I have to hand it to John Savage

And I admit that when I first read his post, Cuisine and Symbolism, I thought to myself "boy, he's really stretching it." Boy was I wrong! I don't have an explanation for why that was my attitude after a first reading of the entry, but I can tell you that after having read it again it's definately not my attitude now.

In a comment to the post I mentioned that I'm bothered by the growing number of "European looking, squared off organ donors" that I'm seeing on American highways these days. But why does this bother me? If this is what some people want to drive, it's no skin off my nose is it? Maybe it's that deep down I understand that there's a fundamental change (not for the good) taking place in this country, and I'm associating the tendency toward this aesthetically ugly, cheap, foreign looking vehicle, with the degradation of our values and mores, which it seems to me have become themselves cheap and ugly and foreign.

Anyway, do be sure to read John's post. And do not neglect to read the comments, which are very good. And if you have a mind to, see if you can come up with a term to replace "emty-shellism." John suggests "vacuism," but for some reason that I can't quite put a finger on, I don't think it works. I think what might be required is to come to some sort of an agreement on what constitutes the West's "fundamental nature." I know there's a school of thought out there that says the fundamental nature of the West is to continually improve or get better, i.e., evolve (this is the school of thought that says that the U.S. Constitution is a "living, breathing document" and whatnot). Thus, the addition of certain ingredients which were formerly incompatible with the West (due to its comparably primitive evolution) are now become compatible through chance occurance and random mutations. Proof positive that the West's fundamental nature (which can't be changed, only adjusted in scope) is indeed to improve or get better, and that any resistance to it is not only wrong, but futile. Or something like that.

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