Saturday, February 28, 2009

is food the new sex?

i can't quite articulate how much the kind of answer that mary eberstadt (as echoed by george will) provides in the hoover institution's policy review makes me froth at the mouth.

eberstadt takes idle cocktail party speculations (has society's moral regulation of food choice replaced its moral regulation of sexual choice? are these shifts connected?), and turns it into a 7500-word steaming turd of ill-informed self-righteousness, thinly disguised as analysis by a throwaway reference to kant. i was going to spend a lot more time dissecting why this complete nonsense, but it's just too irritating, and, frankly, could take up several books. anyone who claims that the fact that people of a lower socio-economic class suffer higher levels of obesity is due to overabundance (and implied lack of self-control) shouldn't be allowed to get within 2 intellectual miles of food policy and trends. and any woman who waxes nostalgic for the days of pre-sexual revolution moral regulation, when "Susie in the town nearby got pregnant and wasn’t allowed back in school", should be forced to wear a chastity belt.

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