Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

380 | HOW THE MIND WORKSDisgusting things come from animals. They include whole animals,parts of animals (particularly parts of carnivores and scavengers), andbody products, especially viscous substances like mucus and pus and,most of all, feces, universally considered disgusting. Decaying animalsand their parts are particularly revolting. In contrast, plants are sometimesdistasteful, but distaste is different from disgust. When peopleavoid plant products—say, lima beans or broccoli—it is because theytaste bitter or pungent. Unlike disgusting animal products, they are notfelt to be unspeakably vile and polluting. Probably the most complicatedthought anyone ever had about a disfavored vegetable wasClarence Darrow's: "I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, becauseif I liked it I'd eat it, and I just hate it." Inorganic and non-nutritivestuff like sand, cloth, and bark are simply avoided, without strong feelings.Not only are disgusting things always from animals, but things fromanimals are almost always disgusting. The nondisgusting animal parts arethe exception. Of all the parts of all the animals in creation, people eatan infinitesimal fraction, and everything else is untouchable. ManyAmericans eat only the skeletal muscle of cattle, chickens, swine, and afew fish. Other parts, like guts, brains, kidneys, eyes, and feet, arebeyond the pale, and so is any part of any animal not on the list: dogs,pigeons, jellyfish, slugs, toads, insects, and the other millions of animalspecies. Some Americans are even pickier, and are repulsed by the darkmeat of chicken or chicken on the bone. Even adventurous eaters arewilling to sample only a small fraction of the animal kingdom. And it isnot just pampered Americans who are squeamish about unfamiliar animalparts. Napoleon Chagnon safeguarded his supply of peanut butterand hot dogs from his begging Yanomamo informants by telling themthey were the feces and penises of cattle. The Yanomamo, who are heartyeaters of caterpillars and grubs, had no idea what cattle were but losttheir appetite and left him to eat in peace.A disgusting object contaminates everything it touches, no matterhow brief the contact or how invisible the effects. The intuition behindnot drinking a beverage that has been stirred with a flyswatter or dunkedwith a sterilized roach is that invisible contaminating bits—children callthem cooties—have been left behind. Some objects, such as a new combor bedpan, are tainted merely because they are designed to touch somethingdisgusting, and others, such as a chocolate dog turd, are tainted bymere resemblance. Rozin observes that the psychology of disgust obeys