In 1998, a group of Colorado College students decided to protest possible U.S. involvement in Iraq by refusing to eat for one day. They hung up posters encouraging students to join them in their fast. Angered and disturbed by this approach, one student took to the pages of the Catalyst to protest the protest. The student argued that such an invitation to abstain from eating was detrimental to both physical and mental health. Far from being a positive gesture of goodwill and solidarity, she said, the fast contributed to the destructive notion that eating is negative and not eating is positive. For this student, putting value on self-denial—especially denial of food—was evidently harmful. As proof, she referenced an article that had appeared in the Catalyst the previous month that discussed the widespread epidemic of eating disorders among college students, particularly female college students. According to the writer, a protest encouraging students to fast was not only insensitive to students struggling with eating disorders, but in fact condoned and encouraged unhealthy eating habits. The student urged those planning the protest to call off the fast.
In the next week’s Catalyst, the protesters defended their choice to fast. They pointed out that fasting has been practiced by a variety of religions and political groups. Fasting, in their view, was meant as an affirmation of the importance of food, not a condemnation of food or bodily appetites. By giving up food, they were exercising self-control to make a statement about an important problem. Rather than being detrimental, they said, fasting both “makes space in our lives for larger issues” and “informs thinking and action in our lives.” They acknowledged the concerns of the angered student but insisted that fasting could be a powerful and beneficial act when practiced by the mentally and physically healthy.
I was immediately drawn to these articles when I came across them while doing research with old Catalysts. Reflecting on this event two decades later, it seems to me that the questions they raised are as unsettled as ever. So much more than a necessity of life, food challenges us to consider an array of issues like social justice, mental and physical health, religion, morality, and the environment, to name a few. This particular disagreement over the practice of fasting led me to consider why people fast and what implications it has for our contemporary secular culture.
Growing up Catholic, I had some exposure to fasting, though it was relatively mild compared to some other religious traditions. During Lent—the 40 days leading up to Easter—Catholics generally make a commitment (not unlike a New Year’s resolution) to better themselves by giving something up or taking up a good habit. Furthermore, they don’t eat meat on Fridays, though fish is fair game. They are also supposed to eat lightly (small breakfast, small lunch, and nothing between meals) on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
As a kid, this could be a drag, but it wasn’t really a big deal. I knew that fasting and giving something up was an important part of my faith, and it certainly made my parents happy. In high school, even though I was a bit more skeptical about the theological significance of Lent, I still felt that it had some kind of value. Lent became an opportunity for mindfulness and personal betterment. The no-meat-on-Fridays rule encouraged me to pause and think about what I was eating. It was both a time to challenge myself and to work on good habits while cutting back on unhealthy ones. I haven’t observed the Lenten fast for several years now, but I still hold on to some of the values it engendered.
At first glance, it might seem that I align more closely with the perspective of the students who believe that fasting is not really about punishing the body or demonizing food. However, I do think that the concerned student had a point. Earlier in history—for example, in medieval Christianity—fasting was practiced as a way to punish the body and subdue the “passions of the flesh.” Natural impulses, considered base and corrupt, were something to be resisted. In his autobiographical “Confessions,” early Christian philosopher St. Augustine wrote about the need to resist carnal temptation: “[f]or the body which is corrupted presses down the soul, and the earthly dwelling weighs down the mind.” For someone like St. Augustine, the body had to be overcome for the sake of knowing the divine.
This sentiment is rooted in a dualistic spirit-matter, mind-body binary dating back at least to Plato. He argued that in order to know the Good and the Beautiful, human beings must turn away from the distractions of the material world and focus on the spiritual Truth that these distractions concealed. Similarly, the canons of Taoism, Buddhism, and Islam traditionally see fasting as a way to purify the body and focus the mind, though they don’t share the same open hostility towards the body.
That being said, it would be wrong to suggest that all instances of religious fasting are attempts to reject or punish the body. People fast for a variety of reasons, such as promoting mindfulness, occasioning mystical experiences, atoning for sins, or building community. Yet, based on my personal experiences, conversations with professors, and readings in various encyclopedias of religion, it seems to me that in many cases, fasting boils down to the values of discipline and self-control. Fasting often rests on a belief in the benefit of self-denial which extends far beyond the practice of fasting itself. Discipline in this sense may not seem very different from Augustine’s asceticism, but, like the student protestors, I would argue that they are distinct. Clearly the protestors did not have anything divine in mind when they claimed that fasting “makes space in our lives for larger issues.” They were simply recognizing that at times it is good to forego certain desires for the sake of other more meaningful goals.
It would seem that everyday experiences, at a basic level, support this belief. There are times when it would seem beneficial to refrain from doing something in the interest of an end—spiritual or otherwise—deemed more desirable. That could mean saving money instead of buying a new phone, eating an apple instead of a twinkie, taking a train instead of a plane, or writing that paper instead of watching more Netflix. All of these choices rely on our freedom to evaluate our various desires and prioritize some over others.
There may have been a time when the merit of self-control and discipline was widely agreed upon. Today, however, as I think the 1998 debate at CC shows, that is surely not the case. Today, we are justifiably concerned with the mental health implications of self-denial. These days, the idea of discipline conjures up in many of us associations with Freudian superegos and Foucauldian panopticons. Self-control has become synonymous with repression and discipline with internalized guilt.
In an essay titled “Dignity and Restraint,” the American Buddhist monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu observes that words like temptation, dignity, and restraint have all but disappeared from the contemporary vernacular. He laments this fact and argues that these concepts are necessary for true happiness. Why is this so? First, he says, without restraint we don’t have control over our own lives. If we only regard our impulses, we have no priorities or goals; our lives lack meaning. Second, he argues, without self-control we cannot even identify our impulses. It is impossible to know ourselves and these inner drives unless we try to reign them in. Restraint allows us to make judgements about our competing desires and forestall immediate gratification for a more desirable goal. And third, he says, restraint allows us to recognize both our own dignity and that of others. Values like mindfulness and generosity are only possible when we are able to say no to some thoughts and desires and say yes to nobler ones. Bhikkhu observes that consumer culture has tried to erase this value system and urges us to consider the consequences:
The lessons our culture teaches us—to go out and buy, buy, buy; be greedy, be greedy; give in, give in—are all over the place. And what kind of dignity comes from following those messages? The dignity of a fish gobbling down bait. We’ve got to unlearn those habits, unlearn those messages, if we want to revive words like dignity and restraint, and to reap the rewards that the realities of dignity and restraint have to offer our minds.
Many of us are not used to thinking in terms of dignity and restraint and may find this kind of sentiment jarring. “Who are you to make such claims about goodness, happiness, and human nature?” we might ask. “How could we possibly benefit from doing without?” However, at least to me, some of the sentiment behind Bhikkhu’s words rings true.
After reading his essay, I could not help but relate it to the issue that plagues my thoughts more than any other these days: climate change. The threat of climate change has forced me to evaluate the consequences of my own behaviors like little else has. It has made me think about the effects of my material consumption in a way that Lent or Marx never could.
I would say it is well established at this point (just skim any IPCC report from the last thirty years), that addressing the rampant consumption in wealthy countries, the United States in particular, is critical to mitigating climate change. In his 2005 paper titled “Living Better by Consuming Less” professor Tim Jackson takes the environmental impact of consumption as a given. From there he explores the question of “whether or to what extent consumption can be taken as ‘good for us.’” While some views assume that increased consumption is synonymous with improved well-being, others argue that “the scale of consumption in modern society is both environmentally and psychologically damaging.” Although it may sound grim, the latter viewpoint opens the possibility of what Jackson calls a “double dividend,” in which reducing consumption could both fight climate change and increase personal well-being.
This win-win situation might seem a little too good to be true. Could it be possible that using less energy, flying less, using less water, buying fewer things, driving less, eating less meat, and producing less waste could really be good for us? Sure, these actions are constructive in the long run if we actually manage to curb global warming, but it’s less clear that they are personally beneficial right now. France’s “Yellow Vest” protests of last year against new petrol taxes show the difficulty in convincing people that some ineffable goal of reducing carbon emissions down the line is worth their sacrifices in the present. This example seems to show that even if the “double dividend” is possible, it is hardly obvious or straightforward.
Nevertheless, Jackson dives into the research on consumption to understand whether the “double dividend” is realistic or merely a pipe dream. He points out that there is no shortage of literature (from Karl Marx to Tibor Scitovsky to Wendell Berry) criticizing the capitalistic belief in the inherent goodness of consumption. Though some of these critiques are more empirical than others, they all assert that material consumption does not equal happiness (I think we could safely place Bhikkhu in this category). This assertion is supported by the fact that the U.S. consumes more energy per capita than any other country, but is ranked nineteenth in happiness by the World Happiness Report.
But if consumption fails to satisfy our needs, Jackson asks, why do we seem so driven to consume? One response, he says, is that consumption is an evolutionary adaptation and that we are directed to consume by some biological imperative. As some have argued, it may be that our consumption is driven by an urge to secure the means of survival, display our sexual availability, and establish ourselves in status hierarchies.
Jackson also looks at the causes of “inconspicuous” or “ordinary” consumption that are less easily explained through evolution alone. He argues that much of our consumption—a heating bill or a car for example—occurs without very much choice at all, rational or irrational. Many times, we are locked into unsustainable patterns of consumption “either by social norms … or by constraints of the institutional context.” This, for Jackson, shows that the “double dividend” cannot be met merely through “simplistic appeals to the good nature of individuals” (Sorry Bhikkhu). Change will have to occur at the societal level. This could explain the resistance to the French petrol taxes: lawmakers had failed to anticipate how hard it would be for rural and working-class communities to adapt to the new law.
Finally, and, I would argue, most importantly, Jackson presents research showing just how important material objects are to both our personal and social identities. Not simply greedy or status hungry, “we consume in order to identify ourselves with a social group … to communicate allegiance to certain ideals, and to differentiate ourselves from certain other ideals.” Consumption has become a part of how we see ourselves and make meaning in the world. Our consumption is linked to things that truly matter: friendship, identity, community, and purpose.
On the one hand, this last point shows why consumption is so deeply rooted in our culture. On the other, I think it gives us reason for hope. While consumption may have become one way through which we find community and construct meaning in the world, it is surely not the only way. Although it will not be easy, Jackson has faith in our ability to devise a “more successful and less ecologically damaging strategy for pursuing personal and cultural meaning.”
But what would this look like? Jackson leaves us to consider how such a strategy could be put into place. Perhaps restraint and self-control could play a role in all of this. In order to find meaning outside of consumption, we may have to revisit some older values that have fallen out of vogue. As Bhikkhu argues, personal discipline may be one such value. After all, fasting is practiced all over the world, and human beings have believed for millennia in the simple “double dividend” that there can be value in resisting some desires for the sake of higher ends. While today’s secular culture may not equate “higher” with the spiritual, I think combating climate change certainly constitutes such a higher end.
Individual self-discipline clearly will not be enough to solve the climate crisis. Ambitious policy change is necessary for large-scale consumption and emission reductions. But policy, at least in functioning democracies, is born from the values of the people. Restrictions on consumption such as a carbon tax require the exercise of restraint on a societal level, a collective willingness to give up short term convenience for the higher end of a healthy planet. Given this context, maybe we can learn from the students who saw self-denial not as destructive or meaningless but as productive and meaningful. Perhaps in our concern with the mental health consequences of denial, we have forgotten its value. Self-control can be freedom. For the student protestors, that meant freedom to advocate for peace. In this case, it means freedom to save our species and quite possibly become happier in the process.
Mediocre Issue | October 2019