Way-out, Saturday party-time, plist-type open-ended question....grounded in Puritanism maybe?
Matthew Cissell
macissell at yahoo.es
Mon Jun 25 03:59:04 CDT 2012
I haven't read the article either, but i get the idea. 'Cleanliness is next to godliness' that phrase shows a big change from the time when bathing didn't have the same image it does now. Still, it doesn't fit paranoia for me (bacteria are not suspected but rather known and it is not some unconventional view about dirt/ bacteria, i.e. it was put there to control me.)
I look at it this way. There was a time not long back when many people in the U.S used lye soap, home-made, to clean their clothes on a wash board (like my grandmother did). Business came along and made life easier by producing soap industrially (soap is still the best way to fight bacteria). Women (it was mostly women who bore the chore) wanted clean clothes. Then comes the concern with whiteness; clean is not enough, it must be bright and white like the 1st day. (Commercials all over reflect this.) But then a shift comes along, not only do we now want white clothes free of stain (sin) but they must be free of germs and bacteria, which can not be seen but the company will help you fight this invisible agent of satan. Confide in Tide. In the last few decades advertising has moved into this realm of manipulation, and now mothers (sorry gals, you still bare the weight unjustly) who have no idea of immunology are being turned into little Howard Hughes
mothers who will raise their own little Howies. This is fear mongering and phobia production, not paranoia.
Here's my paranoia: the companies know that this will not make you healthier, their scientists may even suspect what many studies have started to show and that is by dumping all this shit into out system we are killing our world and ourselves. Check out the reports that show increased androgeny in animals and midlife sex-change and other abnormalities in the living world due to the hormones and other chemicals getting pumped into our environment. Can I prove that compnaies know this but continue to do it for the money? NO. Am I pretty sure? yeh.
Big corporations want big money for their investors and damn the consequences. See reports about fire retardant agents in homes, chemicals pushed by big tobacco on account of all those home fires due to smoking. Why change that fast burning paper when you can soak the furniture in chemicals? All you have to do is pay some politicians to make a law and then get you chem buddies to work. Money keeps coming.
mc
Ol' Uncle Bill said, "It is no longer a question of being paranoid, but rather what to be paranoid about."
________________________________
From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2012 4:09 AM
Subject: Way-out, Saturday party-time, plist-type open-ended question....grounded in Puritanism maybe?
The Economist @TheEconomist
Paranoia about cleanliness has risen to the point that sterile modern living can weaken people's immune systems
I haven't read this article (yet), might not, since I've heard the claims before but encountering some relatives anew
with a 'paranoia about cleanliness" leads me to ask if demonizing dirt in the environment is one place Puritan-based
demonizing can go semi-repressively
, dya think?, ---when one is not demonizing others' characters or beliefs in our world---except as
they are clean freaks....
Your riffing appreciated......
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