Opus 2015-479: Plow and Crown: Dietary Sumptuary Laws

I don’t know if you are familiar with the concept of sumptuary laws.  In many cultures of the past there were laws about what clothing and colors you could wear.  Silks were for one class.  Wool was for another.  The purpose was to make it clear what class you belonged to and keep control of the lesser humans.  One example many are familiar with is Jews being required to wear a yellow star in the Nazi era. 

I was not aware that the need to control went further.  You come across things in strange places.  Montesquieu says,

“Whether it was from a republican spirit, or from. some other particular circumstance, sumptuary laws were made in Aragon, in the middle of the thirteenth century. James the First ordained that neither the king nor any of his subjects should have above two sorts of dishes at a meal, and that each dish should be dressed only one way, except it were game of their own killing.”  (Kindle Highlight Location, 1805-1808)

So it would seem that the need to control your fellow human beings also extended to food.  Does that sound like some of the things we hear coming from the White House?  Have you noticed the health laws about transfats, salt and sugar.  We are still being told what to eat and how to eat it by the Progressive elites that know what is best for us.

Bon Appetit

Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat.  The Spirit of Laws.  Lonang Institute, www.lonang.com.

homo unius libri