George Bataille, writing in the work that would overshadow his fetish-friendly fiction, declared that "it is not necessity but its contrary, 'luxury,' that presents living matter and mankind with their fundamental problems." What defines a society is not how it is that it handles scarcity or maximized utility; rather, following Bataille, societies are defined by how they attempt to expend and resolve their excesses.
I started thinking about Bataille recently when, despite all its cheesiness and bad acting from Renee Zellweiger, I finally watched Cinderella Man. I was transfixed. As those who followed my work with Progressive Commons might recall, I have a real fascination with Depression era movies, especially the recent slate of sports- and class-based triumph films (Seabiscuit, Greatest Game Ever Played, etc.). But what struck me most about Cinderella Man was not the boxing, nor the acting (though Russell Crowe and Paul Giamatti are both exceptional in the film), but rather the pathos of scarcity and need that the film produces. Be it the lack of milk, the longing for meat, or even hiding food from a fancy restaurant in a napkin in order to take it home, the film does an extraordinary job depicting the emotional torment of a life and society of scarcity. Not a perfect job, but an excellent one nevertheless.
It is not a life that many in the U.S. know today (though sadly, far too many still know it), if only because of inventions like credit, the exploitation of cheap world labor markets, and so on. Today, we we expend our excess through the deployment and invention of "waste:" trashing, composting, recycling, feeding to our pets, etc. We waste many, many things, but of all of those things, the class of items that may seem most essential - that of food - is one we waste with abandon. If Bataille is right, and societies are defined by their expenditures, what does this waste of food tell us about our own?
Well, the question and answer are obvious, yes? We're a bad lot, hardly the model of ethical consumption. But we should be careful about exorcising personal responsibility in the act of identifying and condemning that which is most wretchedly wasteful and consumptive in society at large. Confronted with this excess, and confronted with out own complicity with it, we are the individuals whose aggregation comprises that society. We know this, obviously, but it doesn't hurt to remind us.
Segue to the Buddhist concept of Bodhichitta, often translated as compassion, and more literally translated as awakened heart, it is a core component of Tibetan Buddhism and the hallmark of the bodhisattvas. The premise of bodhichitta is that the things that harm us, that bother us, are the very things that can transform and enlighten us. When confronted with the suffering of the world, when aversion and frustration seep into your being, when you find yourself furious with the state of the world, one can take the opportunity to cultivate and awaken this heart by breathing in this suffering and trying to be aware of it and make it your own, rather than turning from it, withdrawing, or growing angry and hostile with its cause.
This practice, known as tonglen, can be very formal (perhaps too formal) and very helpful, and I highly recommend Pema Chodron's Start Where You Are as a guide to tonglen practice for those interested. I am a total neophyte, and like an academic, I can intellectualize it long before I can experience it. Accordingly, it seems obvious that we can put these two very different discourses into conversation, Bataille and Bodhichitta, and do so while talking about food. But I want to try to have the conversation in a way that it flows from or is predicated on my experience--i.e., from practice itself. As Pema makes clear, tonglen requires that one first account for themselves before accounting for others, because only then can one approach others without condescension. So, starting next week, I will try something relatively modest and yt, I think, important: I will attempt to waste absolutely no food. I think this will be harder than it sounds. Anything I make, anything I have purchased that is perishable, I will try to use, to reincorporate, to eat in lieu of something more interesting. If I make too much of something for dinner, I will have it the next day or the next night. Leftovers will not stay leftover, portions will be planned, and shopping will be strategic. I suspect that some serious planning will need to be involved. I suspect that I will fail. But then again, I might succeed. I might learn what I need to do to succeed the next time. One week with no wasted food, perhaps the next with no wasted electricity, perhaps the next with no wasted water. Perhaps a week with no waste. Perhaps a different relationship to expenditure and excess.
Anyone want to join in?
Comments (1)
Imagine finding some company way out here in the rarified, oxygen deprived zone of advanced academia. I am currently writing a dissertation which is a comparative study of Tantric Buddhism and Georges Bataille, at the University of Manchester. You will not be surprised to learn that there aren't a lot of people who are eager to have prolonged conversations about this subject. However, for those who are interested there is a lot of common ground there, even though it sounds bizarre at first. Particularly in the realm of attitudes toward the body, death, and their relation to the 'self' (whatever that is), Bataille and Buddhism have a great deal to say to one another. I also found it interesting to read about Bataille and the issue of food waste, in the same article. One of the few things my mother managed to teach me that I never rebelled against was that wasting food was a bad thing to do, and thus I don't do it, ever. In fact since moving to the city I've been grabbing food that others are trying to waste, by going to markets etc. and adopting a tiny portion of the mountains of food that are thrown out in order to eat it. I'm not sure what Bataille would have thought of this issue. I doubt he was too concerned about it frankly. I think he saw waste as inherent in society and thus as something that was inevitable. But then, he referred to vegetarians as people who are 'reduced to eating cheese' or something like that. An interesting fellow for sure, and one who I don't think I will ever fully understand. But hopefully will partially understand enough to finish this dissertation and escape the ivory tower!
Posted by aa | August 16, 2006 5:17 PM
Posted on August 16, 2006 17:17