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{"id":16900,"date":"2014-12-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1722"},"modified":"2014-12-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T00:00:00","slug":"history-of-disgust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/12\/history-of-disgust\/","title":{"rendered":"History of Disgust"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

Norbert Elias\u2019s\u00a0The Civilizing Process<\/a> traces modern standards of disgust and cleanliness to the development of court society during the Renaissance. Drawing on Elias, William Miller (Anatomy of Disgust<\/a>) suggests sensitivity to disgust and being civilized are directly proportional.<\/p>\n

Martha Nussbaum (Hiding from Humanity<\/a>, 115-6) disagrees rather vigorously. Elias and Miller fail, in part, because their historical perspective is too short, which enables them to tell a Whiggish story about the triumph of clean over disgusting.<\/p>\n

Nussbaum writes, \u201cancient Roman\u00a0sanitary practices were in many respects well in advance of those that\u00a0obtained in Great Britain until very close to the present day, if not\u00a0now as well. The common Roman soldier stationed in Northumberland,\u00a0in the north of England, among the most remote outposts of\u00a0the empire, had a toilet seat to sit on below which flowed running\u00a0water in which he might immerse his wiping sponge. Romans in\u00a0major cities all had copious running water carried by aquifers whose engineering was remarkable, and the system separated water used\u00a0for cooking and drinking from water used for toilet-flushing. . . .\u00a0By contrast,\u00a0courtiers in Elizabethan England urinated and defecated in corners\u00a0of palaces, until the stench made it necessary to change residences\u00a0for a time. And the weekly bath was the most English people of \u00a0all\u00a0classes typically knew until extremely recent times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cross-cultural comparison of modern societies leads to the same conclusion: \u201cIndians of all classes wash with\u00a0soap and water after defecating and find the institution of toilet paper in America and Europe substandard. (Similarly, the average\u00a0toilet stall in Finland has a sink with a spray nozzle inside the stall, to\u00a0promote such washing.) So we don\u2019t seem to find a uniform advance\u00a0in the direction of greater sensitivity to the bodily fluids.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"