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Is Food the New Sex? (2009)

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Re: Is Food the New Sex? (2009)

#51

Post by pdeuchler »

innguest wrote: post #40
pdeuchler wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I found it difficult to read the entire essay, so I didn't. I had problems with a lot of the characterizations. ... >> Remember too the author writes for the Hoover Institute, a conservative think tank. As such, works from them are more likely to be aligned with conservative views, and not, say, rail against patriarchy. There's no need to politicize the article and then make subjective judgements based on your aff…

It is important to know who is making the argument in order to evaluate possible incentives, biases or an agenda. The parent isn't politicizing anything, they are saying a true statement that they think can be important for discriminating minds to help evaluate the claims in a richer context of important background information. Your knee-jerk reaction to this particular truth says a lot about you. For the benefit of…

Apologies. I will stop preventing other people from reading the GP with my silly comment, which was placed nefariously under the exact post I was trying to undermine.

Maybe you can help me become more discriminating in my thinking as well? I'd hate to commit more thought crime.

Re: Is Food the New Sex? (2009)

#52

Post by humanrebar »

tacon wrote: post #2

I thought this was the craziest title, until I read the entire essay. And now I think the author has made a very deep analysis of modern society. It's almost as if there is a conservation law for conservative ideas. Sex isn't doing it anymore, so we are switching to food where we impose moral judgements on others who are "doing it wrong".

  It's almost as if there is a conservation law for
  conservative ideas. Sex isn't doing it anymore, so we
  are switching to food where we impose moral judgements
  on others who are "doing it wrong".
The author didn't appear to be advocating food-based morality to me. Did I miss something?

It seems like the author is describing how food ethics have waxed while sexual ethics have waned. The final paragraphs about how that might be described by the ascendancy of the philosophy of Nietzsche (postmodern, materialist, and individualist), which certainly isn't a conservative philosphy (at least not in the American sense).

Though perhaps you mean that there's conservation of morality? As in, everyone is compelled to judge each other by some standard or another? I suppose that could be true. But if it is, it's either a condemnation of postmodernism or of mankind itself since that compulsion would pit humanity against the "that's fine if it works for you" attitude.

Re: Is Food the New Sex? (2009)

#53

Post by r00fus »

antidaily wrote: post #26
lentil_soup wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We know what happens when humans are free to have all the food we want. They get fat. Next question". I'm not so sure about that, not all societies that can "have all the food" they want are fat, for example France.

Obesity rates are way up in France over the last 10 years too, though. They've doubled.

Has food become more available in the past decade? Or perhaps France is getting more factory-food on the shelves? Ten years ago I didn't notice that people were going hungry.

Re: Is Food the New Sex? (2009)

#54

Post by Retric »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #12
dalke wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Split answers between "food" and "sex".) > there is little or no limit on your private sexual behavior now Umm, what about the increasing restrictions on access to abortion, and the continued efforts to prevent teaching effective birth control methods? Instead, over the last 25 years or so there's been increased funding for "abstinence only" methods, which result in making it harder for people to know what sexual fr…

Last I checked, attending San Diego Christian College or pursuing private religious employment is kinda a voluntary deal which a very, very small portion of the population pursues, and when they do so it is frequently because they agree with the ideals the college or the religious employers represent. Are these counterexamples really supposed to represent the worst out there?

You only really need 1 counterexample to disprove a theory.

The reality is prostitution is still illegal in the vast majority of the US which is a clear sign of a deeply repressed culture. However, TV and video game ratings are another. As is the fairly common ban on breastfeeding in public let alone a lack of nude beaches. And the list just keeps getting longer.

Re: Is Food the New Sex? (2009)

#55

Post by humanrebar »

Animats wrote: post #10

We know what happens when humans are free to have all the food we want. They get fat. Next question. The food guilt thing is a product of marketing. Visit a Whole Foods and look at the displays. Sex guilt is back. (For straight people only.) It's not clear why. In the US, it's not due to religion; the religious right peaked in the last century. There are whole new areas of guilt since the 1980s, from sexual harassmen…

  even birth control pills are harder to get
How is that true? Some birth control is now available over the counter and, with exceptions, health care plans are covering birth control these days. And anyone can walk into any number of places and grab all the condoms they want for free. Am I missing something?

Re: Is Food the New Sex? (2009)

#56

Post by hrktb »

pdeuchler wrote: post #34
dalke wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it difficult to read the entire essay, so I didn't. I had problems with a lot of the characterizations. To start, "What happens when, for the first time in history, adult human beings are free to have all the sex and food they want?" This is only true for a subset of the people, but it's always been true for a subset of the people. When I read about the nobility of the 1600s, I see that there was a whole lot…

>> I found it difficult to read the entire essay, so I didn't. I had problems with a lot of the characterizations. ... >> Remember too the author writes for the Hoover Institute, a conservative think tank. As such, works from them are more likely to be aligned with conservative views, and not, say, rail against patriarchy. There's no need to politicize the article and then make subjective judgements based on your aff…

I read the whole thing, and am also quite disturbed. I also had the feeling that while there is a some discussion surrounding food, an awful lot of small jabs are made at people's sexual views.

There is a repeated point driven accros that people of this area are morally depleted, in difference to previous generations. It's summed up in the introduction statement:

> * things we might signal by shorthand as mindful eating, and mindless sex*

This goes along though the whole piece, a lot of mentions goes toward porn, some about drugs, and the main point is again summed up at the end:

> [Nietzsch]He could not possibly have foreseen our world: one in which sex would indeed become “morally neutral” in the eyes of a great many people — even as food would come to replace it as source of moral authority.

A lot of words and energy is spent presenting current people's sex life as mindless, morally depleted where as in "the good old days" it wasn't the case. It's so egregious that it feels like the food talk is just a red herring and this essay just really wants to grieve about people's sexual life.

So I'd agree with you, the author talks about a lot more than just veggies, actually it would mainly be about her thought on sex.

You can't fault anyone pointing out that it's written by a conservative think tank.

Re: Is Food the New Sex? (2009)

#57

Post by king_jester »

Animats wrote: post #10

We know what happens when humans are free to have all the food we want. They get fat. Next question. The food guilt thing is a product of marketing. Visit a Whole Foods and look at the displays. Sex guilt is back. (For straight people only.) It's not clear why. In the US, it's not due to religion; the religious right peaked in the last century. There are whole new areas of guilt since the 1980s, from sexual harassmen…

> We know what happens when humans are free to have all the food we want. They get fat. Next question.

Nope, not even close. Access to food is not a causal relationship with being fat and fat people exist even when food isn't easily accessible. Fat people have existed since people have existed.

Re: Is Food the New Sex? (2009)

#58

Post by humanrebar »

pizza234 wrote: post #32
sowhatquestion wrote: post #11

These issues are simpler to explain than the author realizes--and without any special invocation of Kant. Simply put, technology has made sex a lot safer at the same time as it has made food a lot more dangerous . Sex is safer (in the sense of creating fewer risks and uncertainties), as we all know, thanks to developments like condoms, STD testing, contraception, and legalized abortion. Meanwhile, food is a lot more…

> Hence we get ridiculous cargo cults like gluten-free, organic, anti-GMO, everything Dr. Oz pushes As a 20-something in the US, you're certainly very uninformed. Gluten free, organic and anti-gmo have nothing to do with cargo cults and food fanatism. Essentially nobody buys gluten-free products because they're gluten free (except who needs it). GF products are a very little minority, because the lack of gluten is a…

> not to follow a fad who lasts a short time (which is essential to cargo culting).

Cargo cults are groups who follow rituals they don't understand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

If a group is following a diet without understanding it, I think it's apt (though perhaps needlessly divisive) to call that group a cargo cult. If someone doesn't eat gluten and can't describe what gluten is and why it's bad, he or she is exhibiting the behavior of a member of a cargo cult.

Re: Is Food the New Sex? (2009)

#59

Post by Arnor »

> She also buys “organic” in the belief that it is better both for her and for the animals raised in that way, even though the products are markedly more expensive than those from the local grocery store.

Is anyone really eating organic food because of a perceived health benefit anymore? Everyone I know who eats organic (myself included) is doing for the sake of environmental consciousness or animal welfare not personal health.

Re: Is Food the New Sex? (2009)

#60

Post by humanrebar »

martinflack wrote: post #45

How much of this is more easily explained in that Betty is conservative and her granddaughter Jennifer is liberal? Jonathan Haidt's TED talk on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives touches on sex and food (see time index 7:09): http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind If there is a shift in the decades in common cultural attitudes, it might be explained by a general pendulum swing back and f…

> How much of this is more easily explained in that Betty is conservative and her granddaughter Jennifer is liberal?

Perhaps the author is trying to explore why they prototypical conservative believes one way and the prototypical liberal believes another. I'm not sure just calling one "conservative" and the other "liberal" really explains anything.

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