Bugged Out

Cicadas, locusts, and the dictatorship of reason.

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Dear Reader (Including those of you who never read Plato’s Apology of Socrates all the way to the end),

So I’ve written and talked (on back-to-back episodes of the Remnant) more about Jews in the last couple of days than I have in the previous couple of years. I’m pretty burnt out on the subject. Indeed, I’m pretty burnt out on politics, too. So if you’re looking for punditry from this “news”letter I want to warn you now: Look elsewhere (we’ve got plenty of the good stuff here at The Dispatch).

It annoys me a bit to have to say this, but what annoys me even more are people who complain that I didn’t get to the subject they thought I should write about even though I warned them up front—like just now—that it wasn’t going to happen.  

They sometimes remind me of that scene in The Jerk when Navin Johnson (Steve Martin) brings his girlfriend (Bernadette Peters) to a snooty French restaurant and gets served escargot.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    I confess I did not want to read about cicadas but I really enjoyed this edition of the G File. Great opening. I clicked through to the tweet and it took me a second but as Inspector Closeau might say, “good one.” (One could make an argument for why it should have been the Phaedo and not the Apology, but one could make a strong case either way.)

    “After all, the line between Locke and Rousseau runs through every human heart.” Great line. Wish I’d come up with it. Very true. I was thinking about this just the other day with examples in my own life and family.

    I’m totally with you on the cicadas. The only time I’ll eat a bug is when one flies into my throat on a run. If I had to choose, I’d take most other bugs over cicadas.

    Finally, you bring up Soylent Green in a G File about eating weird stuff and no reference to the actual Soylent people drink now? It always gets me that they chose that name.

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    Bill Nelson

    There is no Rousseau running through my heart. Spleen maybe. Not a fan of spanking.
    And reason, properly applied has a necessary practical feedback loop. What little I could grasp from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is that pure reason has limitations and can itself lead to error (I made it through less than 60 pages).

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  3. Rachel Landers

    I'm eating cicada tacos this week for two reasons: #1 They are free protein packets falling from the trees. #2 It is interesting. #3 Someone dared me. #4 I like tacos. I totally get that Jonah doesn't want to eat cicadas, and that no one should make him. Refusing to eat bugs is not a moral failure. Also, I make really good tacos, and I dare Jonah to eat one.

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  4. Sprat

    The incorrectness of the worldview behind Soylent Green ties into the earlier premise of this piece in another way: Deferring to a "tyranny of reason" is also wrong because those tyrants are frequently proven wrong, eventually.

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  5. Midge

    "That’s why climate change—which, yes, is real—was such a boon. What would be the argument for eating caterpillars without it? Taste? Nutrition? Cheap rebelliousness? That delightfully fuzzy feeling on your tongue? Where’s the virtue signaling in that?"

    Since you asked, animal welfare and water conservation are other common arguments for eating "lower on the food chain". In particular, butterflies (and thus the caterpillars they come from) may not have pain receptors:

    https://butterfly-fun-facts.com/do-butterflies-feel-pain/

    That I can name other reasons, besides climate change, why people advocate eating invertebrates rather than vertebrates doesn't mean you should eat bugs. I don't habitually eat bugs. Besides not having tasted any bug dish I'd call "tasty" yet, even bug-eating enthusiasts believe allergies to other known allergens are a good reason to steer clear of eating the critters (food allergies from bugs aren't well understood yet, but cross-reactions are plausible):

    https://www.bugsfeed.com/edible_insects_allergy

    I'm curious about whether bug-eating will lose its stigma. The "food only for desperate poors" stigma of crustaceans and shellfish has already been lost. But hey, maybe people looking for more humane or resource-conserving sources of animal protein will find lab-grown meat tasty and affordable, and insects won't catch on. We don't know yet, and I'm content to wait and see.

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    GREG BROWN

    I get it Goldberg: You're suggesting that those who worry about climate change should start eating one another - you might be on to something

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    Kim Fitz

    Loved the Torah Jonah, Shabbat Shalom.

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    Nick H

    These people are advocating that we eat bugs because they want us to feel guilty about eating steak. I refuse to do either, and most people obviously agree. If bugs were so fantastic there would be hot new restaurants spreading across the country featuring bugs. If someone could be making money off of this, they would be. But there's no market for it, and no amount of hectoring from the enlightened crowd is going to make it happen. They can keep trying, and we'll keep telling them to [expletive deleted] off. End of story. And if they're ever stupid enough to try to force the issue, they'll fail miserably.

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    Realwoodies

    Someday, Jonah, Or Kevin Williamson, or David French, or Jim Geraghty, or some writer whom I generally respect, will explain the facts behind the assertion that “climate change is real.”

    Now, from the perspective of the fact that our climate is always changing, I agree. Over time, oceans become deserts and vice versa. Glaciers have melted in the past 100 years. I don’t think that’s proof of climate change in general, but could be indicative of a local phenomenon.

    Anyway, I am hopeful Jonah will back up his statement with some facts.

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    1. ikarikun2002

      Williamson had this to say:
      https://www.nationalreview.com/2009/12/what-think-about-global-warming-kevin-d-williamson/

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  10. Anthony Trase

    The comments on this one remind me of the other hilarious scene in The Jerk. "These cans are defective...he hates these cans"

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXRM3lFRwRI

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