On Cannibalism

Cannibalism is such an interesting concept.

The idea of internalizing another human being.

But it may not be as grotesque as we’d like it to be.

Don’t we kind of live taking chunks out of each other?

Maybe not Hannibal Lecter-style… 

But what if the way we use each other wasn’t all that different?

Who we are (who knows)

The body/self debate has swung on a pendulum, philosophically speaking, so many times.

“The body is evil but the spirit is good!” —Gnostics (badly paraphrased)

“You have to have a body to be able to think!” —Kant (modernized & paraphrased)

“The mind and the body are different… and the same!” —Descartes (oversimplified & paraphrased)

If even these great minds couldn’t land, who are we to say how much of the self is in the body… and how much exists beyond it?

So, then, could our exploitive psycho-social practices not be construed as a kind of metaphysical cannabialism?

Hold on now - I’m not a jerk

Aren’t you, though?

Aren’t I?

This morning as I was running in the rain I thought this through.

David Sedaris is coming to Philly. 

I really want to meet him.

Why?

But, no, really (I asked myself), WHY?

The best case scenario is I get a 10-20 second exchange, he signs something, I breathe rarefied air, and then… what?

My entire reason would be to soak something up: some perception, some incident, some interchange that is memorable enough to tuck away and use as social currency: “I met David Sedaris and…”

A story that makes me, by association, seem intelligent and urbane and important.

So all I really want is to vampire him. To take a chunk of his brilliance or awkwardness or what-have-you and make it part of me… part of how people see me… part of my worth.

Eaten

What are our wounds if not scars of the times people have taken too much from us? Aimed to lay claim? To paralyze us? To hurt us?

At normal healthy healing speeds, most of us can recover.

But we’ve all met people who seem to just drip… whose bleeding is internal and interminable. Someone somewhere sometime took too big a chunk. It’s unrecoverable and the negative space is deeply felt. 

Eating

I know “cannibal” is enough of a trigger word for them to seem intentionally subversive, but it’s not a truly alien idea.

The Jewish-then-Christian Messiah is commemorated in the Catholic Church through the Eucharist: blessed bread and wine that become the body and blood of Christ. 

“We eat” in remembrance of Him (some believe literally via transubstantiation).

It’s sacred and holy and a way of intaking the imputed righteousness of God.

But a deity doesn’t suffer detraction… whereas, we mere mortals….

What’s left

We cannot help taking. We aren’t meant just to abscond society because we will feast on the flesh of our peers.

Maybe we just need some rules.

1. Respect the fact that your demands cost something to the people around you
2. Don’t take without permission
3. Don’t take too much
4. Don’t devour - just to be cruel

“Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.”

― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas