Analysis of Foer’s Argument in Eating Animals Essay
Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals raises a very important problem of the contemporary food culture, food habits, farming and food industry, which are closely intertwined. However, people often ignore of where their food actually comes from. They just eat because they just need the food for living. However, Foer has tried to have a deeper look beyond his plate to find out where and how the food, namely meat, comes to his plate. In the course of a long study, Foer observed conditions of raising animals and their slaughtering. Eventually, he came to the conclusion to write the book on his experience to share his findings with the public, although his book turned out to be quite subjective since the author intentionally or not imposes his view on readers leaving them little options for critical evaluation of what they learn from his book.
In fact, Foer attempts to persuade the audience in the righteousness of his position in regard to the contemporary food industry and he uses diverse tools to enhance his position and to persuade his audience to take his side. Ironically, the author pretends he does not really want to make readers to take any decision to change their lifestyle or attitudes but his books seems to be aiming at changing the audience’s lifestyle and turning every one into a veg. even though Foer points out that he does not have such intention, but his book is full of facts which clearly indicate to his repulsion of the very idea of eating meat and this idea he conveys directly to readers via his book.
The main argument Foer develops in his book is the severe criticism of the contemporary conventional farming and food industry, which the author believe violate animal rights and put animals into unbearable position during their lifetime and the moment of their slaughtering. Hence, the main point Foer leads to is the necessity of changing contemporary food habits to prevent sufferings of animals. At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that animals are the primary concern of the author, who, by the way, pays little attention to his own species, humans and their needs. For instance, he does not even try to investigate why people eat meat and what are the reasons for such an evolutionary trend in the food culture of humans.
Instead of the in-depth analysis of findings of his study, the author uses amply ethos and pathos as well as logos, although the logos seems to be the weakest point in his book. The use of ethos is not excessive but sufficient to show the audience that the author is unlikely to ever eat meat or other products containing animal ingredients again. For instance, the author refers to his personal feelings and emotions which he experienced, while collecting materials for his book. He recalls his shock, when he observed animals, who, as he states, suffered being raised in terrible conditions and slaughter and dismembered, while they were still alive.
In addition, he refers to the history of his family and emphasizes that people should not overestimate the significance of food in their life, although such a position seems to be quite strange, taking into consideration the fact that his grandmother was almost starved to death in the Nazi concentration camp. Nevertheless, the author argues that his grandmother is just the victim of her admiration with food because of her negative experience in the past. However, the objective analysis of his grand-mother behavior could have revealed the reason why people actually consume meat.
Also the author points out that he started his research, when he became the father for the first time. This fact may seem to be unimportant but, as the matter of fact, it gives insight to the main driver for writing the book. The author acted impulsively, when he decided to conduct the study. He has not conducted such studies before and, therefore, he has not had any experience in this field. Consequently, a priori his findings and conclusions could not be reliable and valid in scientific terms.
The author frequently appeals to emotions of the audience and, more important, Foer attempts to evoke strong emotions in the audience to raise readers’ sympathy to animals, their sufferings and terrible death. In such a way, he compensates the lack of objective analysis by emotional appeals.
Moreover, the author often tends to exaggerate sufferings of animals because he extrapolates human feelings and physiological characteristics on animals. In fact, he ignores the fact that animals, at least some of them, are different from humans. Anyway, animals are different species compared to humans and they have different physiology and psychosomatic system.
Furthermore, Foer attempts to use logos to persuade the audience that eating meat and slaughtering animals are unacceptable practices because they cause too much sufferings and unnecessary deaths. On the other hand, the author totally ignores the fact that humans need animal proteins and other nutritional elements which can be found in animal products. Therefore, people do need to consume animals, whether one likes it or not. In other words, physiologically, humans have to eat meat, although ethically such act may be quite controversial.
In addition, the weak point of Foer logos as well as the entire book is the lack of the analysis of an alternative view on eating animals. He presents what he calls findings of his study but his study cannot be taken serious in scientific terms because there is no testing of his hypothesis and findings. More important there is no analysis of his findings. He just presents his findings, numerous facts concerning animals slaughtering and farming procedures but there is no analysis of those processes. In fact, the author just tells that eating animals is wrong just because he does not like it or because he is appalled by what he witnessed during his observations. However, one cannot change his/her lifestyle just because of the author’s sentiments, while sentiments prevail throughout the book.
Thus, Foer’s book aims at persuading the audience in the necessity to stop eating animals. However, the author’s argument is highly emotional, while his appeal to reason is weak and highly subjective.
