I don’t believe in blind idealism: An interview with Katarzyna Boni
The author of "Auroville: The City Made of Dreams" talks about the difficulties of establishing (and writing about) utopian societies.
29 December, 2020
ARUN SANKAR/AFP via Getty Images
Is it possible to bring a utopia to life? When searching for an ideal world, do we part with reality or maybe give it a new shape?
<p> And is creating alternative realities something only cult leaders do? Stasia Budzisz discussed these and other questions with Katarzyna Boni, whose reportage Auroville: The City Made of Dreams was published in Polish in June 2020.</p><p><strong>Stasia Budzisz: You came across one of the communities of Auroville, the</strong> <strong>city of the future, by accident in 2009. You knew nothing about it, but what you found frightened you, and you decided to run away. What happened there?</strong></p><p><strong>Katarzyna Boni:</strong> I was travelling alone around the south of India. At some point, I felt that my journey made no sense; all I did was check the landmarks off a list from a travel guide. I figured it was the right moment to try some volunteering. I found a local community that planted trees and decided to join it. And so I ended up in Auroville, although the community was located on the outskirts rather than in the city itself. When choosing a project to volunteer on, I didn't even know I was applying to an Aurovillian community – I just liked the idea of planting trees in exchange for food and shelter. I only learned about Auroville itself from my pocket guide. Two weeks in, I didn't want to stay for a moment longer. I ran away to the Himalayas, at the exact opposite end of India. Several factors had prompted my reaction. First of all, I was at a stage of my life where I was changing jobs. I wasn't yet in my thirties; I was still trying to give shape to my identity. I knew my dreams, but didn't really know what to do with myself and what path to follow in order to get there. In the community, I met people whose situation was similar to mine, except they genuinely believed this place was going to save them. And I am severely allergic to this way of thinking, as I don't believe in blind idealism. Back then, I saw Auroville as a settlement established by Americans and the French, convinced that communism was the best thing to happen to us because they forgot to ask Poles about the reality of it. I was cynical and mocking about Auroville.</p><p><strong>You wrote that you wondered whether Auroville was a cult, and yet several years later, you went back there and wrote a book about a utopia. How did you come up with that idea?</strong></p><p>The idea to write a book around this topic had been there for a long time; I even set up a whole separate project about it. But then I started working on a <a href="https://przekroj.pl/en/literature/what-lies-under-the-water-katarzyna-boni" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reportage in Japan</a> – <em>Ganbare!</em> – and it consumed all my attention. I decided that my 'utopias' could wait and I shelved them for later. Then, just as <em>Ganbare!</em> was published, I got back on track with that topic. At first I thought I would write about various places that try to bring utopian ideas to life and are currently on different levels of realization. I was interested in the energy found at various stages of making a dream reality, how this energy changes over time, and how dreams and reality start to influence one another. At some point, I had a several-pages long list, including intentional communities and ideas for whole new nations (such as Liberland). I thought I would visit several places and then see what I might write. I wanted to visit South Korea, where a city of the future was created based on technology to facilitate every aspect of life. To me, Songdo is at the very beginning of its journey towards fulfilling this utopian dream. I wanted to visit Christiania which, as it seemed to me, was near the end of this road. I perceived Christiania as a ripe dream, if not overripe. I don't know how much of it was true, since I never ended up visiting. Auroville was supposed to be the place to illustrate a dream in the process of being realized. I started with it, and once I took a good look at it from up close, I decided it deserved its own book. I think I made the right decision.</p>
<p><strong>Why do you think that?</strong></p><p>Auroville is one grand experiment. People came to the desert with their children and started establishing a new city, this new world from which a new kind of human was supposed to emerge. Auroville turned 50 in 2018, and I was curious about its children and who they grew up to be. What worked out, and what didn't. I no longer needed other stages of utopias to describe what I found interesting.</p><p><strong>Generating a new human species does sound a bit frightening and cult-like.</strong></p><p>I had the same impression, which was why I ran away from Auroville the first time I was there. Once I returned, I knew I would have to face my reluctance. Indeed, some people there spoke in a very cult-like way. One of my interviewees said Auroville is inhabited by 12 clans that, in his opinion, provide a very natural way of distributing social roles within a community. There was a clan of priests, a clan of businesspeople, a clan of farmers. Still, Auroville is definitely not a cult. There is no initiation ceremony required for someone to stay there, even if they live there for a year, as I did. The trial period one has to undergo is a time you need to understand what the point is of working for this community. I recently spoke to an Aurovillian about how they're handling the COVID pandemic. I asked whether the city helps the businesses (which are, in fact, owned by the city, since due to a governmental solution, Auroville is a foundation with an array of non-governmental organizations underneath. Were the taxes lowered, for example? My goodness, did she take an offence! "Kasia, what are you talking about? It's Auroville that needs me now, not the other way round. Now more than ever." I realized that, once again, I had missed the fundamental truth about Auroville: it's the citizens who make the city, and they are not 'made' by it.</p><p>Auroville is not meant to provide a comfortable life; all it gives to its people is the means of basic survival, and everyone must take care of the rest. It is the citizens' responsibility to make sure that Auroville – the idea in which they believe – survives. Therefore, the question Aurovillians ask themselves is "How can I support my community?" rather than "What can I get out of my community now?" It's the complete opposite of the situation we are experiencing here, but I would not call it a cult. Those people have an idea that they believe in, and they understand it's not possible to achieve it from the position of making demands. They have to roll up their sleeves and work for it. As for a new species of human, it all depends on how literally we read into this concept. Siri Aurobindo, an Indian philosopher from the University of Cambridge, whose thought served as the blueprint for Auroville, insisted that humans are not the final stage of evolution and that something else will appear after us. However, Aurobindo considered it from the perspective of consciousness rather than biology, as he believed we can still become better versions of ourselves. That's how I see it. But in the 1970s, some people believed their children's consciousness was already more advanced than everyone else's. I'm pretty sure they were soon cured of that conviction. Today, nobody means a new species of human literally.</p><p><strong>What image of Auroville did you have in your mind when you returned to this city to write a book about it?</strong></p><p>I tried to keep my mind open, although I was going there with my own thesis. While my work on the book about Japan had taught me that such preconceived notions tend to go down quickly, I still need them for inspiration and ideas; they draw me into a new subject. The starting point was the dreams that shape reality. In Auroville, it's perceptible. Before the humans arrived, there was nothing there, just emptiness. Dreams and reality were my first lead. Then, I wanted to see what they managed to achieve within those 50 years and what they did not; whether our society could learn from it, too.</p><p><strong>In your book's title, you refer to Auroville as <em>The City Made of Dreams</em>. Why did you choose dreams as the starting concept?</strong></p><p>I wanted to write about a place in which one can see how dreams shape reality, and how reality shapes dreams, as well as see the moment in which the dream is no longer just that. It's the moment when the reality has changed your goal so much, it's no longer what it was when you were at the beginning of your journey. What to do then? Will you decide that you have changed along with your dream and want to keep going at it, despite it being different? Do you stick to it or leave it all and change your life again?</p><p><strong>How much time did you spend in Auroville?</strong></p><p>One year, not including my first time there in 2008, but it was not a year all in one go – I split it into several visits. Initially, I thought I'd make it three stays – two months long each time – but after my first visit, I already knew that was way too little time. The first visit allowed me to get into the community, but it was still just scratching the surface. I was only beginning to realize who was who and which issues I found interesting, but I didn't even manage to conduct one interview. Not because the people of Auroville are wary of strangers or don't want to talk to outsiders. They are simply very busy. Sometimes, they told me they could meet me in three months from now, which was why I needed more time. Aurovillians don't have whole days at their disposal to spend talking to reporters and journalists, of whom many visit. The city saw a surge of journalists in 2018 when it was celebrating 50 years of existence. I was in a more comfortable situation, as I had arrived in Auroville a year before. It was a good time to start working on my project. Over the course of my first two months there, I realized the subject could fill the entire book. The next two months gave me my first interactions with the main characters of the story. That was when I decided to go back there for eight more months – also because I just wanted to experience normal life in Auroville. Did you know that in total, I spent four years working on this subject?</p>
<p><strong>That's a long time. You wrote that at some point, you thought about staying in Auroville for good.</strong></p><p>If you live somewhere for a year and, due to the nature of your job, you try to get to know it in-depth, understand it, learn as much as possible about it, at some point, you get really drawn in. It's natural to ask yourself whether you would like to stay there.</p><p><strong>You had to dig deep into the memories of Aurovillians, but in your book, you point out that those who reach the community today are not focused on the city's past. Where did you find documents on the history part of your book if they don't teach the history of Auroville in their schools?</strong></p><p>I did it bit by bit, in snippets. Of course, I looked for information in books about the first years of Auroville – in the Pioneer's biographies and in my interviews with them. However, some things reached me as single sentences, dropped during my trips around Auroville, for example. This way, I learned about the conflict that divided the community in the 1970s, and I started researching it. If you keep asking, then sooner or later you will get some answers. But at first I didn't even know myself what I was looking for. I grasped at various threads, arranged meetings and interviews, not knowing whether they'd take me anywhere at all. I often felt like I was stumbling in the dark. On the one hand, I knew what interested me and what questions to ask. On the other hand, I had no idea where it was going to lead me and what story I was going to tell. As if I was wandering around a labyrinth with many exits, each of them leading towards a completely different landscape. This experience was radically different from what I discovered when working on <em>Ganbare!</em>. In that book, it was obvious that I was writing about ways of handling trauma and loss. That was the core of my conversations and the people I chose to feature in that book. And here, everyone – not only an Aurovillian but someone just passing through Auroville as well – could be a potential character. The breakthrough came when I met Auroson, the first child of Auroville. He was the first aurochild and the first new human.</p><p><strong>When exactly did you meet?</strong></p><p>I found out about him during my second visit to Auroville. We made contact, but we did not meet at that time. In November 2017, when I came over for eight months, we were already in touch on a regular basis. We talked for many hours, and we became friends.</p><p><strong>Who were your sources?</strong></p><p>I divided them into two groups: those who could tell me their personal stories and those who could explain how Auroville handles the development of society. That is – how Aurovillians work on changing the system, how they look for solutions and which solutions have already been put to the test. When talking to the former, I wanted to know what made them come to Auroville. I also looked for people from both sides of the conflict that divided the community. I was very fortunate, since many of the Pioneers came back to celebrate the city's 50th anniversary. Most of those interviews did not appear in the book since they were very similar and repetitive: arrival at the city, meeting the Mother, transformation, then life in the desert. As for the latter group, I wanted to know what Auroville does about various areas of life that it wants to improve, such as education, management, economy, architecture, culture, health and nutrition. I tried to meet with the people responsible for urban planning, with farmers, teachers, mediators, and with people who were brought up in Auroville since early childhood, at various stages of its existence. In order to draw in the children, I organized a creative writing class in one of the schools, but it was not very successful. Only one girl came back.</p><p><strong>Congratulations!</strong></p><p>Thank you. Discouraging people from writing is a very useful thing to do.</p><p><strong>In your book, you admitted that you didn't talk to everyone you wanted to interview. You didn't find the courage to chat to Jurgen, even though you had spent several months waiting for him in a café. It's a very honest admission for a reporter. Did you get cold feet?</strong></p><p>I turned out to be a reporter who's afraid of people. No, I did not speak to him. At that moment, it was more than I could have dealt with. It's not like I was waiting there just for him. The 'café', or rather a tea-serving booth, was a place I had already frequented earlier, before someone said: "Oh, you must talk to Jurgen." I started coming more often, Jurgen was never there, and when he finally showed up, I was taken by surprise, so instead of coming up to him and introducing myself, I just kept on drinking my tea. I was not in the mood for talking, and I found him a little intimidating, too. I could have always spoken with him later, after all. This happened several times. In the end, I found it embarrassing to start a conversation at that point. What would I even say? "You know what, Jurgen, I've been sitting here smiling at you, and it's lovely to drink tea in silence together, but I'm actually a reporter and I've heard of you before. Could we talk about your life now?" I realized that I don't have to come up to him. That not everything in my life has to revolve around doing research for my book. Sometimes, it's good to let it go. I felt similar about a certain woman. I waited three months to talk to her, and then it turned out I couldn't make conversation with her – she just frightened me.</p><p><strong>Did you learn any other hard lessons while writing about Auroville?</strong></p><p>It was difficult to decide whom I should describe and how to do it. I resolved not to write about my friends (whose stories were fascinating, and I would have loved to tell them, but I could not do it precisely because of our friendship). The relationship you establish with someone as a book interviewee is different than a relationship with a friend. This could also lead to a grudge; perhaps some of the things they shared were said in confidence granted by our friendship, and only some were meant for publication? It was also important for them to know whether I viewed them as friends or just book material. Auroson was the only exception to this rule, but our relationship was clear from the very beginning. Still, we became very close and sometimes I was not quite sure whether I was talking to him as a reporter or as a friend.</p><p>In Auroville, I came across one more difficulty that I didn't have to deal with in Japan: here, many people simply refused to meet with me. In Japan, it was also easier for me to conduct the interviews, as they were all focused on just one topic. I arrived at a place wrecked by a tsunami, a place recovering from a trauma. Both I and the main characters of my book were clear on what we were going to discuss. In Auroville, it was much more difficult. I had to serve as a guide to a conversation whose topic was incredibly broad. I sought out turning points in a person's life, something that made them chase their dreams, but I also looked for something that defined them, showed who they were, where they started and where they arrived. So I could have said: "Tell me all about your life, since your birth until now, and only then will I start asking you more detailed questions." Of course, this was usually impossible. Therefore, the course of the interviews usually depended on how aware my interviewees were of the turning points of their lives.</p><p>In Japan, it was obvious that our conversations were all built around the events of 11th March 2011 and everything that came after. People exposed their emotions in front of me, but they did not have to look for some meta-level inside themselves that would allow them to view their lives from an observer's perspective. My role is to facilitate entering that level with my questions. In Japan, I knew what questions to ask. In Auroville, I had no idea.</p><p>On top of that, the question about the meaning of our existence was always hanging right there in front of us, and that's the most difficult question to handle, as it provokes banalities. Especially when writing a reportage on spirituality. There was one more problem at hand – I realized I find it easier to write about strong, painful emotions. They're so overwhelming that they turn out to be enough to draw readers into the story. In Auroville, there is no drama. All we get is mundane day-to-day life. I had to problematize it and find a way of describing it so that it remained interesting and absorbing, despite its lack of emotional highs and lows.</p><p><strong>Do you think Auroville's existence makes sense today?</strong></p><p>Yes and no. I think it depends on how we approach this city. After all, we don't need Auroville to change the world or to work on becoming better versions of ourselves. It's not like the world won't survive without it. Auroville has no importance to the world. Seeing how India – and the world in general – has moved forwards, we must keep in mind that Auroville has become somewhat stagnant, especially when it comes to technology. Still, just because I lived there doesn't mean I understand everything that happens there. I keep asking questions. I think that Auroville is not pointless, because there are people still coming there today, wanting to try the thing it has to offer. This way, they can take something out of it, other than various ecological solutions – for example, they can discover that they don't need Auroville to change. But this city provides an impulse, teaching them to ask the right questions. In my opinion, Auroville shows that change, while being slow and difficult, is actually possible. It requires enormous open-mindedness, endurance and conviction. The fact that changes happen so slowly is less comforting; today, we need changes to take place much more swiftly. But perhaps it would happen faster if more people worked to make them come true?</p><p><strong>So how is the 1968 utopia different from the 2018 utopia?</strong></p><p>The premise remains the same, but it's the concept that was successful, not the city itself. The final vision is so vague that everything can work out – there is no ultimate goal, no ideal you strive to achieve. All we get is a clue: creating a place of human unity. Of course, it was said in advance that the city would reach its peak once it housed 50,000 people. Next, we would have to set up more communities until they covered the entire globe. But this recipe provided no measures. You have to try and figure it out yourself to make it happen. Auroville is not an escape from reality, because here, everyone takes responsibility for their actions. Everything is clear from the very beginning. Even the omnipresent Mother had no rigid guidelines to follow.</p><p><strong>What was your relationship with Mother?</strong></p><p>I don't want to say who Mother was. But it is thanks to her that Auroville exists at all today. She convinced UNESCO and 124 countries to support its conception. She was a charismatic woman, a woman who could change people's lives with just one look. She kept on changing their lives even after she passed away – many Aurovillians insist they can still feel Mother looking after them. I didn't manage to establish a relationship with Mother. It's not like I didn't try to. Today I think I respect her, although I did not like her at first. I had my doubts about her, precisely because I saw her as a cult guru. Even though she is no longer alive, everyone – even those who are not very religious – keep referring to her words. I found Mother unsettling. Perhaps it was because I had never met someone so charismatic, even though I know such people do exist. She could evoke genuinely extreme emotions in people. When telling me about their meetings with Mother, Aurovillians had tears in their eyes. And yet, I didn't trust her, as I didn't trust the whole narrative that grew around her. On top of it, she stared at me from the photographs almost everywhere I went. As if she actually was the Mother of the People. I felt invigilated. I saw no love in her gaze.</p><p><strong>Sometimes, people who have met John Paul II say they experienced similar emotions.</strong></p><p>Yes, I also thought of this comparison when I was thinking about other charismatic people I might know. I think that meetings with John Paul II evoked similar emotions: elation, understanding, forgiveness, acceptance, concern, tenderness, love. People who describe their experience of meeting a person they considered charismatic often report it in a very similar way. I did not feel comfortable around Mother, but I knew I could not write my book without her.</p><p><strong>The structure of your book is very purposeful. From the very beginning, we don't know what to expect and how the story will unfold. Was that your conscious writing choice when you started to put it all together?</strong></p><p>No, it emerged during the writing process. I knew I wanted to write the story of a city through the stories of its people and that each of these stories had to push the city's story forward. But I had no idea what the final form would be. It was the same with <em>Ganbare!</em> – I had two drafts ready before I understood how to make a book out of them. In this case, there were even more drafts to work on.</p><p><strong>Your book ends with a brutal statement about what life is.</strong></p><p>Perhaps I needed Auroville to understand that.</p><p><em>Parts of this interview have been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.</em></p><p><em></em>Reprinted with permission of <a target="_blank" href="https://przekroj.pl/en/">Przekrój</a>. Read the <a href="https://przekroj.pl/en/society/i-dont-believe-in-blind-idealism-stasia-budzisz" target="_blank">original article</a>. </p>
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The evolution of comfort food
An archaeologist considers the history and biology of what defines a taste of home.
20 December, 2020
Photo by Zera Li on Unsplash
The winter holiday season will feel different this year for many: Extended families may not be able to gather, leaving holiday meals shared with smaller groups, or digitally, across different time zones.
<p> With COVID-19 fracturing our daily lives and holiday customs, the food on those lonely plates may become a source of solace.</p><p><span style="background-color: initial;">D</span>uring this pandemic, I have been receiving emails each morning from <em>The</em> <em>New York Times</em> with suggestions on what to cook. It might be the turning of the seasons, or the stress and grief of a prolonged global crisis that has stretched for months already, but lately, the recommended recipes are mostly along the lines of comfort food.</p><p>When I noticed this—it was a photo of an enameled pot brimming with a Dijon and cognac beef stew that did it—I wondered what exactly defined comfort food. I know the types of foods that conjure feelings of "home" and "safe" to <em>me</em>, but are there universally comforting dishes or ingredients across cultures and time? Where does the concept of <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/a-brief-history-of-comfort-food/" target="_blank">comfort food</a> come from? And how far back do the flavors of comfort stretch?</p>
<p>I took my curiosity first to Twitter and Facebook, asking friends what their comfort food of choice was. Answers varied, but there were trends. One was starchiness. Potatoes figured heavily on the comfort menu—mashed, roasted, fried, or in dumplings like pierogies. Pasta was a top contender as well, and mac and cheese made several appearances.</p><p>It's unlikely to surprise any starch lover that consumption of carbohydrates creates a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8697046/" target="_blank">release of serotonin</a>, a chemical in the brain that <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-antidepressant-diet/201008/serotonin-what-it-is-and-why-its-important-weight-loss" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">regulates mood</a> and creates a feeling of calm or stability. It's no wonder that <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/can-archaeology-explain-the-bread-baking-craze/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">bread baking</a> has <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/why-theres-no-flour-during-coronavirus/611527/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">skyrocketed in popularity</a> while people have been stuck indoors.</p>
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">T</span>he second trend I saw in these responses was food as a trigger for memory—a point that comes up in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878450X16300786" target="_blank">academic studies</a> of comfort foods too. One friend wrote that whenever she uses onions, carrots, and celery as a base, she remembers the smell of her mother's hands tucking her into bed after cooking dinner for the family. A friend chose her mother's chicken and dumplings as her top comfort food, and another chose her grandmother's German potato salad (both neatly straddling the starch and memory categories).</p><p>Another response read:</p><blockquote>"I was really close to my grandpa. There was a huge mass of berry bushes and thistles and all kinds of weeds on his property. Every summer, he would wade into that mess to pick raspberries while I got the ones on the path so I didn't get scratched up. My grandma and I made dozens of jars of jam. And every morning of his life other than Christmas day, my grandfather had a peanut butter and jam sandwich for breakfast."</blockquote>
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">F</span>or this friend, PB&J is more than just an American childhood staple.</p><p>Most of the responses I got were from American friends, leaving me curious about people in the rest of the world. A search online for international comfort foods turned up many similar trends, but with plenty of variation. Someone homesick for Hong Kong might crave <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/9c3a733c1411400e9f80310fa8b65a9e" target="_blank">hotpot</a> or the savory char of <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/asia/hong-kong/articles/an-introduction-to-siu-mei-or-hk-style-barbecued-meats/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>siu mei</em></a>, rotisserie-style roasted meats. A person missing Greece might long for <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/2020/05/22/comfort-foods-around-world-1503552.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">moussaka</a> or <a href="https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-is-pastitsio-1705733" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pastitsio</a>. A Philippine <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/asia/philippines/articles/a-brief-history-of-adobo-the-philippines-national-dish/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">adobo</a> or a dish of Nigerian <a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018069-jollof-rice" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">jollof rice</a> could transport those hungry for familiar flavors.</p><p>I think about food a lot—nearly constantly, in fact. I also often wonder about the lives of ancient people, as we archaeologists tend to do. So, what were the flavors of home and family gathering in the deep past?</p><p>Early humans, like animals, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3342754/" target="_blank">evolved</a> to like the taste of things that were good for them and to find things that do harm—from poisonous plants to rotten meat—distasteful. Early food choices were driven by what was seasonally available and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25756731?mag=a-brief-history-of-comfort-food&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">packed with calories</a>.</p>
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Our craving for <a href="https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2015/08/17/why-do-humans-crave-sugary-foods-shouldnt-evolution-lead-us-to-crave-healthy-foods/" target="_blank">sugar</a>, which today can cause obesity and other health problems, stems from an evolutionary advantage for people who ate energy-rich foods. Over time, people also found foods that were <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378874114006916" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">medicinally helpful</a>, acted as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5030248/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">preservatives</a> or <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5486105/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">antimicrobial agents</a>, or simply tasted good.
</p><p>
<span style="background-color: initial;">T</span>he use of spices for taste goes back surprisingly far. More than <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0070583" target="_blank">6,000 years ago</a>, at least some cooks in the western Baltic region included the crushed seeds of the garlic mustard plant in their dishes. This finding is generally seen as the first evidence of use of spices for culinary purposes in ancient European cuisine, though the authors say it's hard to know if this was a regular practice at the time. Garlic mustard has a peppery kick something like an extra-strong arugula. In the Baltic region today, <a href="http://balticseaculinary.com/baltic-sea-cuisine" target="_blank">grated horseradish and mustard sauces</a> are common fixtures at the dinner table.<a href="https://www.sapiens.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/02_evolution-comfort-food.jpg" target="_blank"></a>
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The geographic variation in what was available and popular has carved out niches of regional, traditional tastes, forming recognizable spice combinations for countries and communities around the world today.
</p><p>
The archaeological record preserves the remains of the <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/oldest-known-bread-crumbs-discovered/" target="_blank">earliest-known bread</a> from about 14,000 years ago; we humans have loved it ever since. Ten thousand years ago, the Inca people of the Andes were learning to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/dining/potatoes-peru-madhur-jaffrey.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">love the potato</a>. By the 3rd century, noodles were already a staple in China. Six thousand years ago, someone far from their home on the Baltic Sea might have missed the peppery taste of garlic mustard just as today we long for the foods that comfort us.
</p><p>
Everyone—from every place and time—deserves a taste of home now and then.
</p><p>This work first appeared on <a href="https://www.sapiens.org">SAPIENS</a> under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND 4.0 license</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/column/field-trips/why-does-comfort-food-feel-good/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">original here</a>.<img src="https://www.sapiens.org/track/15121-1608495109461/?dt=The+Evolution+of+Comfort+Food&dl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sapiens.org%2Fcolumn%2Ffield-trips%2Fwhy-does-comfort-food-feel-good%2F" alt="" width="1" height="1"></p>
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Why moral people tolerate immoral behavior
As morally sturdy as we may feel, it turns out that humans are natural hypocrites when it comes to passing moral judgment.
16 December, 2020
- The problem with having a compass as the symbolic representation of morality is that due north is not a fixed point. Liane Young, Boston College associate professor and director of the Morality Lab, explains how context, bias, and tribal affiliation influence us enormously when we pass moral judgments.
- Moral instinct is tainted by cognitive bias. Humans evolved to be more lenient to their in-groups—for example excusing a beloved politician who lines their pockets while lambasting a colleague for the exact same transgression—and to care more about harm done close to them than harm done farther away, for example, to people in another country.
- The challenge for humans in a globalized and polarized world is to become aware of our moral biases and learn to apply morality more objectively. How can we be more rational and less hypocritical about our morals? "I think that clarifying the value that you are consulting for a particular problem is really critical," says Young.
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In ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ and beyond, chess holds up a mirror to life
The pieces don't represent an army, they stand in for the Western social order.
08 December, 2020
Netflix
If this use of chess to represent life feels familiar, it is largely thanks to the medieval world.
<p> As I argue in my book “<a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14222.html" target="_blank">Power Play: The Literature and Politics of Chess in the Late Middle Ages</a>," the game's early European players turned the game into an allegory for society and changed it to mirror their world. Since then, poets and writers have used it as an allegory for love, duty, conflict and accomplishment.</p><h2>The game's medieval roots</h2><p>When chess arrived in Europe through Mediterranean trade routes of the 10th century, players altered the game to reflect their society's political structure. </p><p>In its original form, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Companion-Chess-Second/dp/0198661649" target="_blank">chess was a game of war</a> with pieces representing different military units: horsemen, elephant-riding fighters, charioteers and infantry. These armed units protected the “shah," or king, and his counselor, the “firz," in the game's imagined battle. </p><p>But Europeans quickly transformed the “shah" to a king, the “vizier" to the queen, the “elephants" to bishops, the “horses" to knights, the “chariots" to castles and the “foot soldiers" to pawns. With these changes, the two sides of the board no longer represented the units in an army; they now stood in for Western social order.</p><p>The game gave concrete expression to the medieval worldview that every person had a designated place. Moreover, it revised and improved the very common <a href="http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng330/three_estates.htm" target="_blank">“three-estate" model</a>: those who fought (knights), those who prayed (clergy) and those who worked (the rest). </p><p>Then there was the transformation of the queen. Although chess rules across medieval Europe had some variations, most initially granted the queen the power to move only one square. This changed in the 15th century, when the chess queen gained unlimited movement in any direction. </p><p>Most players would agree that this change made the game faster and more interesting to play. But also, and as the late Stanford historian Marylin Yalom argued in “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/birth-of-the-chess-queen-marilyn-yalom?variant=32122469023778" target="_blank">The Birth of the Chess Queen</a>," the queen's elevation to the strongest piece appeared first in Spain during the time when the powerful Queen Isabella held the throne. </p>
<h2>A 'mating' dance</h2><p>With <a href="https://chaucer.lib.utsa.edu/omeka/items/show/274705" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a powerful female figure</a> now on the board, jokes about "mating" abounded, and poets often used chess as a metaphor for sex.</p><p>Take the 13th-century epic poem "<a href="https://carleton.ca/chum/wp-content/uploads/Huon-for-Hums-3200.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Huon de Bordeaux</a>." Wanting to expose his newly hired servant, Huon, as a nobleman, King Yvoryn urges him to play chess against his prodigiously talented daughter.</p><p>"If thou can mate her," Yvoryn says, "I promise that thou shalt have her one night in thy bed, to do with her at thy pleasure." If Huon loses, Yvoryn will kill him.</p><p>Huon does not play chess well. But this turns out not to matter because he looks like a medieval version of "Queen's Gambit" breakout star <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a34510174/who-is-townes-the-queens-gambit-jacob-fortune-lloyd/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jacob Fortune-Lloyd</a>. Dizzy with desire and desperate to sleep with this heartthrob, Yvoryn's daughter plays badly and loses the game.</p><p>In the 14th-century poem "<a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/hahn-sir-gawain-avowyng-of-arthur-introduction" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Avowyng of King Arthur</a>," chess also stands in for sex. At one key moment, King Arthur summons a noble lady to play chess; together they "sat themselves together on the side of the bed" and "began to play until dawn that was day." The repeated "mating" on the board not-so-subtly hints at a night of lovemaking.</p><p>It also shows up to this end in "The Queen's Gambit." In an echo of Huon's game, Beth plays with her friend and love interest, Townes, in his hotel room. Their match, however, is interrupted when it becomes clear that Townes doesn't share Beth's feelings. Later in the story, Beth plays with Harry Beltik. Their first kiss takes place over the board and prefaces their sexual consummation.</p>
<h2>Chess as 'life in miniature'</h2><p>But much deeper and more interesting are the medieval allegories that use chess to reinforce societal obligations and ties between citizens.</p><p>No author did this more comprehensively than 13th-century Dominican friar Jacobus de Cessolis. In his treatise "<a href="https://www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/cessolis-liber-de-moribus-60910" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Book of the Morals of Men and the Duties of Nobles and Commoners on the Game of Chess</a>," Jacobus imagines chess as a way to teach personal accountability.</p><p>In four short sections, Jacobus moves through the gameplay and pieces, describing the ways each one contributes to a harmonious social order. He goes so far as to distinguish pawns by trade and to connect each to its "royal" partner. The first pawn is a farmer who is tied to the castle because he provides food to the kingdom. The second pawn is a blacksmith, who makes armor for the knight. The third is an attorney, who helps the bishop with legal matters. And so on.</p><p>Jacobus' work became one of the most popular of the Middle Ages and, according to chess historian <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-History-of-Chess/H-J-R-Murray/9781632202932" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">H.J.R. Murray</a>, at one point rivaled the number of Bible copies in circulation. Even though Jacobus in his prologue implies that his book is most useful for a king, the rest of his treatise makes clear that all people – and the piece they most closely resemble – can benefit by reading his work, learning the game and mastering the lessons that come with it.</p><p>Jacobus' allegory becomes one of the central messages of "The Queen's Gambit." Beth reaches her full potential only after she learns to collaborate with other players. Just like the pawn she converts in her <a href="https://vandevliet.me/the-queens-gambit-the-final-game-harmon-vs-borgov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">final game</a>, Beth becomes a figurative queen only with the help of others.</p><p>But this is not the only modern work that deploys chess in this fashion. "<a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/star-wars-holochess-game-no-headset" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Star Wars</a>," "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sm_-vJNCHk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone</a>" and "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za8TuwshXnA" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Blade Runner</a>," to name just a few, use versions of the game at key moments to show a character's growth or to stand in as a metaphor for conflict.</p><p>So the next time you see a headline like "<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-01/trump-nears-checkmate-stage-in-last-gasp-bid-to-undo-election" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Trump Nears Checkmate</a>" and "<a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gang-of-10-obamas-checkmate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gang of 10: Obama's Checkmate</a>," or see an ad for <a href="https://spycentre.com/products/checkmate-home-infidelity-test-kit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a "Checkmate" infidelity test</a>, you can thank – or curse – the medieval world.</p><p>Grandmaster Garry Kasparov's observation ultimately holds true. "Chess," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RemmwytmEXs" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">he once quipped</a>, "is life in miniature."<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151370/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation"></p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jenny-adams-240995" target="_blank">Jenny Adams</a>, Associate Professor of English, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-massachusetts-amherst-1563" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of Massachusetts Amherst</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-queens-gambit-and-beyond-chess-holds-up-a-mirror-to-life-151370" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">original article</a>.</p>
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Kind by nature: Have faith in humanity
Radical thinker Rutger Bregman paints a new, more beautiful portrait of humanity.
23 November, 2020
Photo by Neil Thomas on Unsplash
Optimism is what runs the world, and cynicism only serves as an excuse for the lazy.
<p> Evil is not inherent to our nature. We have achieved so much because we are friendly and decent. The radical thinker Rutger Bregman paints a new, more beautiful portrait of humanity.</p><p>Try standing in front of the mirror and remember the worst things ever done – by you personally, and by <em>Homo sapiens</em> as a whole. And smile, because history shows that we are doing much better than you think. This subversive idea belongs to a Dutch historian, writer and TED lecturer. In his new book, <em>Humankind:</em> <em>A</em> <em>Hopeful</em> <em>History</em>, he finds out whether the conviction that humans are selfish, hostile and destructive by nature is actually true. And if we turn out to be intrinsically good after all, what would it change?</p><p>Rutger Bregman already shook up the minds of politicians, businesspeople and the general public several years ago in his book <em>Utopia for Realists And How We Can Get There</em>, in which he argued that a better world could be built straight away. Bregman's critics consider him a naïve fantast, but many CEOs and national leaders are seriously considering introducing his revolutionary postulates, such as much shorter workdays and universal basic income. In his new book, Bregman goes even further, proposing that we turn the world upside down. More precisely, he wants to put straight the image of humankind as created by philosophy, science and the media. And to change our behaviour for the better.</p><p>The author has created a daring, fresh story, filled with fascinating examples, analyses and discoveries, and constructed it as if it were an investigation. The accused was <em>Homo sapiens</em>, a species with alleged murderous tendencies since the dawn of time, seeing his own viciousness reflected in everything and everyone around. Bregman revised the evidence in question and tore the lining of this negative story, reaching deep into the discoveries of archaeologists, historians and biologists. He bursts through the philosophy of Hobbes, who had a defining influence on the image of humans, perceived as warmongering species who must be controlled by a powerful, Leviathan-like government at all times. Bregman uncovers swindles ensconced in the most famous psychological theses of the 20th century, laying bare the manipulations of such celebrities as Philip Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram, whose famous experiments are considered the final evidence that a Nazi and sadist is lurking in every one of us. Yet years later, those claims turned out to be a sham.</p><p><br/></p>
<p>Bregman crushes the myths built by bestselling authors such as Nobel Prize laureate William Golding, best known for his novel <em>Lord of the Flies</em>, and by big media like <em>The New York Times</em>. He boldly debates the most popular authors of recent years: <a href="https://przekroj.pl/en/society/the-gospel-according-to-pinker-tomasz-stawiszynski" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Steven Pinker,</a> Yuval Noah Harari and Malcolm Gladwell. With the energy of a young and fearless researcher, he dug through all the critical files, finding new evidence in old cases. The turn of perspective is so surprising that <em>Humankind</em> keeps the reader on their toes. Whatever you think about humans, Bregman will derail your viewpoint. And there's probably nothing as baffling as how much we struggle with accepting the idea that we are better than we thought we were. The thought that most of us are intrinsically good turns out to be a challenge, as if the bar has suddenly gone higher. Such a positive image makes us want to try harder.</p><p>Bregman uses the phenomenon we call the Pygmalion effect, meaning that we become what others see in us. Those rats that researchers assumed to be intelligent did better with the tasks they encountered. Children with supportive parents and teachers do better at school and in life. And people who see good in themselves, start to cultivate it. Bergman believes cynicism to be an avoidance strategy.</p><blockquote>The belief that people are vicious and that the world is going to the dogs justifies passivity. Optimism, however, has an opposite effect – it requires us to strive for kindness, trust, and generosity in an active way.<br></blockquote><p>The common belief that crisis awakens the most primitive instincts in people is not reflected in the facts, writes Bregman. He calls it the greatest misunderstanding in history. "No, no, you go first…", "Please, you go ahead, I'll follow you," said the people leaving the towers of the World Trade Center, when their offices were ablaze and the building was starting to melt. There was no panic; almost everyone remained polite. This was confirmed by recordings and testimonies from the survivors.</p>
<p>On Christmas Eve of 1914, 100,000 soldiers, mostly German and French, left the trenches to meet. They exchanged gifts and sang carols. For years to come, most of them were shooting high above their enemies' heads, so as not to wound them. The same thing happened at other wars, before and after that one. After the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, 90% of the guns were loaded and unused. The murderous instinct is a myth, Bregman insists.</p><p>Hitler's air force raided London in 1940 to break the spirit of the British. Instead, people put messages in their windows, such as: "More open than usual" or "Windows broken, booze still strong!" The English kept calm. Churchill was proud, but soon he made the same mistake, assuming he could break the Germans with air raids instead. After the bombing, Dresden responded in the same spirit as London – with acts of everyday kindness, help and optimism.</p><p>After the war and annihilation, many sought an answer to what made the German soldiers so persistent and determined. The reasons were said to be blind obedience and fanaticism. And yet, Bregman reveals data that was previously omitted and passed-over in silence: the main force keeping the soldiers going was the sense of solidarity and camaraderie. They didn't want to abandon their mates, with whom they grew up and trained. When presented in such light, those alleged beasts suddenly start looking a lot like boys from the yard. Like ourselves, even.</p>
<p>Think again, insists the Dutch historian, and see how tragedy brings out the best in people. Evil only exists in us when it masks as good and nestles in our system of beliefs as a sense of righteousness, something important to the world. And don't believe the media, he warns, because they feed on extremes. The media distort reality and teach us to believe in evil. For example, take the famous story of the New York woman named Kitty who was stabbed and died alone in front of her house in 1964, watched by her 38 indifferent neighbours, out of whom just one called the police, the rest declining to get involved. That's the version promoted by <em>The New York Times</em>, with alarming words about an "epidemic of callousness". The facts, as shown by Bregman, are very different. Most of the witnesses didn't see the attack – they just heard the noise. Half of them called the police, and Kitty died in her friend's arms. What happened to the perpetrator? He was caught soon later when he was leaving someone's apartment carrying a TV, and an alarmed neighbour stopped him. People can feel, express concern, and help others – those are the facts on which the media rarely report. There are over a dozen such spectacular deconstructions in Bregman's book, using new evidence he pulls out like trump cards, one after another.</p><p>We follow the rules of kindness and cooperation not only in times of crisis, but also in everyday life. Bregman echoes other researchers who describe the phenomenon of ordinariness as the dominant truth about the world. He refrains from promoting naïve theses, and the strength of his reasoning lies in returning to the right proportions. There is more good in the world, so much of it that we take it for granted and forget to define it. In his view, society is not founded on obedience to the government, which makes us aggressive and insensitive, but on the human trust. That's why real democracy (as opposed to the current rule of sociopath elites over the sensitive majority) is possible. More examples? In Venezuela and Brazil, budget management in many cities was passed over to the inhabitants. As a result, they saw an increase in social investments and education, while poverty and crime plummeted. In Norwegian prisons, guards and inmates spend time together, share duties and wear no uniforms. The outcomes were shorter times of imprisonment, fewer re-offenders, and a lot of savings. And so on.</p><p><em>Humankind</em> rearranges the mind like no other book published over the past few years. It should be mandatory reading in the 21st century, as it gives some balance to another milestone in the human autobiography, the bestselling <em>Sapiens</em> by Yuval Noah Harari from 2014. Bregman insists that optimism is solidly founded on facts. It is not a dream, just a new realism.</p><p><em>Translated from </em><a href="https://przekroj.pl/artykuly/recenzje/czlowiek-czlowiekowi-czlowiekiem" target="_blank"><em>the Polish</em></a><em> by Aga Zano</em></p><p>Reprinted with permission of <a target="_blank" href="https://przekroj.pl/en/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="">Przekrój</a>. Read the <a href="https://przekroj.pl/en/culture/kind-by-nature" target="_blank">original article</a>. </p>
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