Going back to what Epicurus ate

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Epicurus was a modest eater and drinker, by all accounts, not at all the glutton he was painted by early christians with dubious agendas. Like his contempories he ate a Mediterranean diet. According to the European Heart Journal, commenting on a study of 15,000 people worldwide, this diet is really good for you. When people with heart disease eat a diet high in fruit, vegetables and fish, the journal reports, they are less likely to have a heart attack or stroke. Eating more of these foods influences their health more than reducing unhealthy items such as sugary drinks (European Heart Journal, doi.org/bfns reported in New Scientist).

In America sugar and salt seem to be added to everything. In our local “health food” store, where you pay a significant extra amount for the privilege of spending money, they add sugar to soup, to muesli, and, if you examine labels, it seems to most things. A bit of sugar is harmless in small quantities, but it is a poison if you are constantly with a Coke can in hand. Efforts to tax sugary drink to improve public health are met with furious protest. It is, of course, the right of everyone to eat what that want and like, and to consume far too many carbohydrates (portions in restaurants are expected to be huge) as long as they understand what it does to their long-term health. And if the nation is prepared to pay the cost.

Brexit: the cerebral Obama was right.

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The British are split almost 50-50 over exit from the EU. For remaining in Europe are 91% of Guardian readers, 73% of young people under 30, 47% of Labour Party voters, 70% of graduates and the professional classes, and the majority of those from London, Scotland and Wales. Ranged against them are less educated people, semi-and unskilled workers and most old people. The Conservative Party is split 56-44%. The polls confound the words of Winston Churchill: “Youth is for freedom and reform, maturity for judicious compromise, and old age for stability and repose”.

Under an Epicurean government all young people under 30 would be given one and a half votes for every vote made by older people. Why? Because young people will have to live for decades with the decision, and I fear that if that decision is “exit” it will be a decision that the young people will resent all their lives. It’s one thing to vote for a five year term of government; quite another to tie the hands of the younger generation for 70 or more years.

Into all this wades President Obama, who virtually tells the Brits not to expect any special privileges from the United States if there is a Leave vote. He is quite right. There is a misguided and romantic idea among some British conservatives that there is a “special relationship” between the US and the UK. Yes, there is a special relationship but it is with Israel, not the United Kingdom. There is nothing about Brexit at all that is in the American interest. On the contrary, Americans who have any knowledge of foreign affairs are very worried indeed about the centrifugal forces operating in the EU (see Poland for one).

The kindness of strangers

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A team of anthropologists at University College London interviewed hundreds of couples in two hunter-gatherer tribes, the Palanan Agta of the Philippines and Congo’s Mbendjele BaYaka, as well as the Filipino farming tribe the Paranan, which is a patriarchal society. These people offer a strong approximation of the lifestyles and communities of our oldest ancestors and their survival strategies. The anthropologists studied cooperation between strangers and acquaintances and concluded that our hunter- gatherer ancestors, before they took up farming, believed that men and women were equal.

Members of current hunter-gatherer tribes say they prefer to live close to their kinfolk. That makes sense, since siblings and grandparents can help with child care. But even though that’s what they say, it’s not what they do. In fact, the tribes live in camps that are heavily populated with folks to whom they’re not related. This seems to be because the wife wants to live with her kin and the husband with his. The negotiations are so fraught that they end up living with a constantly changing group of strangers instead. This works because the members cooperate. “Sharing and cooperation is crucial to survival,” explains Andrea Migliano, the paper’s senior author. “So [tribe members] evolved mechanisms to cooperate with unrelated individuals.” For example, hunters only find food about 75 percent of the time. That would mean a family would go hungry one day out of four. But that doesn’t happen because unrelated neighbors learned to share their food. (Thomas K. Grose, May 15, 2015, adapted from an article on the NPR website).

Look at us so-called “civilised” people! We have embraced competition, free enterprise and capitalism so comprehensively that we can pass a homeless man or woman in the street without a thought. We can leave tending to them to a small number of generous people who give money to feed, clothe and house the crazy, the simple-minded, the drug addict and the man leaving jail without prospects. We complain about entitlements, free-loaders, and the idle poor, and do what we can to reduce tax on the premise that the extra money floats all boats. Of course, this premise is largely bogus – and selfish. We have lost much of our empathy and community spirit. This was strongest when we all lived in villages and everyone knew one other. Now we mostly live anonymously in or around cities. All the more reason to reach out to the poor and sick. This is one reason I am an Epicurean; I believe we are all in this together and we have a duty to others.

On Quoting Shakespeare

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“If you cannot understand my argument, and declare “It’s Greek to me”, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool’s paradise -why, be that as it may, the more fool you , for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare.

“If you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then – to give the devil his due – if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then – by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness’ sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! – it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare”. (Bernard Levin)

What an amazing genius the man was!