Politics and Pleasure

This is the subheading of an opinion piece by Geoff Andrews on the “new food movement.” He argues that “the movement around food in the US is one of the most significant of modern times, drawing as it does both on the traditions of the 1960s-1970s and the energy of the new social movements. Food has become - to use an older phrase now being recycled by contemporary activists - the ‘edible dynamic’ at the heart of mainstream economic and environmentalist debates.” So, the question of food should be our contemporary Vietnam – it’s that simple. Consequently, Andrews urges “the left” (or what’s left of it) to no longer consider food a marginal issue eclipsed by ostensibly weightier concerns. Predictably, he has on his side omnivore Michael Pollan whose “seminal article 'The Food Movement, Rising' (New York Review of Books, June 2010) reflects on the ideas of the ‘back to the land movement,’ Woodstock and the Diggers, to conclude that the current food movement encapsulates a similar focus on identity, community and pleasure. Andrews cites as a great illustration of this great observation Britain’s Campaign for Real Life. Promoted as Camra, a much catchier brand name, it “ocuses on a wide-ranging set of concerns that encompass support for local beers and historic pubs with opposition to the power of big breweries and defence of the pub’s community role (an issue which relates directly to the availability of cheap supermarket alcohol and it association with many social problems). Camra’s impact in mixing politics and pleasure has brought it over 100,000 members, 200 branches, sixteen regional associations, and 5,000 volunteers who organise 150 beer festivals a year..” And it gets even better. Networks like Camra, it turns out, are not alone in their brave fight to finally overthrow capitalist oppression and biological destruction. No, they are at the heart of a new constellation of anti-systemic forces “drawing in organic farmers, green activists, urban-guerrilla gardeners, and metropolitan gastronomes.” That latter group might look to some as self-absorbed hipsters, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, if I was at the head of Goldman, the Fed, the IMF, or some such I would tremble with trepidation at the sight of this formidable newer social movement. Since that kind of people shun OpenDemocracy (an online platform for progressive academic analysis/opinion), they will remain blissfully unaware of the mortal danger threatening to engulf their empire – which, as we all know, is a colossus on feet of clay. Anyway – power to the ‘foodies” and all fellow travelers!