The Reappropriation of Technology

Ideas about purity and contagion appear over and over again in the history of cultures. Indeed, they seem to be so pervasive that we might rightly consider them as a basic organizing principle of human action. They lurk behind primitive dietary rules and laws of ritual avoidance (Douglas 1978), and they underlie our present respect for hygiene and distaste for uncleanliness in bodily and other matters. Ideas about purity and contagion are not necessarily associated with food. The belief that one or each sex is endangered by contact with the other is a favorite expression of such ideas. But pollution may also result from birth or be consequent on death for the relevant kindred. It may stem from contact with blood or bodily emission such as spittle, from the glance or touch of an adulterer, or from dealing with a member of a lower caste. While it is hard to imagine the limits to which ideas about purity and contagion are confined, it is not difficult to identify areas of concern which are more prominent than others. In traditional societies, pollution ideas are frequently associated with food and its origin, or way or preparation. Most familiar to us are perhaps Jewish and Islamic dietary rules which prohibit eating the meat of certain animals classed as "unclean." To quote form the abominations of Leviticus,