Carninormative Man

first edition of Animal Farm

In his essay on our “carninormative”society “More equal than others” (TLS, 7/22/16), it only takes Julian Baggini one throw of the dice to disarm utilitarianism in general. The title, of course, refers to Orwell’s famous quote from Animal Farm, “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal then others," but the idea is that meat eating, like a lot of activities is a complex matter, as is any attempt to determine the consciousness of animals, particularly as they are slaughtered. Baggini says, “Everyone else knows that complicity in wrongdoing—or right-doing for that matter—does not require that your contribution makes a measurable difference. The suicide bomber whose explosives fail to detonate is not let off the hook. And if ten people give what turns out to be more than enough food to someone who has none, the first nine are no more praiseworthy than the last one. If utilitarian thinking cannot make sense of that so much for utilitarianism.” Of course a classic utilitarian issue is the famous Trolley problem and what's Baggini’s solution to that? The decision to turn the trolley in the direction where it will kill only one person instead of say 5 is a no brainer and ultimately utilitarian in its quality—though the problem is talked about so often since it is a perfect illustration of the intersection between ethical and utilitarian judgment. Kant for instance would probably not have sanctioned the sacrifice of one for many since the killing of one is wrong, in and of itself. Baggini concludes his essay thusly, “To live honestly, as creatures of flesh and blood, we need to face these facts squarely. Such realism is often missing in ethical theories that see any kind of human hand in animal death as unacceptable…This isn’t Disneyland and living authentically, as an adult, requires us to embrace fully the bitter-sweet nature of many of our most profound pleasures.” Amen.

The Age of Euphemism

Amongst the many indignities of modern life is the ever increasing demand to mince words. We live in the age of euphemism and you are always forced to look over your shoulder to make sure there isn’t someone about to flunk you for language failure.  In France, you’d cry out “garcon” when you wanted an espresso in a café. That was the only way to get it, but now nobody calls out “waiter,” an appellation that probably is against the law in California, where sex on a college campus currently requires “affirmative consent.” You have a “server,” who you have to wait for. California might be voted the most politically correct state in the nation and one wonders how for instance “affirmative consent,” affects sales of Victorian pornography like Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs (1870), whose characters openly violate the statute and exhibit the kind of “triggering” behavior that violates social norms in the state. “Blacks" replaced “negroes" and then gave way to "people of color," but why is that last expression less offensive than "colored people"? There are many theories, but a racist can easily use all the right words and still be talking through his ass. Once upon a time there were men who referred to their women as hogs and who referred to mentally ill people as psychos. Carroll O’Connor played a character called Archie Bunker who parodied such thuggish behavior, but satire by way of hyperbole would  probably not succeed in running the gauntlet of today’s Newspeak. The intent of all this policing is the idea that language affects action. Haven’t any of these protectors of the common good realized that  "as if" behavior can lead to the creation of a false self. When human beings are corralled into expressing themselves in certain ways in public, they depend on secret societies where they are able to speak their minds. Steven Marcus wrote about book called The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England which dealt with the cultural schizophrenia that developed in another age in which behavior was famously regulated. And then there’s the improv group, The Upright Citizens Brigade which is an equal opportunity offender, trashing all the good intentions of our current iterations of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.

Newspeak

Have you noticed the odd way that newscasters have of accenting varying words. One of the most common forms of poetic expression is iambic pentameter. Shakespeare employed it in his plays. Newspeak  was the language Orwell created for the repressive society he envisioned in l984. But it’s a good word to use to describe how television announcers communicate. It’s not iambic pentameter, but it has definite cadences that revolve around emphasizing certain words and whether you’re listening to CNN or NPR or CBS or even Al Jazeera, it has the tendency to make all the news, whether it concerns a lost pet or plane, sound remarkably the same. There’s an old neuroscience conjecture that if you put a monkey in front of a typewriter long enough he will write Hamlet. Can the same thing be said about newscasters? Sometimes the emphasis seems arbitrary. Every sentence seems to require a key word. For instance let’s say a CNN’s anchor like Carol Costello or Chris Cuomo wants to say “the cat is out of the bag.” They won’t just iterate the words like you or I. They will probably emphasize the last two words of the sentence, “the bag.”  Let’s take another sentence an anchor might say, like “Ray Rice punched his then fiancé.” “Then” would obviously be the nominee in that particular sentence. Or here’s another possible sentence a newscaster might read, “Sources at the Pentagon have indicated that the ‘no boots on the ground’ policy may soon be reversed.” You’d think the emphasis might fall on “sources” or “Pentagon,” but “indicated” is clearly the word that punctuates the mood that the sentence creates.  Newspeak is definitely a language that one has to learn like French or Spanish and like all language it contains its own river of meanings that lies under the superficial veneer that the words create once they are encoded into a particular syntax. For instance, French communicates a certain pertness (as opposed to the perkiness of Newspeak), verging on rudeness or abruptness; there ‘s a hyberbolic sardonicism to French. When a French man or woman can’t do something that you require, they say “Je suis desole,” which means they are not desole at all and you can go fuck yourself since you’re not getting squat. Newscasters are totally the opposite of the French. There hardly a negative personality amongst them and every word out of their mouths is an expression of interest and enthusiasm. When Carol or Chris speaks to one of their correspondents out in the field, she or he is incredibly interested in everything the correspondent has to say, no matter how insignificant it is. Neither Chris nor Carol would probably ever dream of uttering the English equivalent of “Je suis desole.” Berlitz is one of the places one goes to learn French, Spanish or Italian, but how does one learn Newspeak. It’s the old nature versus nurture question. Obviously there are some people who are born talking like newscasters. Others start to talk this way after watching too much news and other wannabees attend schools of broadcasting which supposedly will teach you how to be a radio or television announcer. But once you have learned to talk like an announcer, can you ever return to the monotone of normal human speech. Can a pickle be turned back into a cucumber once he or she returns home from announcing headline stories?

Barcelona Journal V: Barceloneta

drawing by Hallie Cohen

When you ask the concierge in your run of the mill upscale Barcelona hotel where to go for fish, he or she will generally point you to Barceloneta. It’s down by the waterfront, overlooking the harbor and it is, they assure you, really excellent, despite the fact of being a magnet for tourists. The fact is that Barceloneta epitomizes all that is wrong with Barcelona, a proto-modernist mecca of architectural design which seems to have neatly circumvented the birth pangs of other European cities tittering precariously on the precipice between tradition and modernity before making their leap back to the future. Any rumor of innovation and invention you can wish for is to be found in Barcelona which is the epitome of spaceship earth. Design is everything in this city and a tourist in some redoubts might spend a day of his vacation trying to figure out how the advanced lighting system works in his or her room. But Barceloneta represents the dark side of progress. It has the efficiency of an emergency room where fish are brought in to triage. The kitchen is visible so you can see the chefs aka surgeons preparing to operate. Scientists working on a cure for a deadly virus in a sterile lab might be another appropriate comparison. Everything moves along seamlessly or rather spinelessly (along with the sole which is brought out on its gurney before being deboned). The waiters are just like interns and residents doing  rounds. They evince a generalized concern with the feeding process, but have about much personal contact with the diner as say the pilot of an Airbus flying from Kennedy to Barcelona has with his passengers. And when you dig into your wallet to pay the bill, you are tempted to whip out your insurance rather than credit card. There is nothing particularly wrong with the food. It’s perfectly cooked according to textbook standards, lacking only one thing: taste. Oh yes, there is that picture postcard view of the harbor which is admittedly nice. But the popularity of Barceloneta, which on a recent Friday night was filling up to predictable capacity like say a tire which is being pumped full of air, can unleash a kind of Orwellian self doubt (there is a square commemorating the author of Homage to Catalonia and l984 in Barcelona). What to do if everyone else is marching off like sheep to slaughter? What is the difference between good and bad? Who is right and who is wrong? And will the meek once again inherit the earth? Barceloneta is a metaphor for progress in cuisine as well as lots of other things and represents all that is awry with the exultation in newness that Barcelona represents. Simple indigenous cuisine at reasonable prices is what you begin to crave after paying the tab for your rubbery monkfish at Barceloneta. The servers at Barceloneta might also remind those who flew to Barcelona with Delta Rewards Points of their crew. Yes they got there and everything worked, but unfortunately all the romance had been taken out of flying. Yet Barceloneta and establishments like it raise an even more profound question. Why go anywhere? On the low end you find a world populated by Dunkin’ Donuts, Burger King and McDonalds in virtually ever hamlet inhabited by more than a couple of thousand souls; on the high end you have the ubiquitous what we might call “cuisine mechanique” which turns historical memory into a footnote. Big Brother has now become the Style which treats globetrotters with a few bucks in their pockets to an elevated version of institutional food. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising if Barceloneta, which sits adjacent to one of Barcelona’s institutions of higher learning, had a future incarnation as a clinic or even elite hospital. Goodbye Barcelona! "Hasta la vista, baby!"