The Useless Tree: George Will is not a Sage King

George Will is not a Sage King

In a rather bizarre WaPo oped today, George Will refers to an article in Policy Review which argues that, morally, food is the new sex. What is meant here is that, since the 1960s (conservatives always blame the 1960s for the things they do not like about American society) US culture has become more permissive as far as sex is concerned and more restrictive as far as food is concerned. And this is taken as a sign of some sort of fundamental moral failing:

Today "the all-you-can-eat buffet" is stigmatized and the "sexual smorgasbord" is not. Eberstadt's [the author of the original article] surmise about a society "puritanical about food, and licentious about sex" is this: "The rules being drawn around food receive some force from the fact that people are uncomfortable with how far the sexual revolution has gone -- and not knowing what to do about it, they turn for increasing consolation to mining morality out of what they eat."

But wait a minute: none of this is an accurate picture of either American society before the 1960s (when supposedly we were more restrictive regarding sex and more permissive regarding food) nor of American society today.

First off, the good old days of sexual restraint were not all that good, at least not as the conservatives want us to believe. While societal norms were more opposed to sex out of marriage generally, we should not assume that sex out of marriage did not occur. Of course it did (PDF file):

Among those turning 15 between 1954 and 1963, 82% had had premarital sex by age 30, and 88% had done so by age 44.

.....

....there is a common popular perception that most or all of those who came of age before the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s and 1970s waited until they married to have sex, and that it is necessary to revert to the behaviors of that earlier time in order to eliminate the problems of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. However, research has questioned whether such a chaste period ever existed.

But sex then was hushed up, repressed, denied. And I would venture to say that much of that repression was taken out on women, who had to bear the brunt of male sexual violence in silence.

And the easier attitude toward food in the 1950s and 1960s (after all, the bulk of the social and cultural transformations we associate with the 1960s did not become prevalent until the 1970s...) was simply a matter of ignorance. Back in the day we did not worry about what it was we put in our mouths - and we likely ate a fair amount of toxic stuff. And we did not know then what we know now, as with the link between obesity and cancer (from those crazy and licentious radicals at the American Cancer Society):

Does being overweight increase cancer risk?

Yes. Being overweight or obese is linked with an increased risk of cancers of the breast (among women after menopause), colon, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, and possibly other sites as well. Although research on whether losing weight reduces cancer risk is limited, some research suggests that weight loss does reduce the risk of breast cancer. Because of other proven health benefits, people who are overweight are encouraged to lose weight. Avoiding excessive weight gain in adulthood is important not only to reduce cancer risk but also to reduce the risk of other chronic diseases.

And the bad new days, as conservatives would have it, are not nearly as bad as they fear. Yes, attitudes toward sexual behavior are more relaxed. But this does not mean that people are running up and down the streets in wild sexual abandon:

Almost all individuals of both sexes have intercourse before marrying, and the proportion has been roughly similar for the past 40 years.(Public Heath Reports)

It's about the same as it has been since the 1950s (but maybe the conservatives want to take us back to the 19th century...).

And where do they get this idea that everyone is a food nazi? This is from a 2007 report from the National Cancer Institute:

More people are overweight and obese, and leisure time physical activity is increasing only slightly, if at all.

Alcohol consumption has been rising slightly since the mid 1990s. Fruit and vegetable intake is not increasing and remains relatively stable. Red meat and fat consumption are stable as well.

In short, Will is living in a conservative fantasy world. In an odd sort of way he is writing like many pre-Qin Chinese philosophers (there, you knew I had to work that in somehow), criticizing the present by invoking an image of a golden age of the past when Sage Kings ruled wisely and the people were happy and peace spread across the land.

The only problem here is that George Will is no Mencius and the 1950s were not a time of Sage Kings (unless that was a brand of cigarettes I have forgotten about...).

Posted by Sam Crane at 08:43 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink