Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 09:46:25 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Fredrik Hertzberg LIT <fhertzbe-AT-ra.abo.fi>
Subject: Re: PLC: Fairness to Faulner


On Sun, 6 Aug 2000 zatavu-AT-excite.com wrote:

> Is it not possible that Fauklner only noticed the odor because he himself
> was white and did not associate his odor with being odor, having had that
> odor from birth? It is like people who have foul body odor but do not notice
> it themselves while everyone else is running from the room. Have there been
> any black writers who have noticed the odor of white people? I confess to
> not having read enough black writers' books to know. But if one did, would
> be be so quick to accuse him of racism because of it?

Literature can deautomatize reality, make the world more odorous, 
colorful. The problem is not, as I see it, odors or colors, but that some 
odors are stigmatized as bad, whereas others are not. The Western 
obsession with cleanliness, flowery soap, shampoo or deodorants - there 
is nothing in these themselves which make them "naturally" pleasant. They 
kill off body odors we are too scared to accept we have. Just look a 
little into history - a hundred years ago in rural areas in many European 
countries, people farted, belched after dinner, spat on the floor, or in 
the case of babies, shit on the floor. Odor is freedom.

Fred


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