Question:
Pork and the point of a symbol?
Background:
Dynasty 9 stated that there were 3 reasons that were usually giving in cultural and religious studies as to why certain groups don’t consume pork:
1. As a community identifier. E.g., “you don’t eat pork either? Great, you must be part of our community then.”
2. God said so. E.g. “we don’t eat pork, because we just don’t, that’s it, nothing complicated to it. God ‘said’ no pork, so no pork it is.”
3. It’s symbolic for something else. E.g., Pig is symbolic for both Jews and Muslims as something dirty, i.e., it is unethical. Abstaining from eating pork is symbolic for abstaining from immoral behavior. Not eating pork is not of concern; it’s the abstaining from immorality.
Dynasty 10 argued that bacon is delicious and if a pig is just symbolic of immorality then actually eating pork shouldn’t be a big deal. The big deal is immoral behavior, and it isn’t immoral to eat pork. Dynasty 5 counter argued:
Violating the symbol in real life renders its value and its symbolic meaning useless. For example, a Jew would never wear a swastika. Why? Because that orientation of lines is a symbol of the Holocaust, but the orientation of those lines in and of itself is harmless, it’s meaningless. If a Jew wore the swastika it would be insulting because the symbol carries value for him/her but the same symbol cares a positive meaning for some Hindus.
But what is a symbol?
CLASSIC RELIGIOUS DEBATE
Dynasty 1: Reconciling Traditional Religious Views
I don’t agree that abstaining from eating pork is symbolic. There are legitimate biological reasons for not eating pork, especially in seventh century Arabia and earlier. Also I fail to see the difference between abstaining from pork as “unethical” and abstaining because it is obeying the will of god. One would necessarily lead to the other, else wise we would have injunctions to not eat cows or chickens too I suppose. I would agree that eating pork is unethical because a) it contains diseases, b) it is an intelligent animal, c) the insides of a pig are uncannily familiar to those of a human being, and d) pork as a meat is biologically and environmentally unsustainable, please see http://regionalworkbench.org/USP2/pdf_files/pigs.pdf for more info. I went six years without eating pork and I don’t simply think it’s a symbol. I don’t believe in symbols unless they hold actual power or can change your mind in a measurable way (for instance, Satan-worship, cruciform, and the symbol for god in Arabic) and I don’t think that not eating pork is symbolic. Like abstaining from alcohol, there are legitimate communal and individual benefits. Pork might taste great, but maybe so does human flesh, antifreeze, and strawberry daiquiris. Why does an injunction have to be seen as symbolic and not simply for your own good?
Dynasty 2: Reasoning from Divine Law
There are legitimate biological reasons for not eating beef (mad cow) or chicken (bird flu) etc. Muslims, for example, are allowed to eat many other intelligent animals, with insides similar to our own. Also, don’t humans share 95% of the same DNA with all other mammals?
If we know God’s will is not arbitrary, than it follows that we humans, given the gift of intellect from God, must be able to derive the fundamental reasons for the laws that God wills. To say prohibition of pork is symbolic conveniently avoids the issue of trying to come up with some kind of actual explanation beyond a God Mind Trick (given that attempts at actual explanation have so far failed).
God choosing pigs as a symbol for abstaining from immorality, doesn’t make sense. Once we realize the symbolism, the effect of this symbolism is intellectually neutralized even if emotional biases remain. The swastika example is quite instructive, in that when its importance in Eastern (pre-Nazi) religious tradition is realized, this understanding will intellectually counter any negative symbolism. But the emotional reaction by any Jewish person will probably remain, and that’s fine, as long as they don’t go associating Eastern religions with Nazi thought.
Keep the symbol-driven emotional bias; lose its real life biased application.
Dynasty 1: A Traditional Religious View, Part II
It doesn’t actually follow that humans should be able to reason out why god commands what he does. Reason has no ability to penetrate the unseen that which only God knows. It’s not symbolic; it’s a real prohibition. God says so, and if we were able to reason the unseen there would be no need for religion or prohibitions at all, because we would simply reason our ways to paradise and good living. You don’t accept a commandment from god based on “oh, I get you god, that’s cool! That makes sense. I’m down with that.” You can demonstrate how such a prohibition can benefit people, but you don’t take the commandments on reason.
The Asharis in Baghdad debated with philosophers who took from Greek thought, and as a result they had to base their argument in Greek parameters to prove the existence of God. If you end up basing your faith on some model you’ve reasoned out rather than faith itself you run into the problem of having to justify the scripture against your model, which is where all this stuff about created/uncreated holy text and whatnot comes from. The authority is god, not our reason. I don’t know everything about zoological illness but I know god said don’t eat pigs. Maybe it has nothing to do at all with pigs or pork or anything, maybe it’s some consequence that seems totally bizarre and unforeseeable. That’s why we need the holy text in the first place and why we need to swallow our pride when it comes to what it says. Everyone sins, it’s part of the territory of being human – the point is submitting to the word and admitting when we go off the straight path instead of trying to rationalize everything.
SYMBOLS AND MEANING:
Dynasty 3: Summarizing of Points Thus Far
: What is the point of a symbol? From what I can tell so far of Dynasty 1 and Dynasty 2’s answers,
Dynasty 1believes that God said so, so don’t do it, which as is said makes it less of a symbol and more of a simple rule
Dynasty 2 essentially believes the same.
Ultimately, the three reasons for symbols are not exclusive. A swastika makes me think of the Nazis because they used it as their logo, of not just anti-Semitism but also racism and hatred in general, and of other people who detest all of these things like me. Dynasty 2 makes a good point, however, that rationalizing what a symbol stands for and feeling the ingrained bias that the symbol evokes are two separate things, and our action must be based on rationality. To see a Hindu praying to a swastika would shock me because my initial reaction will be of disgust for Nazis and what they stood for, yet while that antipathy will not wane, I will rationally understand what the Hindu is doing and respect that.
Assuming pork is bad, does it not therefore become a symbol for all other bad things too? As humans, I think we generalize as often as possible, and pork is no exception. Pork and pig are insults, metaphors for filth, and ordained inedible by early Judaism as a punishment. I side with Dynasty 2 that the idea that pork contains diseases is insufficient as a reason to ban its consumption, but even if there is some, as Dynasty 2 puts it “God Mind Trick,” there is also a symbol. However, in terms of this “God Mind Trick,” I think believing that something is inherently good or bad just because a book or teacher says so is a very dangerous way of going about life in a world where other people have different books and teachers; real life and what we can deduce from it are the things that link us together. But as a symbol pork has affected many cultures, including the West. In Christian-dominated America, pigs are still considered filthy creatures and I would be offended if someone called me “pig,” and this is all in spite of the fact that most Americans eat pork. In fact, most of my Jewish friends eat pork too. They seem to be moral and healthy. I guess this symbol may be outdated and thus our discussion of whether or not pork as a symbol is legitimate. I suppose that any true symbol for our understanding would need no discussion.
Dynasty 4: Types of Symbols
I’m not sure it’s fair for them to be thought of as symbols of immorality. Honestly, the best ‘symbols’ of immorality would probably be humans. To make a symbolic stance against immorality, we should abstain from each other. Just read the news.
But in all seriousness now (I’m only half-joking about the humans). It has been demonstrated that some may hold pork as a symbol, the reasons for that symbolism are relevant to this discussion. To start off, for me, there are 2 types of symbols.
One is unrelated in nature to what it represents; it is arbitrary. Like logos, or take the swastika, for example. Does the drawing of the actual lines in that shape inherently suggests the deplorable morals of the Nazi regime? No. This shape has merely become associated with that. Is an olive branch actually peaceful?
The second kind of symbol is one that directly implies what it represents. To me, this is the more powerful kind of symbol. Essentially, a good symbol should somehow illustrate what it is attempting to symbolize—a good symbol will give the essence of its symbolee, if you will. For instance maybe, a symbol of courage or prowess is often the lion, because it embodies those qualities.
Again, this is how I personally feel about it, and I don’t deny that some symbols, which I find arbitrary, might hold true meaning for others.
As someone who neither cares much for eating pork nor believes that it is forbidden to me, the environmental health scientist in me will say that it is indeed a source of various diseases. However, this is true of most things we eat. CDC statistics: turns out incidence rates of food-borne disease are highest for campylobacter, E. Coli, and shigella infection—all generally obtained through non-pork sources. One of the main causes of concern often cited about pork—trichinosis—is actually only responsible for about 10,000 cases worldwide (only 400 in the US). Compare that to salmonella, which is responsible for 40,000 cases of illness in the United States alone. So if we were to say that risk for infection or disease is a reason why pork is forbidden, we shouldn’t eat eggs, chicken, or beef either. So I have, and will again reject this reasoning for abstaining from pork.
Rejecting that, we move to pork as a symbol. Can we really say pigs are immoral creatures, or that our consumption of them causes us to commit immoral acts? If we agree that no, this is not the case, then I personally think that it is then a poor symbol of immorality. Then why not eat it? That is for each and every faithful person to decide if they wish. Personally, I would move to suggest that this is maybe a time-contextual rule since at the time, refrigeration was not available, and warm temperatures in the area would have likely increased the incidences of trichinosis—which if untreated, can affect the central nervous system and produce neurological deficits—most likely to have been viewed as some sort of psychological madness in a time when the disease was not understood.
So, I’m generally not a big believer in symbols just for the sake of symbols; or rather, doing something simply because it’s symbolic. In terms of actions, if I do something, it’s because I believe there is a practical aspect to what I am doing, or not doing. For example, to me, alcohol might be a better-suited symbol of immorality because I actually believe there is an association between the two.
However, it all goes back to how our views of symbols affect our individual actions. If viewing something as a symbol of something helps you lead a better life, then that’s awesome.
Dynasty 5: Making Sense of the Discussion
So basically, Dynasty 3 is right when he/she says that both Dynasty 1 and Dynasty 2 believe that the reason they don’t eat pigs is because “God says so”, this is something I don’t agree with but that’s fine.
I think the discussion is based on the premise that IF a pig is seen as a symbol for X, and abstaining from its consumption is supposed to be a symbolic gesture, then, if I eat pork, am I desecrating the symbol?
At this point I think the conversation has split into two separate but really useful conversations.
1) On symbols
2) On pork not being acceptable in Islam and Judaism.
As far as symbols are concerned: I think Dynasty 4 brought up good points, that there are two types of symbols: one that actually is what it represents, like lion is power and then one that is arbitrary. An upside down triangle doesn’t necessarily mean homosexual other than the value we arbitrarily ascribe to it through social construction
However, aren’t cows for some Hindu sects considered holy? If so, cows are not consumed because they embody a certain value or meaning of sacredness, and eating or killing a cow is considered desecration of that value. Would it be desecration of the value associated with the symbol, if a cow was killed? If so, why?
Making sense of all this is very confusing, what is the point of a symbol? If a symbol is something that represents something else, something more abstract, is this just a way for humans to concertize abstract concepts? Power is abstract, so wearing a lion on my shirt symbolizes I am powerful, that’s how a symbol is supposed to work, no? What is the functionality of a symbol? To me, all symbols are social constructions, and maybe it is a bad idea to view a pig as a symbol of immorality but if it ACTUALLY prevents people from doing, bad things, why not right? Symbols do have value, like alphabets or words, or names…they all represent other things. Is the purpose of a symbol simply a heuristic? Metaphors are also symbols.
***
As far as pork is concerned, it is seriously apologetic to try to explain a scriptural verse ex post facto, especially by using science. I think Dynasty 4 showed that Pork is a lot less dangerous than any other meat. The only reason I see to NOT eat pork meat is because pigs are intelligent creatures and we should abstain from killing other intelligent beings. Slippery slope? No, because what is deemed as intelligent for me is any creature that engages in leisure activity outside of instinctual behavior. Dogs are intelligent, no eating dogs. No eating dolphins. Dynasty 1 also mentions another point about organ system of pig, that’s true. There are a lot of studies going on in the field of xenotransplantation involving pigs because they are the best candidates for organ transplantation (see enclosed article). For those two reasons, we should not eat the animal. The disease and environmental instability doesn’t have me convinced. Unless, can the pig, used in both Judaism and Islam, be a symbol of something greater? I am not down with the “just accept it, it is the Unseen, and we will never know”. I would hate a God who gave me reason only to say that I can’t use it. The Unseen to me is something deeper and spiritual, more Sufi in nature than something that is used as a scapegoat to avoid philosophical discussions. I think blindly following or what’s known in Latin, as argumentum ad verecundiam is logically fallacious and problematic.
Tangential; General Thoughts on Food Consumption:
Dynasty 4
Pretty much everything we eat contains a natural or unnatural additive that alters natural processes, such as high fructose corn syrup (which is in basically everything) which inhibits proper secretion of leptin, which is supposed to regulate your appetite–that’s why we can’t stop reaching for more candy or Twinkies, much like this supposed maniacal craving for pork. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19064539
And that’s the least disturbing additive that we eat everyday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/aug/20/foodanddrink.shopping1
There’s pretty much nothing you can eat in the United States that doesn’t contain chemicals and stuff that you really, really, don’t want to know about.
However, what has been shown is a possible addictive property of dietary fat. This could be the possible explanation for bacon frenzy. Pork is a high-fat content meat, but so is beef and lamb. Ice cream is fatty.
We should all be careful of the self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s easy to find things wrong with pork if we’ve already been told it’s bad, but it doesn’t mean those are the reasons, especially when the reasons we find are easily pointed out in other non-forbidden items.
Dynasty 8
People who are psychologically primed to dislike particular items of food should be careful when judging others for eating that thing.
Edited by:
Abbas and Navila
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