WEBVTT - Reconsider the Bean, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:14.760 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.079 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.560 we're back with part two of our talk about beans. 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.400 You know, I'm thinking this one's gonna be even even 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:25.880 it's like a two bean salad if the last episode 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:27.520 was a one bean salad. We've got a lot of 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.320 great stuff to get to today. Well, this is one 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.519 I think that especially will well. I don't know if 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:35.560 it'll make everyone think about beans in a new way, 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.760 but in might in my chest because I feel like, 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.520 especially in that first episode, we were kind of approaching 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:44.640 or I was certainly approaching it. Like, you know, beans 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.000 are are very interesting, but they're also kind of mundane, 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:52.400 and they're in this the mundane nature of beings seems 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.840 to run deep. You have beaned doubt well to a 0:00:55.880 --> 0:01:00.520 certain extent. But uh, in the space between recording the 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:04.160 last episode and uh, in recording this one, I found 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:06.680 a number of new angles and then um and then 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.520 leap frogdof rokoff a couple of angles you explored, and 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:11.600 I think it really paints a picture of beans as 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:15.440 a far weirder um part of our world and are 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:17.760 part of our culture and myth making, even if a 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.640 lot of that weirdness has largely been sort of bled 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:25.200 out um of sort of the like popular modern understanding 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:27.440 of the food. Yeah, I think that's right. So if 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.160 you out there still have being doubts, allow us to 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:34.040 try to evaporate them with some with some deft parching 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.240 through today's episode. So I wanted to start off today 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:41.440 by talking about philosophers and beans and a particular bean 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:45.920 field slaughter from Greek history slash legend. So there are 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:50.559 actually a surprising number of stories about Greek philosophers and beings. 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:52.720 There was one that I came across, and in the 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:55.200 last episode I mentioned this book that I had been 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:59.880 quoting by ken Alba called Beans, a History from Bloomsberry Publishing, 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:02.520 and I'm going to refer back to that book a 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:05.200 lot in this episode two. But there was one thing 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.000 I came across, and that that was talking about the 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:12.280 cynic philosopher Diogenes, who the one fact you may remember 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:14.799 about him, if if nothing else, is that he famously 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.520 lived in a jar or in Athens instead of in 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.919 a house like on a shelf no, not on a shelf. 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:22.600 I think it was like out in the out in 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:26.200 a public square or something. It's like a turned over jar. Uh. 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:28.320 And and this is consistent with the idea of the 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.840 Cynic school of philosophy, which is not about cynicism and 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.440 the modern English use of the word which means the 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:38.120 sort of I don't know, a pessimistic suspicion of others. Uh. 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:42.880 The Cynic school of philosophy meant rejecting unnatural social norms 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.239 and conventions and sort of being true to yourself, for 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:50.240 true to your nature. So Diogenes was famous for violating 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:54.160 taboos and rejecting the conventional norms of Greek culture in 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.840 his day. So I think he was known for being dirty, 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.960 of course, living in a big ceramic jar, for hanging 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.080 out with dogs. I think, for being nude, and doing 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.399 inappropriate things in public, like if I remember correctly, there's 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.720 a story that he uh decided to defecate while in 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.080 the middle of watching a play. But apparently another way 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.680 that he showed contempt for society's norms and and the 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.200 normal sort of like a food valorization scale, is that 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.880 he made a point of eating a type of being 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.799 known as lupins. Uh, this is a being that was 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.480 considered in many cases only fit for feeding to animals 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.040 or for the extremely poor and starving. Now, of course 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.320 this is not true. Lupins are a perfectly good food 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.440 if prepared in the right way, and they're part of many, 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.960 you know, food traditions around the world. But that, like 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.200 we talked about in the last episode, there are often 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:47.840 negative cultural and especially class associations with certain types of beans, 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.720 and you can't say lupins are are a very They're 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.240 difficult being there. There are being you really got to 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:56.400 get to know because they've got these toxic alkaloids in 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:58.200 them that you have to get out of them by 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:00.800 soaking the beans for a long time time, and supposedly 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:02.280 you got to do all this other stuff to make 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:06.320 them appetizing. But so I think by eating them, Diogenes 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:08.560 was sort of doing the equivalent of saying, like, you know, 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:10.720 look at me, I'll eat dog food. I don't give 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:15.320 a crap. But the the Greek philosopher being connection I 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:20.920 really want to talk about is between beans and Pythagoras. So, 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:25.200 the ancient Greek philosopher and religious leader Pythagoras lived from 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.080 about five seventy to four nine d b c E. 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:33.119 And though he was extremely influential, it is actually hard 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:36.320 to know all that much with certainty about the life 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.000 of Pythagoras because none of his writing survives, so we 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:43.320 have nothing from his own hand, and the earliest accounts 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.440 of his life and teachings come from hundreds of years 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:50.440 after he lived, and they often differ substantially from one another. 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:54.599 So when exploring basically any factual claim about Pythagoras and 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:57.880 his teachings, there's going to be disagreement within our sources 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.560 and in the analysis of modern scholars. So unfortunately there's 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:03.440 not a lot you can say about him with certainty. 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:05.880 But with that in mind, there's a lot of stuff 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.640 you can say about him that can be understood as 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.960 according to some sources. Right, we have echoes of Pythagoras 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.400 UH as opposed to just Pythagoras like itself in a 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.159 pure recorded form, right. But in these echoes from Pythagoras 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:24.440 some really interesting facts emerge. So a bit of basic background. 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.679 Pythagoras was born on the Greek island of Samos, again 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.520 sometime around the year five seventy BC. UH. He was 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.000 said to have traveled extensively around the ancient world in 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.480 his youth, and he eventually founded a sort of religious 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.760 commune in Croton, a place in the south of Italy. 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:47.880 Pythagoras taught some kind of mystical beliefs that unified aspects 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:52.320 of metaphysics about the soul and the universe with mathematics 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.240 and numbers, which seem to occupy some kind of sacred 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.880 position in his worldview, as well as music which tied 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.880 in with the mathematical aspects, and also teachings about nutrition 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.039 and politics, so like in the realm of politics, it 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:11.600 seems that the Pythagoreans disdained tyranny, and they really disdained democracy. 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:14.520 They favored a kind of oligarchy where the body politic 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.520 would be ruled by supposedly the best of men, you know, 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:23.200 rulers appointed for their virtues. That always works out. Yeah. 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.919 And in terms of nutrition, again there's some disagreement, but 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:32.880 the Pythagoreans were widely understood to be vegetarians, eating bread, 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.719 honey and vegetables. More on that in a bit now. 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:38.680 As with his life and his teachings, there are a 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.599 bunch of conflicting accounts of the death of Pythagoras, but 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.960 I wanted to start with one of these stories about 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:48.719 his murder at the hands of a mob, and oh god, 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:50.800 it again. It's hard to keep all these straight. But 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.240 I think in this account, or at least in some 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:57.240 of these accounts, he's attacked by a mob that favors democracy. 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.760 So the people have spoken and and it is time 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:03.000 for Pythagoras to be slaughtered. So this account comes from 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:07.200 the writing of Diogenes Laertis, who is probably writing sometime 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.760 around the third century CES. So understand that it's like 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:13.960 hundreds of your like seven hundred or eight hundred years 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.080 after Pythagoras lived as a long time later. Oh and 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:21.320 this is translated by a CD younge. Diogenes writes the 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:25.920 following Pythagoras died in this manner when he was sitting 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.440 with some of his companions in Milo's house. Some one 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.040 of those whom he did not think worthy of admission 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.640 into it, was excited by envy to set fire to it. 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.400 But some say that the people of Crotona themselves did this, 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:43.400 being afraid lest he might aspire to tyranny, and that 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.800 Pythagoras was caught as he was trying to escape and 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:50.640 coming to a place full of beans, he stopped there, 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.040 saying that it was better to be caught than to 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.240 trample on the beans, and better to be slain than 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:58.800 to speak. And so he was murdered by those who 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.920 were pursuing him. And in this way also most of 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:05.640 his companions were slain, being in number about forty, but 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:09.360 that a very few did escape. So what I when 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:11.280 I first read this, I was like the pigeon and 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.080 moonraker that does a double take? I did that? What? What? So? 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:19.040 According to this story, Pythagoras and his followers were running 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.840 away from a violent mob, and they came to a 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.080 bean field, and they decided it was better to stop 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.000 running and get chopped to pieces by the crowd than 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:32.160 to step on the beans. This is the first time 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.400 I'll mention this, but I probably mentioned it again. So 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:38.480 in the previous episode I made a statement about how 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:41.199 how you know beans are less interesting compared to corn, 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.040 that corn is spookier, that it's children of the corn, 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.560 not children of the bean. That uh and and uh 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:49.480 and likewise, you know you would you would maybe be 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:51.760 afraid of he who looks behind the rows in the 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.040 corn field, but not in the bean field, Like there's 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:56.440 something about a corn field that can be kind of creepy, 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:00.439 especially in Stephen King's stories. But when when we look 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.160 back through uh in this account, but also in other 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.880 accounts that will look at later on, we really get 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:08.160 the feeling that that the I mean, certainly there were 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.800 no corn fields in Italy at this at this time, 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.240 like beans, bean fields were that place. So if you 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:19.080 can imagine a Stephen King's story where Setlar, a fringe 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.120 religious leader on the run, refuses to go into the corn, 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.560 would rather face death by mob, but then go into 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.160 the corn, like that makes sense in a Stephen King's story. 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.560 So just sort of imagine that it's beans instead of 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.240 corn in the Stephen King universe. And I feel like 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.760 we get an appropriate idea of how Pythagoras and his 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.240 followers are are believed to have felt at this point, 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.320 right at least according to this story. But yeah, you're 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.480 you're exactly right. I love it. And and there are 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.760 other versions of the story, by the way, particularly told 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.840 by one author named Iamblicus, who say that it was 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:54.760 not Pythagoras himself who died because he wouldn't cross a 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.240 bean field, but that it was a cadre of his 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.640 disciples who were chased to the edge of the field 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.840 and then accepted this gruesome death rather than cross it. 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.440 And in Iamblicus version in particular, there's this detail that 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:10.960 the last member of pythagoras As followers who were slain 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:16.000 was a pregnant woman named Timika, who bit off her 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:19.760 own tongue rather than reveal the secret of why the 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:24.080 beans were prohibited. That's more. That's more walking behind the rose. 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:26.680 I think, yeah, yeah, that's that's some straight up Stephen 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:28.920 king Jeue right there. Now, As I mentioned, there are 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:31.600 other accounts of the death of Pythagoras, but what we 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:35.000 know is that either this account is in some way 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.320 based on the truth, or if not, it was at 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:41.800 least considered plausible enough to believe given what people knew 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.840 about Pythagoras in the ancient world. And it seems that 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:47.600 one of the things widely known about him was that 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.920 he really disdained beans. Have come across some really good 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.160 illustrations of him, you know, just saying like no to beans. 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:56.080 Like he's standing next to a bunch of beans and 0:10:56.080 --> 0:11:01.079 he's like, uh yeah, both hands up, looking away away. 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:04.360 So why on earth would anybody believe that that this 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:08.559 ancient Greek religious leader would rather die a painful, bloody 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.480 death than trespass the bean field. Well, there are a 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.000 ton of possible answers, and in a way, I think 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.280 they're all fascinating. But here's one of the main ones 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:19.920 that I wanted to talk about. And we will go 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:22.440 through a number here, as as explored by Albola in 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:24.480 his book, But one of the main things comes down 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.160 to a teaching that is consistently associated with Pythagoras in 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.200 the earliest writings about his life, which is that he 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:35.439 taught the metaphysical doctrine known as metam psychosis, which is 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:40.880 usually translated into English as the transmigration of souls. This 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:44.880 is actually very similar to other ideas of reincarnation that 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.040 you might have encountered before. So, according to the doctrine 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:52.040 of the transmigration of souls, the Pythagoreans believed that there 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.000 was an immaterial and immortal soul that was separate from 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:59.000 the body. This soul would survive the death of the body, 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:01.560 and after the death of the body, the soul would 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.960 be installed in a new body, possibly the body of 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:09.600 another human or another animal. And this probably connects to 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:12.800 one of the other Pythagorean teachings that I mentioned before, 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:16.320 which is that it's widely understood that the Pythagoreans preached 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.400 against the eating of meat. He and his followers were 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.240 said to be vegetarians. And if if he was both 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:25.760 a vegetarian and a believer that that human souls and 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.400 animal souls would transmigrate back and forth into human and 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.160 animal bodies, you can kind of see how these beliefs 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:34.120 would fit together, Like if you were to eat a 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.440 chicken or a cow, you might literally be cannibalizing a 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.280 dead relative. Now, if this is truly what Pythagoras taught, 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:43.840 it is not known for sure where he got this idea, 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.080 though it's been speculated that he could have acquired it 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.320 from Indian thought during his travels. It has said that 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.600 he traveled all over the ancient world. But where this 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.280 idea comes from, we just don't know. Yeah, I mean, 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.120 obviously it sounds like a in many ways, like a 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:03.000 less robust version of of reincarnation as you encounter it 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:08.080 in in in Buddhism, in Hinduism. Uh. But yeah, so 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.440 it would be interesting if this was an idea that 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.360 he picked up in his travels. There are some ancient authors, 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.000 like I recall reading somewhere that I think it might 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.120 have been Herodotus who said that Pythagoras got this idea 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.480 from the Egyptians. But I don't think there's any indication 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.160 that Egyptian religion ever featured reincarnation in this way, so 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.800 that seems to be probably a mistake on herodotus part. Now, 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:32.040 a slight variation on the reasoning here is just that 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:36.640 vegetarianism was considered consistent with a non violent way of 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:41.360 life preached by the Pythagoreans. But so this makes sense, right. 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:43.920 You don't know the exact reason, but it would seem 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:45.840 to all sort of fit together if he believed in 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:49.680 the transmigration of souls and also preached vegetarianism that you know, 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.240 don't eat animals because they might have souls that you would, 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:54.640 you know, wouldn't want to be eating in them. But 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:58.880 then there's this other strange dietary prohibition of the Pythagorean cult, 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:02.400 which is that Pytho a garis allegedly forbade his followers 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:08.440 to eat beans, which, again, modern vegetarians and vegans, you know, 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.840 you know that you need the beans. Yeah, exactly, and 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:14.920 it seems counterintuitive in several ways. Yes, this is a 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.760 problem right now. At the time, within Greek culture, these 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.600 would have been over overwhelmingly. This would have been referring 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:25.440 to fava beans, like the Fasciola's genus that gives rise 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:27.680 to many of the common beans we eat today. That 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.000 is a genus that comes from the America's and had 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.760 not crossed the Atlantic yet. So probably what they're talking 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:35.880 about here are fava beans, though I guess there could 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:37.960 have been lentils and stuff too, But it seems they 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:40.720 were referring to fava beans, and fava beans were a 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.120 common source of food for people and for grazing animals 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:48.000 like for cattle in the Mediterranean at the time. Of course, 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.120 beans are an especially important food if you're a vegetarian. 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:55.040 So why would Pythagoras have forbidden not only eating them, 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.560 but even treading upon them, even going into a field 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.480 where they're being grown. Well, here, I'm want to quote 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:06.440 from Albola's book. Quote. The simplest and perhaps most plausible 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:10.040 explanation is that beans are part of the whole cycle 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:14.600 of reincarnation and they house human souls. To eat a 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.480 bean is thus a form of murder. This was varros 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:23.440 explanation and Orphic Fragment puts it like this, eating beans 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.480 and knowing on the heads of one's parents are one 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:30.520 and the same. I think that's a sufficiently vivid image, right, 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.240 Like you you want to eat beans, how would you 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:37.160 feel about chewing on your dad's head? It's a very 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:39.160 it's very dantea and actually it makes me think of 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:44.840 Count Ugolino and Archbishop Grugieri. But anyway, so yeah, the 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:49.880 idea here would be that beans contain souls, potentially human souls. 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:52.600 Now there's more. Now, I want to get into more 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.000 explanation on that mode of thinking in a bit, but 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:58.360 first I also just wanted to mention some alternative explanations 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.960 offered by other writers over the centuries, which Alba sort 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:05.920 of catalogs and discusses. Now, there are some explanations for 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:10.040 the being prohibition that would be based in politics. So 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:14.160 I think these would be more sort of metaphorical interpretations 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:17.600 of the idea that the Pythagoras would would have being scorn. 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.920 One idea here is that beans were a symbol of democracy, 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:26.440 the democracy that Pythagoras hated, because beans were used to 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.280 cast votes. Right, you might have a jar where if 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:31.240 you want to vote, you you put in a black bean, 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:32.800 and if you want to vote in a put in 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:34.960 a white bean, or maybe you put in different jars, 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:36.880 you know, something like that. It can be a it 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:40.320 can be a way to tally anonymous votes. Of course, 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:43.160 in a proper oligarchy. Uh, nobody would need to vote 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.720 with beans, right, that's right, the best rule. And then 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:47.320 do you just keep your beans at home or in 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:49.760 the field? Uh? Yeah, or you or you just keep 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.160 them away. But also the idea here is that there 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.840 could be a political implication, which is just that beans 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.840 are the food of the working class, whereas meat was 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.800 preferred by the riche leads, and probably in Pythagoras's view, 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:06.119 the better people, the people who deserve to rule because 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.880 of their virtues, would have been associated with meat, well 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:10.840 you know, whereas the people who don't know how to 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:13.640 rule a city that they would be the people eating beans. 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.040 I guess one way one thing we have to sort 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.160 of think about with this, this idea of this being 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:23.280 the part of the Pythagoraan belief system is to realize 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.480 too that it doesn't mean they were necessarily going out 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.280 trying to liberate the bean fields or or necessarily trying 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:33.119 to change the way that other groups UH consumed food. 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:36.280 They could have been very like uh closed off from 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:38.280 them and saying this is how we live, this is 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:42.800 and then we are better for it. Um. I think 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:44.560 that's that's kind of a distinction. I think in general 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:46.840 we have to keep in mind when thinking about different 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:50.720 religious religious groups in the contemporary world, for sure, but 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.600 also just historically that that not every religious group is 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.600 going to be about about spreading their belief system to 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:01.240 all around them, right, and not all like religious dietary 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:05.240 restrictions are meant to be a universal rule. For example, 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:06.920 I think there are a lot of religious scholars of 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:10.560 say like Judaism and Islam that would say, like prohibitions 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:12.879 on pork and other types of food that are prohibited 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:16.040 within that religion are not meant to be universal prohibitions, 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.920 but their prohibitions for the faithful. But then again, I'm 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:22.520 not sure if we that's a possibility always when you're 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:27.360 considering dietary restrictions that are advocated by religious groups. But 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:29.879 I do recall coming across at least one legend the 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:32.440 one for I don't recall the source of this where 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:35.639 Pythagoras was said to have tried to convince a cow 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.679 not to eat fava beans. If you're if you're preaching 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.440 the cows, that's probably it probably means you want all 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:43.879 humans to obey as well, right, But then again, that 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.160 also sounds like a perfect parody of someone whose belief 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:51.280 system you're you don't agree with, don't completely understand. You're like, oh, 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:52.879 I bet Pathagoras is out there. What's he gonna do? 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:55.440 Is gonna tell the cows not deep beans? Yeah, though 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:59.240 that that could very well be the context there. Um, Okay, 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:03.000 so there are other possible explanations. One is more nutritional 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.480 and psychological, you know, pretty straightforward. Beans give you gas, 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.639 and gas prevents you from having a clear head, and 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.560 a lot of ancient philosophers were really concerned about like 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.520 cutting things out that would cause problems in the body 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.680 that would interfere with you having clear thinking. You've gotta 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:20.720 have a clear head to live a good life, and 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.399 so you can't be going around farting. You know, this 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:25.440 is this is interesting because I was I was thinking 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.320 about this, like in terms of how we think about 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.720 flatulence and plate us. We it's easy to have a 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:34.199 very like one to one vision of that, you know, 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:36.600 the idea of like, well, farting is distracting and you 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:38.159 don't want to do it. That's going to mess with 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.680 your mental um outlook. Or you know, we'll or we'll 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:43.640 get into some of these ideas later where it's like, well, 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:46.359 a fart is a ghost. You don't want ghosts coming 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:47.760 out of your but you know that kind of thing. 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:50.800 But Uh, there's an idea that I ran across in 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:53.840 a book that I was I was really enjoying reading 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.400 through Bok called Plants of Life Plants of Death by 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:02.439 Frederick J. Simons and We which which deals not not 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:06.120 only with beans but various other plants entered traditions in 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:08.440 a number of different cultures in the East and in 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:12.600 the West and in Africa, etcetera. About how there are 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.320 these different ideas of life and death wrapped up in them. 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:21.040 And in getting into the idea of of beans and 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:25.840 flatulens and in discussing Pythagorean bean bands, uh he discussed 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:28.760 several of the possibilities, but but one that I hadn't 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:33.480 really thought about was the connection between flatuans and bad dreams. 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:39.879 And he credits uh Fredericus bomb in this idea. But 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:43.080 I've also read that Diogenes touched on this in considering 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.920 but Pythagorean ideas quote, one should abstain from fava beans 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:49.919 since they are full of wind and take part in 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.600 the soul. And if one abstains from from them, one 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.040 stomach will be less noisy, and this is key, one's 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:01.600 dreams will be less oppressive and calmer. Now, that quote 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:06.480 attributed to uh uh two Diagenes was brought up in 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.480 an l A Times article on beings from by Russ Parsons. 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:13.480 But I thought that was that that was interesting, perhaps 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.560 more telling. Yeah, if you're if your sleep is troubled, 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.920 if your dreams are troubled, troubled because you're you're going 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:23.800 to bed gassy with means then that that could very 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:27.720 well darken your outlook on life or or mess with 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:30.840 your head, especially in an age where you have, you know, 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:36.280 maybe more supernatural ideas, uh, concerning dreams and the interpretation 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.480 of dreams. Yeah, that's really interesting, But I mean another 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:41.199 way to think about it, though, I guess it's like 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:43.600 it's gonna like the coach of the chess team is 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:45.760 also going to be like telling all of their players, 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:48.080 like don't eat cookies right before you don't eat pickles 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:50.840 when you're going to bet or something. They're trying to 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:54.600 keep their people in in like ship shape. Yeah. Like 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:57.280 reading through some of the other stuff in Simmons book, 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.359