PYTHAGORAS, MEAT-AVOIDANCE, DEATH, TRUTH

Pythagoras, all high schoolers know, was a mathematician.  He was also, they might not know, the leader of a religious cult, and a vegetarian. Math/religion/vegetarianism--what’s the link?

Most of what we know of Pythagoras comes from later lore.  One strand in those stories: a clear line is drawn between mind and body.  Math, religion, avoidance of meat, fall on the side of mind.

A life purified of bodily entanglements would,  so fans of Pythagoras claim, take up the math/ religion/ vegetarian package. In general, the combination emphasized life over death.  Mathematics dealt with the unchanging and everlasting. Religion promised eternal life (reincarnation for Pythagoreans). Vegetarianism avoided the killing associated with carnivorism.

The last point is well-disguised for those of us who are meat-eating urban dwellers.  In one of her cookbooks

Maya Angelou describes a different, rural, setting. There “after the first frost,” “men killed the hogs and cows selected for slaughter.” It was impossible, in that setting, to avoid the key preliminary to meat eating: kill something.  Avoidance of what is actually the case is to falsify. To falsify, in turn, means setting truth aside.

The connection between truth and inclusive attentiveness was highlighted by the ancient Greek word for truth, aletheia.  It meant, as Martin Heidegger has reminded us, “un-forgetting.”  Lethe was the river of forgetfulness, the river through which humans passed in their post-death return to another life. Extending the meaning of un-forgetting, philosophers stressed that “truth” meant paying attention to what is fully the case. Leaving out details, “forgetting” was what identified falsehood.  Un-forgetting, truthfulness, as the fulness of what is actual, meant inclusive attentiveness.

This is not as easy as it sounds.  Attention can’t help but be selective and partial.  In addition, selective attentiveness (“willful blindness” it is often called) can serve to help humans avoid responsibility.

With regard to food, one basic occlusion for urban dwellers is the meat-death connection. The grocery store is a grand celebration of lethe, forgetfulness.  As is often

remarked, all that grocery store customers get to see are neatly wrapped packages. This fosters the creation of "good," i.e. unthinking, consumers. It does not make for a good grasp of truth as aletheia. Much of what is real continues to be ignored and forgotten.

Occluding the meat-death link does not just take place in grocery stores. On the more expensive side of things, there’s another venue for occlusion: restaurants in which food on the plate has little or no resemblance to the original source.  Often this is accomplished in the guise of bringing “artistry” to food preparation. Within the Pythagorean framework, one which succumbs to the tug of elevating oneself above physiology, “art” becomes the province of a refined, creative realm. Wassily Kandinsky explicitly made the connection in his

defense of the “spiritual” in art.  His canvases, waves of colors, are removed from the push and pull, physical and material world of ordinary experience.  

Food presents a problem for  whoever would identify “art” with those higher things in life. Take a turkey on the Thanksgiving table.  There is plenty there to remind (aletheia) eaters of the living bird that once was. It is in

fancy restaurants, especially those aspiring to aesthetic creativity that the “lethic” temptation remains strong. A piece of meat or fish may be so combined with other ingredients that the plate resembles a modern art canvas.  One old-fashioned critic complained about a famous Spanish chef this way: “This isn’t food.  It’s got nothing to do with food, with the earth, with Spain, with what his grandmothers cooked.”

To be “food,” this critic is arguing, the “lethic” temptation must be avoided.  Aletheia, truth, must be allowed to manifest itself.  When it does, forgetfulness will be diminished, forgetfulness about the the earth, its plants and animals, along with the traditions of one’s ancestors, traditions, yes, that include awareness of death-dealing.

The “lethic’ temptation  encourages separation, veiling, opposition. Exclusion and occlusion dominate.   The “a-lethic’ dimension, on the other hand, encourages integrationist awareness. For the latter, there is even room for a proper kind of meat eating.  

WHEN SWILL IS SWELL

“Swell” and “swill.” One letter separates them. But what a meaning difference it makes.  

“Swill,” I remember as a term of my youth. It was common when people lived on farms.  There, the family’s pigs received, as feed, the “swill,” what was leftover from the kitchen. Naturally, a negative connotation followed. After all “swill’ was that which was rejected.  

“Swell,” by contrast, carries a positive connotation.   Initially it was a neutral term, it indicated a natural formation, something like a hill, or a gentle ocean wave. Today, the term’s more common use is in line with expressions of satisfaction and affirmation.  Two examples: the expression “that’s swell;” the 1937 song “Gee, but you’re swell.” In Easter Parade, Judy Garland

and Fred Astaire, dressed as hobos, got ironic mileage with their song “A bunch of swells.”

Could hobos be “swells”?  No and yes. If to be a “swell” meant well-dressed, then hobos would never fit the bill.  If, though, “swell” meant lovable, as in the song “Gee, but you’re swell,” then character would supersede clothing. Hobos could indeed be “swells.”

“Swill” is more uniformly derisive. Some of what accompanies the preparation of a meal is excluded, set apart, tossed out.  It is appropriately named “refuse.” Yet, even “swill” can undergo a valuational shift.

Take potato peelings. At one time, they fell into the category of that- which-is-to-be-discarded, i.e. “swill.” Today, we are

advised, for health reasons, to to eat our potatoes with their peels. What was once swill is now swell.  

It would be hard to find a human community that did not distinguish swell from swill, better from worse.  There is a lingering temptation, though, to reify the distinction. This results in the creation of an irrevocable, non-revisable, two-column list.  One side is labelled “good,” the other “bad.” We here come face to face with a lingering temptation: create a neat, oppositional, good/evil list. The temptation even has an official, historically-informed, name: Manichaeism.  This was a movement, based on a 3d century Babylonian prophet named Mani. It taught that creation had two sources, two ultimate powers, one good, the other evil. The two- value, double column list was little more than the practical application of this cosmic battleground.  

Any neat division equipped with  unquestionable valuations is bound to occasion a backlash (especially among the groups who fall on the negative side of things).  That reaction, quite understandable, can, nonetheless, be overdone. The excess lies in a proclamation that appraisals are nothing more than subjective impositions. Rather than leave neat bifurcations behind, this position simply creates another one: subjective vs objective. The Manichean assumes that existing value judgments are rooted in objective data.  The subjectivist claims that all evaluations are arbitrary, historically conditioned, contrivances. Either/or is not overcome. It is just reformulated.

“Swell” and “swill” help draw us into a more nuanced, more genuinely human, position.   “He’s a swell” was a way of identifying a spiffy dresser. Objective conditions, the kind of clothing worn, were readily identifiable. Then, as with “you’re swell,” the positive valuation was extended to character.

At this point the evaluation becomes a bit trickier. Without the obvious markers of expensive, stylish clothing,  mistakes are possible. Still the value determination is not just “subjective.” It’s a judgment. This means that although it has a subjective dimension (someone is doing the judging), it also has an objective one (the assessment is based on evidence, behavior, indications of character).

Similarly, what we judge to be “swill” can be up for for revision.  Potato peels, as mentioned above, can move from “swill” to “fit for our diet.”  This is not a purely subjective construction. It arises from information about the nutritional properties of potato skins and the physiological needs of mammals like ourselves.

Could we be wrong? Sure, that’s always a possibility. Future research may once again move potato skins from

“swell for humans” to “swill for pigs” The possibility of error is telling. It’s a sign of human inquiry.  Absolutists and relativists seek an escape from human limitations. One proclaims a perfect, already established, vision of truth. The other dismisses the human struggle to discover more fully accurate truths. Humans, it says, do not establish what is the case, but rather impose values.

For ordinary humans, though, enhanced intelligent awareness can mean that “swill” becomes “swell” and vice versa.

WHITENESS AS PEJORATIVE: THINK FOOD AND WHALES

Once upon a time, someone had the “good” idea to propose single-color meals. “All-white” and  “all-pink” concoctions are among those identified in Donna Gabaccia's  We Are What We Eat.  They were part of an attempt to Americanize immigrants. Fortunately, good taste prevailed, and multi-hued ethnic cuisines came to be celebrated.

Imagine a monochrome, say all-white, meal. Symbolically, it might seem o.k. After all “white” carries positive associations: no impurities, no contaminants, no adulterations. By contrast, visually and gustatorily (if this is a word), an all-white plate would probably carry different associations: blandness, dullness, absence, and lack.

The color white thus reveals, surprisingly perhaps, conflicting associations.  On one hand, white occasions positive reactions. It connotes cleanliness, purity, and virtue. Such associations have encouraged  people to choose, as names, words meaning white, names like Blanche, Finnian, Gwen, Gavin, Genevieve, and Whitney. Wedding dresses, in most European cultures are white, a fad that took off after Queen Victoria broke with tradition and went with white for her ceremony.

On the other, mostly forgotten, hand, white has also carried negative connotations. Before Victoria and her white gown, there

was Mary Queen of Scots. She is depicted in a painting, wearing white to signal mourning. This was typical in her day.   Fans of Clint Eastwood will recall Pale Rider. The film’s title alludes to “death,” the fourth

horseman of the Apocalypse, who rides a pale, i.e. white  horse.

Even when it comes to wedding gowns, white is not universal. Prior to Victoria, red was a

favorite. It still is in parts of Asia.

Even in the West, a small but real trend, reveals brides in dresses other than white. Red, pink, silver, green and blue are among the favorites.  

Perhaps the most famous negative treatment of white is found in  Moby Dick. Ishmael, the narrator, undertakes  a lengthy disquisition on white and its conflicting symbolic meanings. There are the positives: whiteness as a symbol of “gladness” of “joyfulness” of “innocence as with a bride,”  or used as a pledge of honor (the Amerindians’“white belt of wampum”). There is also, this was considered by some to be a positive, the “white man” assuming ‘ideal mastership over every dusky tribe.” (Melville leaves unanswered why Europeans, who are not really white--just holding a sheet of paper next to my skin indicates the gap--nonetheless refer to themselves as white.)

Ishmael then highlights some negatives. As regards Moby Dick,  “it was the whiteness of the whale that above all things” proved appalling. There is an “elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.”  Nature herself, in her “malicious” agencies, enlists, as in snow squalls, the forces of whiteness. Shrouds, paleness, ghosts make it hard to disentangle whiteness from death.

The all-white meal stirs up such negative associations.  Life is colorful. The plants and animals that can grace grace our tables, are colorful.  Red, as in blood, is a hue of life. Green, yellow, red, and orange, are the tints of plants that serve as food. Even white has its place, as with potatoes, rice and turnips.  

The main problem with all-pink, or all-white, meals is not the color itself. It’s the “all.”   Life is mixture, mingling, combinations, amalgamations, as with the multi-hued amalgamation of foodstuffs.  This variegated palate has not ranked high with philosophers. Preferring rational purity, they have looked down on varieties, mixtures, blends. For them, unity and purity rank high. Mixtures and blendings  are relegated to an inferior status and denigrated via terms like “mongrels,” ”’adulterations,” “impurities.”

The draw of purity and unity, along with the fear of mixture, runs deep in the human psyche. One too often unchallenged philosophical presupposition:  the notion that unity/purity is both primal and to be prioritized over plurality/mixture. The Tower of Babel story is typical in this regard.

 

Nutrition should teach us otherwise. Variety is the starting point.  Mixing and blending is the way to go. The way to go not only for pleasurable, but also for healthy, eating.

Maize, for example, is a wonder plant. Still, eaten alone it is disastrous for health. As native Americans realized, it has to be complemented with other foodstuffs, typically beans and squash. Corn-squash-beans; meat-vegetables-fruit.  Multiplicity is our starting point. It does not represent some fall away from initial unity. Getting the right blends and mixes is the challenge. A meal that is all one color favors abstract philosophical concepts over life-enhancing practices. For healthy, not to mention aesthetically pleasing foods, go multicolored.  

GODS WANT TO BE HUMAN

For some reason, several religious traditions have their god/gods fixate on food.  Genesis readers know of the famous divine command not to eat from the tree of good and evil.  In Leviticus the proscriptions get more detailed. Animals of land, sea, air: all are divided into clean and unclean.  

The ancient Greek gods were not  as prone to clear-cut commands. They were, to their discredit, prone to  god-awful (literally) behavior. When it comes to food, the god-awfulness sunk to its greatest depths.  Cronus devoured 5 of

his own kids. The youngest, Zeus, was saved by his mother. Continuing the paternal tradition, Zeus tricked one wife into becoming a fly and then promptly swallowed her.

How about regular food?  Well, the gods had nectar and ambrosia. Both words indicate immortality.  It therefore makes sense that they would be the main intake for deathless divinities.  But, let’s face it, a steady diet of nectar and ambrosia would get kind of dull and repetitive.

The human case offered a sort of reversal. No ambrosia, no nectar (the main human/divine difference, after all, was mortality).  Otherwise, humans had it pretty good, even better than the gods. Roasts, vegetables, fruits, seafood--all of these pleased the human palate.

Hesiod depicted the first, “Golden” age of humans in happy terms. They “lived like gods.”   They “made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils.” Earth was good to them, bearing “fruit abundantly and without stint.”

There was not that much difference between Hesiod's gods and  human beings. What Hesiod got wrong was the direction of longing.  It was the gods who longed for the enjoyments available only to humans. Not surprisingly, when a Renaissance painter, Giovanni Bellini, portrayed gods at a feast, they sure (1) looked, and (2) behaved, like regular old human beings.

This makes sense.  Humans are open to pleasurable experiences  closed off to the gods. Living like gods would necessitate being disembodied. Being disembodied would bring immortality. That´s okay. But at what price?  Imagine what a dull existence would ensue. No eyes to see; no stomach/taste bud combination to savor food; no ears to hear; no tongue to speak; no arms for hugging; no lips for kissing; no ability to interact with anything.  Hesiod, I repeat, got it backwards. It is the gods who wish to live like humans (and in Greek mythology this is just what they do). Otherwise, life’s pleasures, culminatory satisfactions, shared enjoyments, are all out of reach.

This reversal is important when humans dream of eternal life. That case also involves a sleight of hand.  Officially, life beyond this one is characterized by what is known as "beatific vision,” a status of direct apprehension of the divinity. Such a mystical experience, however, doesn’t satisfy the imagination. Much better to envision an unending life that looks a lot like the pre-death one, except that all difficulties and challenges have been eliminated. The illogic of this scenario: such a life would be impossible absent the corporeality that necessitates mortality. Existence would be that of disembodied minds or souls. True, it’s possible to envision such a state. Envisioned honestly, with no sleight of hand, i.e. no sneaking in dimensions of corporeality, such existence would be far from desirable.

A disembodied status, for one, would involve an existence without hugs. Deprived of arms and eyes, immortal

grandparents would be unable to see, not to mention offer warm caress-filled welcomes for their grandchildren. The general status would be one of unalterable deprivation: no lovely sights (without eyes); no enticing odors (without nose/taste buds); no melodious sounds (without ears); no movement (without legs). Within traditional theology, these deprivations would be counterbalanced by the satisfaction of beatific vision. But even that experience, to be attractive, has to be described using a physiological metaphor, the corporeal dimension of sight.

Overall, unending disembodied existence does not provide an enticing picture.  The draw of nectar and ambrosia (immortality) is admittedly strong. But, it is so only if we ignore the rest of the picture.  Once we realize how hugs, conversation, music, good company, and good food would be absent, the temptation toward immortal existence becomes less attractive.  We come to realize why it is the gods who wanted to be more like humans.

I'M HUNGRY: HOMER VS PLATO

“I’m hungry,“   “I’m sad.” In some ways our speech bears out an integrative self-understanding.  We could, after all, use disjunctive phrases like “my body is hungry,” “my mind is sad.”  We do, in fact, say disjunctive things like “I’m comfortable with my body.” A best-selling book from 1970 was called Our Bodies, Ourselves.

“I’m hungry” blurs the mind/body distinction. “I’m comfortable with my body” accentuates a difference. It suggests that there is a “me” and there is a  sort of carcass that accompanies me. Are we one or two? Should “my body is hungry” replace “I’m hungry?” The evidence is mixed. Most illnesses impact the physiological side of things (i.e. body). While ill we can still try to keep up our spirits (i.e. mind).  An illness like Alzheimer’s, on the other hand, weakens the mental side of things, even though the bodily dimension remains strong.

As is too often the case, complexities can be oversimplified. Distinctions are transformed into rigid oppositions.  Adjectives become nouns. “Physiological” becomes “body.” “Psychological”

becomes “mind.” In the history of ideas, Rene Descartes (1596-1650) crystallized such reifications into the position known as “dualism.” The two components, mind and body, were not just dual,  but were involved in a constant duel. Still, phrases like “I’m hungry,” and “I’m sad” pull us back from such a sharp separation.

Such a pullback restores the legacy of the ancient poet Homer.  2000 years before Descartes, there was his dualizing precursor, Plato (427-347). Half a century before Plato, there was the more integrative Homer (ca 800 bce).  Homer wrote of humans without sliding into

dualism. He dealt with people as as actants in the world, as clusters of energies. Their physiological dimension did not need to be articulated in terms of “having bodies.”  In battle, a sword would penetrate one’s skin. When Homer used the word “body” (soma) he meant the corpse, the spent leftover of what had once been a full-fledged actant, a human being.

Four centuries later, Plato would frame the situation in the way that is more familiar to us. (We owe words like “in-carnation,” and “em-bodiment” to Plato’s influence.)

For him, there was not just a leading edge (the thinking, motivating, selecting, reflective dimension of our lived energies) but an entity, mind (psyche) that  actually defined the real us.  The physiological dimension then became the “body,” an accompanying presence.

When it comes “I’m hungry,”  it’s not surprising that Homer and Plato would take separate paths. Food and its eating, as demands of the body, were treated by Plato as annoyances. Homer’s Odyssey, by contrast, is, as Henry Fielding described it, an “eating poem.” Food is everywhere.  The Phaeacians are depicted as civilized, cultured people. How do we know? They welcome the stranger Odysseus, invite him to share a meal, encourage him to tell his tale, and provide a boat so he can return to his homeland.

The material need for food is not, in The Odyssey, opposed to the spiritual demand for the noble and the good.   A meal like that hosted by the Phaeacians, or the one to which Odysseus’s son, Telemachus, is treated at the home of Hector, do not in any way represent a lowering of human standards. Quite the opposite. The fullness of virtuous humanity (the queen of the Phaeacians is actually called virtue,  Arete), is manifested in the combination amalgamated  in the meal: hospitality, shared eating, intelligent discourse, reverence, sociability.  Homer goes so far as asking a food-related question to determine cultural, civilizational status: “Are there bread eaters here?”  If the locals eat bread, they are civilized. They manifest practices of planting, cultivating, milling, utilization of yeast, and, as a culminating act, bread baking and bread sharing,

“I’m hungry” emphasizes the holistic, Homeric, self.  

“I’m comfortable with my body,” by contrast, lives within the Platonic pattern.

Given the sedimentation of usage, in contemporary English, there is no going back to Homer. That would necessitate using “body” only as a synonym for “corpse.”  At the same time, English usage, with the presence of phrases like “I’m sad,” “I’m exhausted,” and “I’m hungry,” indicates a tilt in the direction of Homeric wholeness.

Temptations to articulate a divided self will always be with us.  Fortunately, the clumsy constructions required by a divided self, i.e. “my body is hungry,”  warn us against going too far in favor of Plato over Homer.