) by ruminants. In case you’re thinking about inviting me to dinner, I will eat fowl and most fish—including some shellfish (e.g., shrimp). I’m a “no” on lobster because I’ve heard there’s some evidence they might rightly be placed above my line. That’s not primarily why I’m anti-Lobster Zone; I’ll come to that anon.

First, let me expound on a “yes.” I’m okay with eating chicken because in the four months of my life during which I lived in close proximity with chickens, I never saw anything (nor have I heard anything since) to lead me to believe they have a phenomenological experience—of pain or anything else—that is in any pragmatic sense what we would call consciousness. Nonetheless, I would have been 100% in favor Proposition 2, the “Standards for Confining Farm Animals” initiative that in 2008 we overwhelmingly passed into law, even had it applied only to chickens, for a very simple reason: since we can’t really know the experience of another living creature, even if we choose to use that creature for our needs, in the event the creature can experience suffering, we ought to take the obvious available steps to avoid causing that suffering.

And so, while I don’t eat beef, I’d feel a lot better about the cattle industry if all cows therein were allowed to have nice, natural lifestyles before being brought to slaughter. To me, quality of life is the priority—much more important than quantity. “First, do no harm” is a slogan by which I try to live—and I feel pretty sure our society would be better were the slogan to gain the popularity of, say, “In God We Trust.”

So you may have some sense of why I find Lobster Zone so repugnant: because it turns one of the worst of human traits—wanton disregard for the possible suffering of our fellow animals—into an amusement. Drop your money in the slot, drop a living creature to death by scalding. What fun!

Of course, death by scalding is the standard fate of most (if not all) lobsters brought to your table even at restaurants which would never think of installing such a tawdry gimmick on their premises. While the amusement aspect may be lacking, the corpus delicti is the same, and equally objectionable on that score. But because Lobster Zone seemingly celebrates human lack of concern for potential cruelty, somehow that seems worse, and even more worth protesting.

I will say this for Lobster Zone: if there’s validity in the criticism that the industrialization of the food industry keeps us too far removed from our food sources—that, for example, fewer people would eat meat if they were confronted with the blood-and-guts reality behind it—Lobster Zone has the relative merit of at least making the carnivore in question do his/her own killing. However, when the trappings of such killing are dressed up to be reminiscent of one of those little cranes you try to maneuver to get that adorable stuffed animal your girlfriend would just love (while she’s off somewhere playing skee-ball to win tickets to buy you that mini Packers helmet you’ve had your eye on), the relative merit in question is relatively muted.

Whatever the case, apparently Lobster Zone has been chased out of Long Beach, and I have to believe that Long Beach is greater for the loss. Can anyone really argue we are not made greater by taking steps to minimize potential suffering?

And then there’s this auxiliary point: your protests can make a difference. Where Lobster Zone is gone, it’s because enough good citizens were willing to stand up and make their voices heard. So speak up! Even if your outspoken numbers are too small initially to bring about change, you may influence others to join you in the chorus, to the point where your song can no longer be tuned out.

Thus do we serenade Lobster Zone: Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, hey hey, goodbye.

Footnotes
1Do you eat humans? No? Then you, too, draw a line somewhere.
2Re “death industry”: my pertinent consumer choices are not confined to the edible. I will not, for example, buy new leather products.
3Without attempting an exhaustive list, also on my “no” list are squid/octopus/cuttlefish, the equine, the ursine, the phocine, the corvine, the psittacine.
4But still not great about it, partly because of its deleterious environmental impact.
5Or at least parts of Long Beach. I have no idea how many establishments carried or carry Lobster Zone.