Letters from Annie

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RT:Disgust
www.ill-iterate.com

RT:Disgust

Just sharing this article by Molly Young I wanted to talk about with you.

Jan 3
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How Disgust Explains Everything, (Molly Young, The NY Times Sunday Magazine; Jan 2, 2022)

I wanted to share this article I read over the weekend because I like the way it’s told and it’s full of great psychological jargon like sympathetic magic and benign masochism. This passage stopped me in my tracks:

[Aurel] Kolnai was the first to arrive at a number of insights that are now commonly accepted in the field. He pointed to the paradox that disgusting things often hold a “curious enticement” — think of the Q-tip you inspect after withdrawing it from a waxy ear canal, or the existence of reality-TV shows about plastic surgery, or “Fear Factor.” He identified the senses of smell, taste, sight and touch as the primary sites of entry and pointed out that hearing isn’t a strong vector for disgust. “One would search in vain for any even approximately equivalent parallel in the aural sphere to something like a putrid smell, the feel of a flabby body or of a belly ripped open.” (emphasis added)

Is it possible we can’t hear disgust?

Maisie Cousins for The New York Times (a single hair on egg salad)
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