Pleasure And Culture

What is pleasure?

I noticed, when I lived in France that the word plaisir, which we call pleasure, had a more positive connotation. In American English, there are notes of possible sins, illicit pleasures, forbidden indulgences connected with the word.

I never picked that up in French. Pleasure seemed to be something to be sought and accepted without worrying about going straight to Hell.

The Puritans still live, in America. Some of our countrymen still think dancing is consorting with the Devil, that the body harbors evil desires so that food and sex must be reduced to mechanical functions.

I want to point out that exaggerated flaunting of the Puritan ethos is also Puritanism by another name.

Taking pleasure often without excess is not something I see in American culture as often as I did in Europe. People are too busy here, they don’t have time, and besides, it’s just not done.

“You have to be rich to live like that.”

Breaking bread over good food and good wine in the company of family and friends — on a daily basis — was something we took to readily in France and Italy. The pleasures of the table cemented a sense of community, of connection.

These traditional ways of eating contrast to our eating on the go, in the car or at your desk. In…