Davis Post 6 (Week 7)

In chapter 6 of Eating Animals, "Slices of Paradise/Pieces of Shit," the reader is presented with a slew of powerful moments detailing the inner-workings of the meat packing industry, particularly Safran Foer's account of a guided tour through one plant in particular, Paradise Locker Meats. The most troubling statement, in my opinion, occurs near the end of the author's tour and is delivered by the plant's owner, Mario Fantasma, in response to what Safran Foer considers to be "perhaps the most obvious question....'do you like pigs?'" Fantasma's response is this: "You got to put them down. It's kind of a mental thing." The answer suggests a necessary conditioning of plant workers' psyches to simply accept their brutal slaughtering of animals as an unavoidable casualty. I find this particularly impactful as a rare example of the negative consequences that the savage processes of the meat trade can affect humans, citing an inherent objectification of animals as a job requirement.