[ImPostingOnHN]

> Few people would care if you cut off a piece of steak from a hanging slab

The analogy here would be watching a live cow get slaughtered and then butchered from scratch in front of you, which I think most Western audiences (more than a few) might not like.

[Eisenstein]

A cow walks into the kitchen, it gets a captive bolt shoved into its brain with a person holding a compressed air tank. Its hide is ripped off and it is cut into two pieces with all of its guts on the ground and the flesh and bones now hang as slabs.

I am asserting that you could do all of that in front of a random assortment of modern Americans, and then cut steaks off of it and grill them and serve them to half of the crowd, and most of those people would not have an problem eating those steaks.

Then if you were to scoop up all the leftover, non-steak bits from the ground with shovels, throw it all into a giant meat grinder and then take the intestines from a pig, remove the feces from them and fill them with the output of the grinder, cook that and serve it to the other half of the crowd, then a statistically larger proportion of that crowd would not want to eat that compared to the ones who ate the steak.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> I am asserting that you could do all of that in front of a random assortment of modern Americans, and then cut steaks off of it and grill them and serve them to half of the crowd, and most of those people would not have an problem eating those steaks.

I am asserting that the majority of western audiences, including Americans, would dislike being present for the slaughtering and butchering portion of the experience you describe.

[BehindBlueEyes]

I'm a 100% sure none of my colleagues would eat the steak if they could see the live cow get killed and skinned first. They wouldn't go to that restaurant to begin with and they'd lose their appetite entirely if they somehow made it there.

I probably also wouldn't want to eat that, but more because that steak will taste bad without being aged properly.

[kenjackson]

You’re just going down the list of things that sound disgusting. The second sounds worse than the first but both sound horrible.

[Eisenstein]

Sorry I got a bit too involved in the discussion and just should have let it go a long time ago.

[abduhl]

Most audiences wouldn’t like freshly butchered cow - freshly butchered meat is tough and not very flavorful, it needs to be aged to allow it to tenderize and develop.

[ImPostingOnHN]

The point is that most Western audiences would likely find it unpleasant to be there for the slaughtering and butchering from scratch.

[Dalewyn]

That the point is being repeated to no effect ironically illustrates how most modern people (westerners?) are detached from reality with regards to food.

[Eisenstein]

To me, the logical conclusion is that they don't agree with your example and think that you are making connections that aren't evidenced from it.

I think you are doing the same exact thing with the above statement as well.

[Dalewyn]

In the modern era, most of the things the commons come across have been "sanitized"; we do a really good job of hiding all the unpleasant things. Of course, this means modern day commons have a fairly skewed "sanitized" impression of reality who will get shocked awake if or when they see what is usually hidden (eg: butchering of food animals).

That you insist on contriving one zany situation after another instead of just admitting that people today are detached from reality illustrates my point rather ironically.

Whether it's butchering animals or mining rare earths or whatever else, there's a lot of disturbing facets to reality that most people are blissfully unaware of. Ignorance is bliss.

[abduhl]

To be blunt, the way you express yourself on this topic comes off as very "enlightened intellectual." It's clear that you think that your views/assumptions are the correct view and any other view is one held by the "commons"; one which you can change simply by providing the poor stupid commons with your enlightened knowledge.

Recall that this whole thread started with your proposition that seeing live fish prepared in front of someone "will likely leave most westerners squeamish or perhaps even gag simply because the west goes out of its way to hide where food comes from, even though that simply is the reality we all live in." You had no basis for this as far as I can tell, it's just a random musing by you. A number of folks responded disagreeing with you, but you dismissed their anecdotal comments as being wrong because it doesn't comport with your view of the unwashed masses who are, obviously, feeble minded sheep who couldn't possibly cope with the realities of modern food production in an enlightened way like you have whereby you "enjoy meats respecting and appreciating the fact that the steak or sashimi or whatever in front of me was a live animal at one point just like me." How noble of you. Nobody (and I mean this in the figurative sense not the literal sense) is confused that the slab of meat in front of them was at one point alive.

Then you have the audacity to accuse someone of coming up with "zany" situations? You're the one that started the whole zany discussion in the first place with your own zany musings about how "western" "commons" think!