We can’t just expect instinctive preferences for the natural to disappear. The best we can do is gently keep push at the limits of the natural and see how far we are willing to go. We just don’t know in advance what our limits will be.
ReadEating at table should not be equated with formality and outmoded etiquette. Its main association should be conviviality. We sit around a table, but in front of the TV. We eat together at the table, but merely at the same time elsewhere. Even when eating alone, however, dispensing with a dining table comes at a cost. When we have our meals while doing other things we are not eating, we are merely feeding. We cease paying attention to what we are ingesting and our food becomes mere fuel.
ReadWhen we find ourselves feeling hostile towards others, we’re often advised to put ourselves in their position. The ubiquity of envy, however, suggests that this might be as likely to increase our enmity as weaken it…
ReadThe imperative not to treat people as objects is a minimal requirement of civility rather than the foundation of all ethics.
ReadWe can’t just choose what to believe because it would be convenient to do so. Of course, people do sometimes deceive themselves to avoid uncomfortable truths but that usually happens unconsciously. Believing by mere force of effort is nigh on impossible.
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