The Food Issue: Leon Kass vs. ice cream cones (really!)
As you've probably noticed I analogize frequently between food and sex and occasionally I post expressly about it. See my introduction to The Food Issue. I was just about to shut up about paleo-chauvinist Leon Kass (who I promise I'm not really obsessed about) when I ran across the following in comments to Amanda Marcotte's Pandagon post.
From Kass, Leon: The Hungry Soul. University of Chicago Press, 1994, 1999) pages 148-149
Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone --a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive.
"I fear I may by this remark lose the sympathy of many reader, people who will condescendingly regard as quaint or even priggish the view that eating in the street is for dogs. Modern America's rising tide of informality has already washed out many long-standing traditions -- their reasons long before forgotten -- that served well to regulate the boundary between public and private; and in many quarters complete shamelessness is treated as proof of genuine liberation from the allegedly arbitrary constraints of manners.
To cite one small example: yawning with uncovered mouth. Not just the uneducated rustic but children of the cultural elite are now regularly seen yawning openly in public (not so much brazenly or forgetfully as indifferently and "naturally"), unaware that it is an embarrassment to human self-command to be caught in the grip of involuntary bodily movements (like sneezing, belching, and hiccuping and even the involuntary bodily display of embarrassment itself, blushing). But eating on the street -- even when undertaken, say, because one is between appointments and has no other time to eat -- displays in fact precisely such lack of self-control: It beckons enslavement to the belly. Hunger must be sated now; it cannot wait. Though the walking street eater still moves in the direction of his vision, he shows himself as a being led by his appetites. Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing off chewable portions, just like any animal. Eating on the run does not even allow the human way of enjoying one's food, for it is more like simple fueling; it is hard to savor or even to know what one is eating when the main point is to hurriedly fill the belly, now running on empty. This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if WE feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior.
Note: I have not verified the quote from Kass's text, but if it's a hoax a quick check on Google suggests it's very widespread.
"...those who know eating in public is offensive..."?
Sheesh.
This man has serious problems. He needs to be admitted somewhere, and fast.
DTG xxoo
[He's been admitted to the chairmanship of the White House's Bioethics Committee. If the President hadn't been well aware of his positions on women, sex, birth control, and eating in public he might have appointed someone else. --fl]
So, HE'S why the FDA won't allow emergency contraception to be sold OTC!
It's just an offshoot of Christian philosophy that holds the flesh (especially female flesh) to be sinful and the spirit to be more pleasing to god. The Taliban (and others) required burquas and outlawed women from public life for the same philosphy (under a different prophet). Makes me wish that men that that would just stay home and wank off, and leave their neuroses out of everyone else's life!
[Well, technically he's an Orthodox Jew but yeah, same conservative religious tradition. I ought to mention that while I scorn and mock him for the presumption that he can speak on behalf of women there are plenty of very conservative women who feel exactly the way Kass does. --fl]
Guess I got a little carried away... Christianity stems from Judiasm so the fear of physical pleasure comes from the same source. I tend to put more blame on the conservative men because they have way more decision making power than women (according to their rules), and think that both are guilty of passing on an outdated and hurtful mentality without ever really thinking about it. I think that it's all fear based: the world is changing and a scary place, so some people cling to a belief system imposed by an authority figure. "If I do xy and z and don't do abc, then god will protect me and I will be safe." Also, I think that people are lazy and don't want to be bothered to challenge their assumptions.
[Oh yeah, don't stress. Religion does involve a lot of introspection and dicipline at very deep levels, and it's easy for malcontents and meddlers to hijack religion to their own ends -- and not minding at all that in the process they make religion itself look like the culprit. The Taliban, Focus on the Family, you name it, they're hijackers, not the real thing. I bring this up because it's easy to confuse the two and we're not careful we can alienate all kinds of moderate and liberals... who fall further into the hijacker's clutches. Bottom line, though, is I wasn't picking on you, Kitty. You're fine. --fl]