Dirt is matter out of place: three books

“Dirt is matter out of place” is the key insight of PURITY AND DANGER: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo by Mary Douglas. I first read the book a little over a decade ago and reread it to accompany Miasma, below; as I thought it holds up well.

Douglas arguments is that things like purity/impurity, clean/dirty aren’t absolute, objective measures but subjective. Just as standards for cleanliness changed when cleaning became easier, so pure and impure, spiritually clean and contaminated, are subjective. The Old Testament marks out clear boundaries between what’s clean and unclean for Jews to eat; in our own era, as Douglas points out, we’d flinch from someone putting shoes on the table while we eat, even if there was no threat of getting dirt on our shoes. Matter out of place is disorder and therefore dangerous.

This is dated in some ways — Douglas’ argument that “primitive” shouldn’t be offensive as a description of certain cultures — and a lot of it is refuting other interpretations of taboo and uncleanness; Douglas mocks, for example, the idea that dietary restrictions in Leviticus are about avoiding unhealthy food (“That paints Moses as less a prophet than a divinely appointed health inspector.”). As she sees it, the “unclean” animals are those that cross boundaries in some way, such as swimming creatures without scales or fins, or birds that don’t fly. It’s thought provoking even if I’m not sure what the thoughts are.

Robert Parker cites Douglas frequently in MIASMA: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion though he’s not sure about some of her specifics: would Jews have found anomalous animals any more unsettling than we find the tomato, the fruit that looks like a vegetable? In studying the role of spiritual pollution in ancient Greece, Parker is more uncertain about drawing conclusions than I remembered from first reading. Do stories of pollution and purification in Greek drama, for example, reflect real life or are they just using conventions the audience would understand? Does horror at being around patricides (among the worst of crimes in Hellenic culture) reflect a fear of pollution or merely revulsion of their evil acts? Did people stay their hand to avoid pollution or was it applied retroactively to explain tragedy (“Your whole family dead of the plague? Guess you shouldn’t have slept with a virgin priestess!”). A deep and very focused dive, but interesting despite the uncertainties.

DIRT AND DOMESTICITY: Constructions of the Feminine was a smaller book released to accompany photos in a museum exhibit. It looks at, in part, how housewives are supposed to purge dirt and disorder from the household but also avoid contamination; servants, particularly POC, provide a useful solution that lets the housewife (or the man of the house — plenty of single men have employed domestic staff) avoid touching dirt while taking credit for mastering it.

While I didn’t reread it, WEEDS: An Environmental History of Metropolitan America by Zachary Falck covers similar issues regarding plants that symbolize disorder and urban decay regardless of the supposed rational reasons for destroying them (fighting hay fever justifies uprooting ragweed but never grass). And like dirt, weeds can become a symbol for unwanted people too.

If you’re curious about how this applies in our modern world, I’ll recommend this old post, or this one.

#SFWApro. Top cover by Berni Wrightson, bottom by Neal Adams.