This is a Nonpareil Book
first published in 1998 by
DAVID R. GODINE, Publisher
Post Office Box 450
Jaffrey, New Hampshire 03452
Originally published in 1985 by
The Atlantic Monthly Press
Copyright © 1985, 1998 by Richard Watson
Published in eBook format by David R. Godine, Publisher
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Revised Edition
The chapter entitled "How to Die" first appeared, in slightly different form, in The Georgia Review.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Watson, Richard A., 1931-
The philosopher’s diet : how to lose weight & change the world / Richard Watson.
p. cm. — (Nonpareil book ; 81)
"Originally published by the Atlantic Monthly Press in 1985" — T.p. verso.
1. Reducing diets. 2. Low-fat diet. 3. Ethics. 4. Philosophy.
I. Title. II. Series.
RM222.2.W293 1998
613.2'5—DC21 98-35759 CIP
SOFTCOVER ISBN: 978-1-56792-084-0
E-BOOK ISBN: 978-1-56792-453-4
War Came.
Bodies lined the roadside.
Their fat sizzled in the sun.
—Lamentation for the Destruction of Ur
Third Millennium B.C.
Diet ... Course of life: way of living
or thinking ... To regulate oneself.
—Oxford English Dictionary
| Cautionary Note The author urgently recommends that before you act on the advice in this book, you have a thorough medical examination and get your doctor's approval of the program. This probably is not necessary for normal, healthy adults, but who knows from normal? I don't want to get sued. |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Philosopher's Diet was written while I was engaged in Cartesian studies at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California. I thank Center Director Gardner Lindzey and the Board of Trustees for their indulgence and understanding. As Descartes said, give a man leisure and truth will out.
I want also to thank the Center Fellows and staff for encouragement and inspiration, particularly Carol Smith for laying on the last straw. Others to whom I am indebted are legion, but many of them are mentioned in the text. Two who are not are Peter Davison and David R. Godine, editors of rare acumen. I thank them one and all.
INTRODUCTION
IN THIS BOOK I tell how to take off weight and keep it off. The book also embodies a philosophy of life. The weight program is the content of the book, the philosophy of life is its form.
I take it for granted that you have asked yourself in these trying times what it all means. What does it all mean? And why don't philosophers tell us? A few years ago my mother asked me these two questions. She was seventy, her children were grown and gone from home, and she and my father had nothing to do but tend their garden, read, and watch television. She had a son who was a professional philosopher. She wanted to know. Why wouldn't I tell her?
My mother is not alone in her indignation. The editors of Time also would like to know what it all means. The editors of the Atlantic Monthly, of the Partisan Review, of the New York Times — they would like to know, too. Hugh Hefner, founding editor of Playboy, got so dissatisfied with the professionals a few years ago that he decided to have a go at it himself. Not only that, he sent copies of his work to many of us philosophers to set us straight. He wrote twenty-two installments of "The Playboy Philosophy" before he came to a stop. I have a chapter titled "Sex" myself.
For, as you have discerned, I have decided to take the complaints seriously. Why don't philosophers tell you what it all means? The answer is simple. They don't know. And I don't know much more than the others, but it just happens that I do know a number of things that, as Descartes said, it would be shameful of me to withhold. So I wrote a book.
Before you read this book, you doubtless want to know what my philosophy is. And in two sentences. Very well, let me say that I find these to be peculiar times. Some of us live the most extraordinarily satisfying lives in a century that has witnessed the genocidal slaughter of six million Jews; a world in which atom bombs have been dropped on Japanese cities, in which torture is common, and in which hundreds of millions of people live in conditions of abject poverty, starvation, oppression, and hopelessness. Sooner or later there will be another big war, and whoever starts it will have enough nerve gas and germs (never mind the panoply of nuclear, hydrogen, and neutron bombs) to wipe us all out. My daughter Anna, when she was a child, thought someone would push the button, and she asked me what we can do about it. I don't know. Probably nothing. My wife Pat, who is an archeologist, says there have always been winners and losers. Some of the earliest written records are about atrocities of war. For example, the key text for cracking the cuneiform code is a description of what Darius did to rebels in the fourth century B.C. He cut off their ears, put out their eyes, cut off their noses, and then dragged them behind his chariots in chains.
But you wanted to know my philosophy. It has to do with reading (covered in the chapter on "How to Live") and writing (covered in the chapter on "How to Die"). This philosophy is derived primarily from my Welsh mother and my Scots father. When I was very young, my mother used to sit beside me to make me practice the piano. "Let's get on with it," she would say. My father also had a saying. When I sought sympathy after stubbing a toe or falling down and skinning my knee, he would say, "Rub dirt in it." Two sentences.
So let's get on with it.
THE
PHILOSOPHER’S
DIET
FAT
FAT. I PRESUME YOU want to get rid of it. Then quit eating so much. No normal, healthy person on the good green earth ever got thinner without cutting down on caloric intake. Do a few exercises, don't eat so much, and you will lose weight.
Ah, but it's not so easy. Else why would there be such a market for diet books? The reason is a secret I intend to tell.
There are a lot of good things about fat. For one thing it tastes good, especially in ice cream or dripping from hot barbecued ribs. More important, you could not live without it. Your body is working all the time, heart beating, blood circulating, lungs breathing, and unless you eat all the time, fuel must be stored to keep the body working. Fat is fuel. Human bodies are superb organisms for storing