Cultural Anorexia
The Pursuit of Thicker Desires in a Thinning World
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Franz Kafka wrote one of his most important works near the end of his life, a short story he titled A Hunger Artist, published in 1922.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, “fasting artists”—basically, living skeletons—were exhibited at fairs and circuses. People paid a price to see and marvel at them. In Kafka’s story, crowds lose interest in the main protagonist, a stricken hunger artist. He is dragged out of his cage and replaced by a muscular and menacing panther.
Our fascinations wax and wane with the mimetic tide.
According to René Girard, Kafka’s story is an allegory of our entire culture. He wrote this about it [words in brackets mind]:
“Certain trends were visibly at work in our culture [even in 1922] long before they influenced our alimentation, and the current prominence of physical anorexia and its …