I can see how the word "virtue" pings because it does imply an opposite: "vice." I DO think that educating and encouraging healthier behaviors as better for you is needed. Not better in a judgmental sense, but better FOR YOU. Making fresh produce more available in supermarkets, distributing clean needles, educating about the dangers of eating disorders and making treatment available--that kind of stuff is not, to my mind, making a virtue out of healthy choices, but just enabling healthy choices to be made. And I want to do that in the sense of having my tax dollars go for those programs.
Xander: We just saw the zebras mating! Thank you, very exciting... Willow: It was like the Heimlich, with stripes!
'Him'
Spike's Bitches 44: It's about the rules having changed.
[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risqué (and frisqué), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.
Scrappy - Apr 11, 2009 7:48:49 am PDT #6467 of 30000
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
Barb - Apr 11, 2009 7:50:53 am PDT #6468 of 30000
“Not dead yet!”
Ginger, so glad you decided to put Easter off until next weekend what with the tornado hitting Murfreesboro yesterday.
(Murfreesboro is about 30 miles SE of Nashville and right off I-24.)
brenda m - Apr 11, 2009 8:11:52 am PDT #6469 of 30000
If you're going through hell/keep on going/don't slow down/keep your fear from showing/you might be gone/'fore the devil even knows you're there
I think you're getting hung up on the word virtue automatically implying a moral judgment. To me, the word "virtue" is simply not loaded that way.
I'm struggling with this one too. I can't make it work in my head that if one choice is virtuous, others are not implicitly non-virtuous. It simply is a value-laden word. And yet, there clearly are better and worse choices and saying so shouldn't be so fraught.
Typo Boy - Apr 11, 2009 8:14:51 am PDT #6470 of 30000
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.
"beneficial". If you are using "virtue" as a synonym for "beneficial", why not say "beneficial"?
Fay - Apr 11, 2009 8:17:30 am PDT #6471 of 30000
"Fuck Western ideologically-motivated gender identification!" Sulu gasped, and came.
I'm with Teppy on this. If I had a shiny pound coin for every time I've heard a woman refer to her eating choices in terms of "sinning", I'd be able to buy myself an iPhone. That whole virtue/vice paradigm IS applied to food choices in the media, and in everyday conversation, all the time, framing food choices as moral choices. Not just "sensible" choices, or "healthy" choices, not just good in that specific sense, but moral choices. Advertisers make conscious use of this, both cashing in on the ideal of virtuousness and the seduction of sinfulness in relation to food. Desserts are "wicked" and "sinful" and "decadent" - this is very morally loaded terminology. Women who have broken their eating regimen say they have "been bad" - not "made a bad decision", generally, but "been bad". Or naughty, or wicked.
It is a specific linguistic tick that always irritates the hell out of me, because I think it's profoundly unhelpful.
sj - Apr 11, 2009 8:34:16 am PDT #6472 of 30000
"There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."
vw, that purse is gorgeous!!!
Scrappy - Apr 11, 2009 8:52:10 am PDT #6473 of 30000
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
I want to say that I am VERY lucky in that the many women in my workplace do not talk about weight or food. Shoes, pets and pop culture, yeah, but weight, no. I know this is rare and it's a real pleasure, especially here in SoCal.
omnis_audis - Apr 11, 2009 8:54:15 am PDT #6474 of 30000
omnis, pursue. That's an order from a shy woman who can use M-16. - Shir
All this talk of healthy inspired me to put a few extra slices of bacon in brunch today. AIFG!
DavidS - Apr 11, 2009 9:02:40 am PDT #6475 of 30000
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
All this talk of healthy inspired me to put a few extra slices of bacon in brunch today. AIFG!
Bacon's good for your soul. You may draw your own conclusions about the state of Perkins' soul.
Steph L. - Apr 11, 2009 9:52:27 am PDT #6476 of 30000
this mess was yours / now your mess is mine
All this talk of healthy inspired me to put a few extra slices of bacon in brunch today.
I have no bacon. Now I cry.