humanities.philosophy.objectivism

http://www.slowfood.com/

An interesting little site. According to its "Our Philosophy" page:

"We believe that everyone has a fundamental right to pleasure and
consequently the responsibility to protect the heritage of food,
tradition and culture that make this pleasure possible."

I also believe that everyone has a fundamental right to pleasure -- with
the same restrictions that apply to all rights, of course. However, the
subsequent "responsibility" is puzzling. I grew up in Alabama. I dearly
love my Saturday breakfast of scrambled eggs, crisp bacon and grits. My
daughters, both born and raised right outside Los Angeles, CA, really
love it when I make breakfast. But, though I grew up on this kind of
diet, I limit it now to one day a week. Traditional Southern food, we
now know, can be quite unhealthy unless you live a strenuous,
plow-the-north-40-every-day life style.

So I don't feel one ounce of responsibility to protect that heritage --
even if I knew just what form this protection was supposed to take.

Even further back in my family tree, my heritage is Scottish. I have no
desire whatever to eat haggis. I have heard it described and that is as
close as I ever want to get to it, thank you.

Reading further, I try to learn more about this responsibility and how
(or why) we should be carrying it out:

"Our movement is founded upon this concept of eco-gastronomy -- a
recognition of the strong connections between plate and planet."

Uh-oh. My bullshit detector just pegged. It seems that anyone nowadays
that uses the word "planet" outside an astronomical context is selling
something I ain't buying.

"Slow Food is *good*, *clean* and *fair* food." (Emphasis in the original.)

"Fair" food? What the ever lovin' Hell is "fair" food? Is it only
blanched food -- "we don't eat no darkie food heah-bouts!"

"We believe that the food we eat should taste good; that it should be
produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal
welfare or our health; and that food producers should receive fair
compensation for their work."

When the food producers take their product to a free and open market and
sell it for what they can get for it, the compensation they receive is,
by definition, fair. Anything else would be unfair. Somehow, I don't
think that I and the people who wrote this drivel have the same
definition of fair. Unfortunately, they don't define their terms. Like
most people selling a lie, they just throw them out for people to assume
a meaning.

What we have here is just another organization who wants to sell their
socialist agenda disguised as culinary enjoyment.

TommCatt
--
If vegetarians love animals so much, why do they eat all their food?