14 April 2008
Disgust, Boundaries and Mortality
A long article in Psychology Today ("Mystery of disgust" by Erik D'Amato, 1998), examining what makes something disgusting, and why, contains this interesting bit:
"[E]ach area of disgust is, in its own way, a jarring reminder of our animal nature. The things that most disgust us -- defecating, dying, giving birth, eating dubious or unclean foods -- are the very traits we most conspicuously share with other animals.
"Perhaps it's no coincidence that the only body product we generally don't find disgusting is tears -- the only one considered uniquely human.
"Social disgust operates much the same way, according to [Jonathan] Haidt: 'If physical disgust is about distinguishing ourselves from animals, then social disgust is about distinguishing ourselves from "demons." "Human being" is a charged category, and we want to keep its boundaries clearly defined. Someone who cheats on his taxes can be human; someone who eats human flesh cannot. Socially disgusting acts are those that reveal that you have inhuman motives.'"
"The reason such reminders of our 'animality' are so harrowing may be equally uncomplicated: any reminder of our animal nature is also a reminder of our own mortality. Certainly, we can coolly discuss death and even come to terms with it; indeed, the knowledge of life's precariousness is singularly human. But it is also the most crucial threat to the psyche, and as such must be repressed. No wonder so much of what we find disgusting relates to death and illness: blood, boils, amputations, and mutilations suggest the fragility of life; corpses and body parts simply verify it."
So -- things disgust us to the extent that they remind us that we, like all animals, die?
What interests me particularly about this is that many of the people I've known in real life and through books who have been most willing to sacrifice their very lives for others' benefit -- which amounts to a "crucial threat to the psyche" -- have also been those most easily disgusted and repulsed by hospitals, corpses, bodily functions gone awry, and physical mutilations.
What's going on there?
19:28 Posted in death , food and drink , neuroscience, psychology, the mind , sex | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
29 March 2008
The Flaws are Erotic
Two ideas (one idea) from Book Group Buzz. The folks there find these quotes useful for starting a provocative conversation about a book. I think they would be, but even more so simply as a way to look at the world and relationships.
Two lines from Rumi:
Keep looking at the bandaged place.
That's where the light enters you.
And a comment made by a sex addict:
"After the first hundred beautiful bodies, it's the flaws that are erotic."
Reminds me of May Sarton's question (in Recovering), "Is there anyone, I sometimes wonder, who is not wounded and in the process of healing?" Or perhaps not healing ...
11:30 Posted in books and reading , other people said it , sex , theology, spirituality, philosophy | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
12 March 2008
BergmanFest!: Cries & Whispers
I've uploaded another PDF file for anyone to use, a backgrounder for Cries & Whispers (1972), the last in the BergmanFest! series I'm hosting now.
21:00 Posted in art and photography , death , dreams , media, film, tv, radio , other people said it , pop culture , sex , theology, spirituality, philosophy | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
11 March 2008
Measure for Measure and Eliot Spitzer
The first thing I thought of when I heard about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's implication in a prostitution ring, after his years of hard-line rectitude, was the Shakespeare play, Measure for Measure, rather fresh in my mind since I saw it last summer. Even the title of the play, taken from Matthew 7:2 -- "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again" -- makes the connection pretty obvious, but Spitzer's similarity (as portrayed in the media, anyway) to the Duke's puritanical-seeming deputy, Angelo, brings the point home. Angelo is known first and foremost as a strict and merciless enforcer of the laws, a zealous man, a disciplined man, a man who resists temptation; as the Duke says, Angelo "scarce confesses that his blood flows, or that his appetite is more to bread than stone."
Spitzer's critics and observers paint him with much the same brush: "I've never known anyone who was more self-righteous and unforgiving than Eliot Spitzer," said U.S. Rep. Peter King (R) of Long Island. Daniel Gross, at Slate, says that one thing is clear: "Spitzer has been hoisted by his own petard, brought down by the same kind of investigation he pioneered as a prosecutor." Walter Shapiro at Salon opens with "New York's first-term Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer turned out not to be the model of rectitude that he seemed" and later says, "Reform politicians who hold themselves up as moral exemplars run the risk of not living up to their own self-proclaimed ethical standards. ... Spitzer has gone from lion to laughingstock in just 14 short months as governor."
As Daniel Colvin notes in his excellent essay on MFM, "the congruence between outer actions and inner values is one of the overriding themes of the play, especially as it is manifest in the issue of seeming and being."
But though we may see both Spitzer and Angelo as hypocrites (Andrew Sabin of Sabin Commodities "described Mr. Spitzer's alleged conduct as 'the most hypocritical thing in the world'"), incongruent in the inner and outer being, espousing one thing and doing another on the sly, that's not the perspective of the play.
Colvin goes on: "[T]o call him a hypocrite misses the mark: he is as surprised at his lust as anyone else, at least at its onset, and he questions his moral status at first. His virtue had always been quite real for him, and his slide into sin catches him off guard ... : 'Even till now, When men were fond, I smiled and wonder'd how.' ...
"Angelo finds in himself, then, a double nature: the first is the virtuous individual that would have carried on with propriety; the second, a carnal, lustful, power-hungry character who, though surprising to him, is nonetheless part of who he is. ... That Angelo was liable to temptation and sin was not surprising, nor was the experience of his falling unusual (though by no means excusable). His pride, however, was quite unwarranted, and it was itself a major sin. Moreover, it made him especially vulnerable to temptation and sin." And to the schadenfreude now warming the hearts of many.
Measure for Measure is not a tragedy but Angelo's lack of self-knowledge and his pride are certainly tragic flaws. Angelo is, in the end, tricked into marrying the woman he was formerly engaged to but threw over when her dowry was lost at sea, and so he is saved from ruin, imprisonment or death, though he may not view it that way.
I have to disagree with the WSJ's judgment that Spitzer's story isn't "Shakespearean" because it's not noble enough. It's just as noble or ignoble as Angelo's story in Measure for Measure. It remains to be seen how Spitzer's play will end.
Added 3/12: Many seem to think that Spitzer is more like a Greek tragic figure than a Shakespearean one ...
16:20 Posted in books and reading , crime , girardian anthropology , politics, government and law , pop culture , sex | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
31 August 2007
Glenn Gould
If you have an interest in Glenn Gould, I recommend this article from the Toronto Star to you: "The Secret Life of Glenn Gould: Nearly 25 years after the death of perhaps the greatest piano virtuoso of the 20th century, the Star reveals a dramatically fresh portrait of the Canadian icon." Describes his relationship with a married woman (and quite a bit about her apart from him), his unusual sense of humour, his paranoid episodes, and his phobias, addictions and obsessions.
20:40 Posted in music , sex | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
19 June 2007
Current Reading
A smattering of online ideas, opinions, images that are intriquing, amusing, perplexing, and inspiring me right now:
1. America Assimilates Terrorists. Source: Onion: "After 5 Years In U.S., Terrorist Cell Too Complacent To Carry Out Attack." TV addiction, weight gain, and debt has done 'em in.
2. Sorted Books Project. (via Blog on a Toothpick.) Fabulous. Books and journals shelved to tell a story. Example: A Day at the Beach. The Bathers. Shark 1. Shark 2. Shark 3. Sudden Violence. Silence. Also: Genealogy of the Supermarket.
3. Eye contact and shame as invitation to violence at Preaching Peace: "Using shame to keep order will ultimately result in violent chaos and death as the citizens and community become each others' police. While there are laws and agencies to prevent this, the fact that the leadership has resorted to invoking shame suggests that they're not working..."
4. Sex and death, reminders of mortality, from Experimental Theology: "[I]t appears that there are good theoretical, observational, and scientific reasons to believe that religious faith is operating as an existential buffer, as a defense-mechanism to repress death anxiety. This will not prove to be the final story about faith. But it is the beginning of all faith." Believers who remain in "this 'defensive stage' of faith ... never fully confront the anxiety that necessarily accompanies an existential sifting of faith. This adventure is, simply, too scary a prospect. Thus, most retreat from this work and remain, keeping with Freud's metaphor, intoxicated." Hence, bodily sins (sex and drug use) are most shameful in American society and in Christian (among other faiths) culture. Hence, our 'animal-reminder disgust' triggers: Body products (e.g., feces, vomit), Animals (e.g., insects, rats), Sexual behaviors (e.g., incest, homosexuality), Contact with the dead or corpses, Violations of the exterior envelope of the body (e.g., gore, deformity), and poor hygiene.
5. Photo of a Royal Poinciana in bloom in Miami in June. Mmmm.
6. How to keep lettuce and other greens 'bright, firm and flavorful' for a week.
7. In Seattle, 31 church-goers report their experiences at (or almost at) 31 faith community worship services, including the Seventh-day Adventists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Catholics, Episcopals, a mosque, a synagogue, Sea-Tac's (airport) meditation room. church on TV, and 'the Jesus freaks at Mars Hill.' (The prospective attender couldn't find the Baha'i worship space and no one would answer the phone.) They weren't that chuffed with what they found. (If you're skimming, read #10, #13, #15, #18, #19.)
16:20 Posted in books and reading , gardening and weather , lists , politics, government and law , pop culture , sex , silliness and humour , theology, spirituality, philosophy | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
14 April 2007
Self-Restraint and Instinct
Dave Pollard's post on The M Word (as he calls it) is insightful and illuminating, especially his analysis of why masturbation is so frowned upon. (I have to think more about the prescriptions that follows his analysis, though.)
After comparing and contrasting the activity of masturbation with the activity of playing video games, he asks why the stigma against masturbation exists. His answer is that there are two reasons, which we have confused.
The first is instinctual, Darwinian: "Social activities are best done with other people, not alone." Eating, sleeping, working (hunting), talking and having sex with others helps the species succeed more than doing these things alone. (He explains each of those.)
The second is cultural and derives from 7 billion of us living together on a crowded planet in which power is maintained by hierarchy and a manufactured sense of scarcity: "Self-restraint is a virtue."
Pollard says, "When it comes to things we 'must' do -- eat, sleep, have sex -- self-restraint dictates that these things be done with decorum or (as with sleeping and sex) when this is impossible, in private. Self-restraint also dictates that these things be done as rarely as absolutely necessary, and hence overeating and obesity, sleeping in, and masturbation, are stigmatized as unrestrained excesses suggesting weakness of character."
Yes, this is exactly my experience, especially of sleeping in. I find that people expect reasons and a defense for sleeping late more than once in a blue moon. There is a hierarchy of best defenses, too: not feeling well (sleeping late is understandable), going to bed extremely late the night before (again, understandable, though less so as lots of people manage to exist on 5-6 hours of sleep), hangover (acceptable in some circles and not in others), and so on. Someone who is a whirling dervish of busyness 364 days a year can get away with proclaiming that they've spent the morning in bed lounging, as it's somehow believed that they've earned the rest by their busyness.
This cultural concept of the virtue of self-restraint seems to mesh nicely in American ideology with Puritan values of hard work, progress, and efficiency -- getting a lot done by working hard, resisting idleness as antithetical to communal progress and an individual's strong moral character, etc. Even with these guiding virtues as the rule, though, masturbation and sleeping late should not be stigmatized, because they actually accomplish something -- one relieves stress, the other allows the body to rest and repair itself. It seems to me that the stigma is less about the result of these activities and more about what these activities seem to imply about the person performing them: she's not busy enough, prone to addiction and/or inertia, indolent, needy, self-focused, not following the rules. As Pollard summarizes, they signal, God forbid, a "weak character."
His suggestions for "declar[ing cultural war on self-restraint" include some that appeal to me -- destigmatizing restaurant tables for one and making widespread use of resealable food containers -- and some that don't -- making nudity legal and socially acceptable (aesthetically, I'm so not there yet!). As far as encouraging and teaching kids to masturbate, OK by me as long as it's not in public -- again, aesthetically, I'm not at the place where I want to witness it among children, strangers, or 99.99+ percent of the population.
11:05 Posted in animals , community , food and drink , pop culture , sex | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
13 March 2007
We Have Issues
Thanks, Indexed.
16:46 Posted in community , consumption , earthcare and environment , finance and business , health and medicine , politics, government and law , pop culture , sex , silliness and humour , theology, spirituality, philosophy , travel and place | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
11 March 2007
Sex and Love - Are They In the Same Car?
Sophie Cunningham's wide-reaching, "Sex and Sensibility," in The Age, is worth a read. Here's what caught my attention or resonated with my experience and observation:
"Another ironic effect of conservative views of marriage is that they reduce everything to sex. It ignores what is, for many people, an even more bonding part of a relationship: the power of words. ... If, instead of focusing on wordsmiths, I wrote about couples who claimed that it was a good laugh that kept them together, the list of examples would be longer still."
"While I don't doubt the erotics of voyeurism and performance, they both can result in an increasing emphasis on bodily perfection and less on experiencing physical pleasure within those bodies -- perfect or otherwise. This can be seen in the way that women who are considered beautiful are automatically assumed to be sexy. ... [T]he range of people the media culture represents as being sexy gets narrower by the year and is, increasingly, defined by how much people weigh. While individuals can and do ignore this, it's tough on younger people trying to come to terms with their adult bodies."
"My personal definition of sexy is (like most people's) probably indefinable, but has something to do with a certain confidence someone has about themselves and in their own body. To be sexy, to my mind, means that someone has a sense of their own sexuality."
"Some couples will have a marriage where sex is a ritualistic and pleasurable enactment of their devotion to the other. Some like a quickie and some have no sex at all. A lot of people have affairs. Words can be erotic. Sex can be soulless. A good laugh, for many, is more important than good sex.
"What's normal? Most of it. None of it. The heart is lawless."
(via Sarah Weinman's Confessions)
12:12 Posted in books and reading , pop culture , sex , theology, spirituality, philosophy | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this