The Table Comes First

The first condition of civilisation is, of course, food.
---Michael Wood, Legacy.

Is it me or is it now impossible to turn on the computer and not be swamped by adverts or images of half-dressed women? Five (ten?) thousand years of civilisation and is this what's it come down to: the black-hearted, black-flagged pirates or candy crush on the tube? 

Legacy is a book that perhaps all school kids should read-especially in the land of the pure. Will always think highly of this book because it pointed me to the great Peter Brown...

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I suppose that at around my age one is always susceptible to the usual bouts of pessimism and world-weariness(maybe because it's easy, but false, to equate 'depth' with sadness...who today after all can be 'profound out of lightness'?). Is the world going to hell in a handcart? Not quite sure what a handcart is, but despite everything you tend to think there's a bit of a hysterical reaction to current events (spurred on by the fake memory of the Great War). Yes, Gaza is terrible-but any worse than before?- and Israel isn't the centre of the world. A plane is shot down over the Ukraine. Yes, a terrible tragedy but, seriously, in the scheme of things?

*Human beings are in the habit of recalling the first times (the first time), all those fumbling first attempts, the tryouts, so it's worth remembering that human civilisation, like human life, has always been a fragile endeavour, something on the verge of collapse and reversal. So why should we be defined by the first or the last time?

One doesn't have to be a Khaldunian to believe that there are phases of history-our circular views of time die hard and come around again- or that what we're witnessing is what Guenon once called 'the reign of quantity'.

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Food isn't just food, of course. Rituals, memory, symbolism. The most memorable meals are always with other people. The sharing of the common meal, the set times, the learning of the truly important skill of not saying what's on your mind; the banter across generations, the passing down of stories, the etiquette of sharing, of not thinking about oneself, and the deep satisfaction of warm food, strong coffee, sweet desserts. The table-to take up a point Hannah once made (and Hirschman, too)-is a deeply political symbol (think about the turning of tables..Christ). Which brings you back to Iraq, the old seat of pluralistic civilisation. The table is intimacy and difference, unity and diversity. Religion, in the old days, was never to be discussed at the table.

Questions of taste and judgement naturally arise. The intelligence of the senses, the fine line between snobbery and savagery. Food, essential to the continuity of life but also a form of life. Is there anything sadder than a t.v. dinner or eating on the move? Eating while checking one's emails, perhaps.

Patrick Cockburn, one of the few genuine journalists, was probably right: the idea of a multi-ethnic Iraq has gone (Of course, the Marsh Arabs were already-as far as you know-already being forced to abandon their ways under Saddam but, still... 

The eaters and the eaten