Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

(Third in a series.)

With the ongoing governmental brouhaha over whether a fence or a wall is better for securing a border, it occurred to me that immigrants are like salt.

For context, in the initial post of this series I wrote,

A little bit of salt enhances a dish. Too much salt ruins a dish: It no longer tastes like the dish it was meant to be; it only tastes like salt. When it comes to salt, moderation makes it more effective and saturation makes it unpalatable.

Metaphorically, the dish is culture. The dish is social solidarity. The dish is commonality in terms of language, values, beliefs. Immigrants, like salt, improve the dish by enhancing its starting flavor — whether it’s a local delicacy, a regional specialty, or a national favorite — when applied in moderate amounts.

Sprinkle the salt with the spoon, or even with your fingers; don’t pour out the whole bowl into the dish you’re about to eat. (Image: “salt,” by theilr, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

Extending the metaphor: In the same way that salt is not automatically bad, unless you’ve got a condition which salt may exacerbate, immigrants are not automatically bad. Limiting salt does not mean never using it, it means using it sparingly, in the right amount to make the best dish. So, too, with immigration.

Limiting immigration is meant to keep from ruining the societal dish. Or, to borrow a phrase, to keep from turning the “melting pot” into an unappetizing mess.

If only the chefs in the governmental kitchen had discerning palates, and could agree on the menu.

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Previous Entries in the Series:
– A Little Less Salt, Please
– Then There’s ‘Salty’ Language

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Yesterday I wrote a post about salt, and today I’m making it a series. The main point of yesterday’s post is that

A little bit of salt enhances a dish. Too much salt ruins a dish: It no longer tastes like the dish it was meant to be; it only tastes like salt. When it comes to salt, moderation makes it more effective and saturation makes it unpalatable.

So let’s talk about salty language.

On the one hand, we may mean the kind of gracious speech that Saint Paul directed the Christians at Colossi to use: “seasoned with salt,” rather than overloaded with it, when giving an answer to anyone who might inquire about Christ and why they followed Him. We who follow Christ today would do well to bear that in mind as we do our best to speak the truth in love, not in anger or bitterness.

On the other hand, and in my experience more frequently, salty language means something quite different. Foul language. Crude language, whether profane or vulgar. Here, too, the point remains the same: A little goes a very long way.

(Image: “Salt?,” by Stefan Powell, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

I know quite a few people who make such a habit of vulgarity or profanity that I cringe whenever I sense they’re getting ready to speak. I confess that in the service I developed some bad habits along those lines myself, that I have not overcome: Very frequently, my first inward expression of frustration or anger is an obscenity, even if I successfully chisel off the hard edges of my language most of the time when other people are around.

As our culture has coarsened, though, I’ve observed more and more people who interpret “freedom of speech” to mean “freedom to express anything in any way,” and they frequently employ vulgar or profane language on social media posts or in other ways: on bumper stickers or T-shirts or even tattooed into their flesh. Maybe they’re right to do so, and would be justified in scoffing at me for even suggesting that they could exercise a bit more self-control. Maybe they’re expressing the kind of deep rage and dissatisfaction that can only be captured by obscenities, rather than just being lazy or trying to be edgy. But as with salt itself, so with salty language: moderation makes it more effective — its relative rarity calls attention to it and it bears more emotional weight — while saturation just makes it unpalatable.

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Previous Entry: A Little Less Salt, Please

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A while ago I wrote about pride, and particularly that pride gets a bad rap, but I wonder if sometimes other things masquerade as pride. That is, if other emotions may give us the same sensations as pride, and make us feel as if we’ve accomplished something even if we haven’t.

That brings up the question of whether we can identify the physical results, the visceral sensations, of pride.

Think back to something you did that went very well, and how you felt at the time. Not something routine, but something fairly important: instead of warming up hot dogs and being happy that they only got a little charred, you fixed a sumptuous meal to celebrate a special occasion and every dish came out perfect; instead of stammering your way through a presentation or some other public appearance, your delivery and timing were flawless and the audience hung on your every word; or whatever you can recall that was a clear victory for you, a triumph in your life.

Think about that sense of accomplishment, in terms of what your senses told you. What did it feel like, deep inside? Was it the “thrill of victory”? Did you feel it through your chest, or down in your belly, or all over? Was it a little like being nervous, but at the same time being excited? Can you describe it at all?

I don’t mean to imply that the same emotional states create the same physical sensations in each of us — in the case of these feelings of elation, it’s very possible that one person’s fluttering stomach is another person’s head rush is another person’s feeling of walking on air. But I wonder if that feeling we have during a moment of prideful accomplishment may be duplicated by other things.

What kinds of things can give us the feeling of pride similar to what we might get from crossing the finish line? (Image: “Athletics tracks finish line,” by Petey21, on Wikimedia Commons.)

For instance: could it be that for some people defiance feels like pride? That is, is it possible that being defiant — whether acting rebellious or standing against a perceived authority — elicits the same emotional feedback as being proud of some accomplishment? I think back to times when I have been defiant, and the sensations may have been similar.

Could other emotions also produce similar (or even indistinguishable) physical states to the feeling of pride? Thus, is it possible to feel something like pride without a clear, recognizable accomplishment of which to be proud?

That might explain a few things.

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