Hobbes was right. We must have government. If men were to try to live without ‘a common Power to keep them all in awe’, life would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’, there would be ‘a perpetuall warre of every man against his neighbour’, and there would be adverts for cheese on the London Underground.
City AM reports,
TfL [Transport for London] has left a cheese company’s bosses feeling blue after banning ads depicting their products on the tube – saying the diet staple is too unhealthy.
London’s transport network has been cracking down on unhealthy food advertising on the tube, but according to The Times this now includes the dairy favourite.
The founder of Cheese Geek, Edward Hancock, said the ban was “crazy” and said he couldn’t understand why fizzy drink ads were allowed on the network but not artisan cheeses.
Hancock said cheese “has been shown in numerous recent studies to be beneficial for health.”
TfL banned high fat advertising in 2019. It was intended to capture fast food but appears to have widened in scope to high-end cheddar.
TfL said the cheese ads – which were to be part of a campaign run by Workspace, the office provider and consultancy – could not go on the network because TfL uses “the Food Standards Agency’s model to define foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt.”
I think Sadiq Khan got to the bit in Leviathan about “Power to keep them all in awe” and thought, “I like the sound of that”.
To be fair to Thomas Hobbes, although he was a health-and-fitness enthusiast (jogging up the hills of Dorset – and he did live to the age of 90), he was NOT interested in telling people what food they must or must not have.
However, Natalie is correct – there is nothing in Hobbes of the old natural law, natural justice (Hobbes uses the language – but he redefines the words to strip them of their traditional moral content) limiting the power of the state.
So, for example, if the state wants to burn people alive for eating cheese (or for not eating cheese – or for eating the wrong type of cheese) there is nothing in Hobbes about coming to the aid of the victims of the state – Thomas Hobbes can understand a human (he did not believe that humans were persons) trying to save their own life, but their risking their live to try and save someone else from the tyranny of the state, is something he does consider – let alone support.
That humans might behave like human beings (persons) rather than flesh robots, does not seem to occur to the Gentleman.
If humans were the non-persons that Hobbes believed them to be – then, yes indeed, state tyranny would not matter. Indeed it would not matter if the state decided to exterminate these flesh robots who have no free will (no moral agency – personhood).
But, if humans are not persons, then Thomas Hobbes himself was not a person (as he was a human) – so his own life would not matter either.
Firstly, what I eat is nobody’s business but mine.
Secondly, no food is unhealthy in moderation, we are omnivores and the best diet is one that includes plenty of variety and that might well include cheese. If you listened to all the other people’s food obsessives you would end up with a very unhealthy restricted diet. People have become very ill or even died from eating stupidly restricted diets.
Stonyground – I agree with you.
However, what are you going to do when the state (i.e. Professor Krugman’s beloved “men with guns”) says different and comes for you?
A person may not be interested in the state, but the state (and its Corporate “Partners” – “Social Responsibility” has been a big thing in Schools of Business for decades, and the major Corporations depend on the flow of funny money from the authorities, Henri Saint-Simon would have been delighted) is very interested in the person – interested in utterly crushing ordinary persons.
Perhaps one way forward is for ordinary people who see ‘wrong-eat’ food advertised on the Tube to write and formally complain to TfL, requesting a response. Then later following through with a FOI enquiry about the number of such complaints. It might only be bureaucratic nuisance making, but I’m a great believer in ‘sharing the pain’. Bureaucrats don’t like becoming ‘visible’.
Plus is it only me that wonders if an additional condemnation has been generated by the cheese being for ‘posh people’?
DiscoveredJoys, 8:58
On the contrary, it’s posh people fabricating the rules: London Labour is the party of and for the posh.
My own guess is that it is the fact that cheese is not vegan that made the prodnoses focus on it.
That, and the jolt they get from banning any thing.
Mr. Wallace brings up the otherwise unspoken part. Cheese is not Vegan. You may not think about veganism but veganism thinks about you. Or, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the 13 most dangerous words in the English language, “I’m from the government and I’m here to make you a better person.”
Indeed, but if humans are the non-persons that Hobbes believed them to be, then it would matter naught that there was a State to deal with them, any more than there is a need to govern dung beetles, shrimps or the grass plants on the Mongolian steppe. That they think government matters shows that they see people as mattering and as distinct to the beasts and the trees.
Didn’t de Gaulle once bemoan the difficulty of governing a people with over 400 types of cheese? I think his point was they couldn’t agree on anything.
Mr Ed – agreed about Mr Hobbes, and the same principle could be applied to Mr Hume (although he uses much more gentle language than Mr Hobbes) and Mr Bentham.
Yes – you are correct about the line of Charles De Gaulle.
France can not survive if the rulers cling to the principles of the French Revolution – those principles will not give the French the faith they need to survive as a people, France can only survive if she, somehow, recaptures the principles of Charles Martell.
Sometimes Charles De Gaulle spoke and acted in a way that indicated that he understood this.
If you’re going to ban ads that contain pictures of attractive people in beachwear, it makes perfect sense to ban ads of healthy foods which help you attain such a body.
The fastest way to end fat-shaming is to make us all fat.
Bobby’s comment will appear rather cryptic, i suspect, to those who, unlike him and me, have not experimented with getting most of our energy from saturated and mono-unsaturated fats.
This is orthogonal to whether the ruling class OUGHT to prescribe what to eat — but the fact is, what the Anglo-American ruling class DOES prescribe, ranges from unhealthy to poisonous. Arguably most poisonous are seed oils (i.e. poly-unsaturated omega6 fats: omega3 are very good in moderation).
Having said that, i find veggies quite good for my physical+mental health — when eaten in segregation from animal food.
People’s requirements aren’t a one size fits all thing anyway. People are all different. I acquired a beach ready body last year, at the age of 64, by doing a massive amount of swimming. After swimming 4K in the morning I would just have a craving for pizza. So I would eat a whole stuffed crust pizza with some tomatoes mushrooms and peppers on it for dinner. I lost over ten kilos in weight and ended the year looking totally ripped.
Khan now appears to be emulating the Soviet’s with his targeted use of petty bureaucracy and restrictions to make it abundantly clear he has the power to do pretty much anything. A pound-shop Emperor Nero.
Far far more should have been made of recent reports of his henchpersons leaning heavily on certain scientists whose research came to the wrong conclusions about the health consequences (or lack thereof to be precise) of vehicle emissions. I guess the bbc et al were too busy washing their hair that week to notice.
One of the main problems here is that the Food Standards Agency hasn’t got a clue what a healthy diet is.
It still promotes a high proportion of carbs and a tiny proportion of red meat. And it is still wedded to the idea that vegetable oil is better than fat from butter, dripping and, in this case, cheese.
As I say, clueless.
I thought the post was about what you are allowed to advertise on the tube, not about what you should eat (or not).
Suppose cheese is bad for you. Is that reason enough to ban adverts?
The founder of Cheese Geek, Edward Hancock, said the ban was “crazy” and said he couldn’t understand why fizzy drink ads were allowed on the network but not artisan cheeses.
And that is the problem. Mr Hancock is tacitly saying banning ads for some legal products is OK – just not his products. The problem is not The Happy Shopper Napolean (thanks John!) but that attitude. Once you let them take the Camembert they’ll take the Coke too. I like both but that isn’t really the issue. All social engineering must be resisted whether or not you personally have a dog in the fight because all social engineering is a wedge (of Cheddar) under the door of freedom. It is Mr Hancock’s attitude here that enables the Poundland Khans. What is worse is Mr Hancock almost certainly doesn’t understand that. Because of that sort of attitude Sadiq doesn’t even need the Horde Ghengis needed.
Which reminds me. I have an ad campaign to work on. It’s with an American musician called Taylor. No, not that Taylor! Alas… Because that would keep me in Eternal Brie. This just keeps the Khan from the door.
I’m guessing that you also don’t mean the Taylor who John Kerry, in his infinite(ly small) wisdom, brought to Paris to sing “You’ve got a friend” after the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
That’ll teach those Islamist’s.
While (conveniently) forgetting the air Tube travelers have to breathe is vastly more polluted than it is above ground. There don’t appear to be any signs he will introduce a ULEZ style tax on the trains…
Surely you know by now that banning advertising is just the first step. Step two is a special tax. Step three would be outright prohibition if they thought that they could get away with it.
“Food Standards Agency hasn’t got a clue what a healthy diet is.”
But they still know what’s best for you. So you need to do as you’re told for your own good.
I ate by their danged food pyramid for most of my life and hit 220 pounds, which would have been the perfect weight had I been 7’2″. Got edumacated some years back and now weigh 165, with much better levels and chemistry. By eating meat, cheese, lard, and leafy veggies – all the things they’ll now want to tax as unhealthy.
It’s nice to be able to bend over and tie your shoes. It’s disquieting to realize that much of today’s “science” is merely the protection of various financial interests.
I don’t see any mention of improved cognitive function in bobby’s story, only weight loss*.
Is it really the case that you did not notice understanding things more clearly, bobby?
* down to about my current weight. I am 5’10.
On cheese – why is it so difficult to buy Coleraine cheddar in England? It is easy to buy cheese from many lands – but not from Northern Ireland.
Indeed there is basically nothing from Northern Ireland in most English shops – is this something to do with the “deal” of former Prime Minister Johnson?
Not really. Still dumb as ever, I think. But cognitive improvement wasn’t a result I was anticipating, so I may have simply not noticed.
(5’10” also, looking to hit 150.)
Bobby:
Strange… I did not expect cognitive improvement either, but could not help noticing.
(I did not really expect losing weight either, just reducing pre-diabetes symptoms.)
May i suggest that perhaps you should make a special effort to avoid seed oils?
Just checked and i am again unable to wear the 3-piece suit that i bought in 1997. (I could as recently as last year.)
But now that summer is over, i won’t go to the outdoor gym anymore, and therefore i won’t gorge on fat & proteins as much. I’ll eat them, but not gorge.
WRT Hobbes: some people refer to him as a “liberal”. Quentin Skinner is one of them, as i understand. Probably because Hobbes’ sole justification for the State is to avoid ‘a perpetuall warre of every man against his neighbour’.
However, in Hobbes’ scheme, the ‘sovereign’ seems to be answerable only to God. If the sovereign decides that cheese leads to ‘a perpetuall warre of every man against his neighbour’, then the sovereign can and must ban cheese, and only God can tell him/her/they* that they are wrong.
* the sovereign can be an assembly.
“Blessed are the cheese makers.”
The Life of Brian.
(Sorry.)