Saturday, November 16, 2013

Analogically

In addition to their practises of exposure and sewering and Molochian sacrifice of “useless” babies, the hedonistic pagans of long ago (and of not so long ago) who had really more wealth than they could practically use, would also artificially extend the sense delight of savour and eating and all that, by means of the vomitorium, which is exactly what it sounds like (when not discussing theatre-in-the-round or volcanoes).

And the reason I bring it up with that lead-in, is to point out one gleamingly hopeful point in which we are, today, still a bit better than those pagans of the bronze-age: this kind of behaviour is still obviously abhorent. It is also still practised, but (in the West) most often finds its expression in an extreme form of plerophobia more commonly known as bulimia. I say this is a hopeful fact, because we actually do remember that a particular act which can be a great pleasure also has a purpose, a telos; we still know that applied engineering to subvert the purpose, to isolate or exaggerate the pleasure of it is actually a diseased and dangerous and literally disgusting game. The world that used to be Christendom is suffering reproductive bulimia, and can't get away from its hunger. Is it any wonder?