Food as a Tool of Satisfaction of Human Social Needs - Essay Example

Food as a Tool of Satisfaction of Human Social Needs School Introduction Human basic physical needs are on the lowest level of MaslowPyramid and we are used to considering food as just another source of satisfying them. But what about the higher levels of human social needs? Can food play any other role except for being just a remedy of stilling hunger? Absolutely! Food plays important role in such human needs where it becomes a kind of symbol that means something more than simple products. As we frequently don’t even notice when we use food as a tool of increasing our social status, we eat certain food that describes our belonging to a particular culture, we have works of art made of food and they satisfy our aesthetical needs, or we even decide not to eat some products in order to show our life position and principles. All these factors and many more prove that food often becomes a symbol that supports people in society, as it helps them to show others their social position. The Need of Belonging and Social Identifying To follow the order of Maslow pyramid, the social stage that goes after the basic physical needs is the one that claims that people want to feel their belonging to some social group. From this point food can frequently play the role of the symbol of belonging to some people. Researches show that people prefer consuming such food that symbolically links them with their native culture (including their country, religion, traditions) as such consumption gives them a sense of belonging to something bigger (Cantarero et al. 2013, pag. 881); this includes several aspects of culture-oriented kinds of food. First of all, every culture, nation, and country has its own traditional dishes. People who belong to some culture mostly will prefer national dishes before some foreign ones because it makes them feel that in such a way they show their cultural identity (Ibid. pag. 889). Especially this happens when representatives of a certain culture live among people from another culture, for example, immigrants. If immigrants have a strong national identity, they will “bring” their own culture and maintain its tradition even being in different country. The point is that food is one of the most significant factors of demonstration of cultural identity, as consumption of national food not only reminds these people their belonging to their native culture but also shows everybody around that the foreigners are morally strong enough not to give up on their own culture in enculturation. Another kind of “identity food” is the products that people of a certain religion should or shouldn’t consume. Basically, religious food consumption is based on prohibitions of particular products, but even prohibition of food symbolizes belonging to some religious group. One of the most significant prohibitions that exist in almost all major religions is a taboo against eating meat. The issue of meat is complicated though because some religions like Islam and Judaism allow it with several exceptions, Buddhism, for example prohibits its usage. Considering the problem of meat in different religions it is important to note that meat means that some living creature was killed or died for human to eat. This statement causes most of ethical problems with meat consumption in religious ethics, because consumption of meat comes to mean consumption of death (Feeley-Harnik 1995). This is one of the reasons why Buddhists don’t eat meat. The point is that one of the main principles of the religion is to do no harm, but in addition Buddhists believe that there are such things as Samsara (the circle of life and death) and reincarnation (Lesco 1988). That’s why their claims about not killing animals are rather logical: who knows whose reincarnation you ate, maybe in the next life it can be some of your relatives. In order not to gain bad karma it’s better not to kill animals for food. Thus, we can see that for religious people (on the example of Buddhists) food plays important semantic role, as it is considered from spiritual and ethical point of view. Social Psychological Function of Group Eating Another aspect of belonging that food provides for people is the way it is consumed. For instance, traditions and food rituals frequently can be good agents in process of socialization. Common eating makes people feel free with each other and integrates them in social groups. As archaeologist Martin Jones claims in his book “Feast: why People Share Food” eating has always been a kind of play that contains many stages like hunting (in old times), cooking, sharing food with relatives and strangers. People gather with others in order to kook something, while this process they communicate, getting to know each other. And later those who are accepted by the group are allowed to share food together with others. This play becomes an occasion for people to build bridges and learn from others during this symbolic process (Jones 2008). Thus, food obviously influences people’s identification with certain culture, as it becomes a kind of distinguishing feature among others which describes their belonging to something. The Need to Be Accepted By Society The need to be accepted by society comes after the previously considered need of belonging, which means that people want to reach certain social status and maintain it so they frequently use food to emphasize on their position in society. Here we can see many examples of food being a symbol of high social level. First of all, it is concerning the division of food into ordinary and privileged. Ordinary food is the most affordable for middle-class people like fast food, ordinary everyday products (vegetables, fruits, basic products like bread, porridge etc.). When privileged food is special kinds of products which usually cost a lot, and are affordable for rich people only, for instance, it is such products as oysters, old cheeses, foie gras etc.. A psychologist John McKenzie in his research about such symbolism of food argues that people strive to avoid demonstration of their poverty so they frequently use symbol of food either to hide their real social and financial position or to emphasize on it (McKenzie 1974). Mostly, this difference can be observed in public places for eating like restaurants and cafes. People who want to emphasize their social status usually visit luxury places where they taste expensive food and communicate with others who have the same social status, so the ritual of eating here plays the role of the tool of self-identification and belonging to some class. Those who, let’s say, don’t have anything to emphasize on are not usually used to making food a symbol of their social status. Furthermore, they don’t consider food as such kind of symbol, it can play other semantic roles in their lives, for example, the ones mentioned above concerning belonging and self-identification. Aesthetical Need Human aesthetical need also deals with food and it happens in some aspects. The most elementary one embodies in food service and design, when food becomes literally a work of art. With modern technologies and social networks people share pictures of beautiful food in order to satisfy others’ aesthetical need. But this reason is not the only one they have in their minds. The second aspect of the aesthetical need is to create such a lifestyle that would not only look beautiful in social networks but also would satisfy their need to look stylish for themselves. In the article “Food, Ethics, and Aesthetics” the authors describe a new type of post-modern human (mostly, a city inhabitant), whose lifestyle is closely connected to food consumption, for example, these postmodern city inhabitants like to demonstrate the pictures of their dishes on Internet, emphasizing that they eat healthy and this makes them stylish (Tivadar, Luthar 2005). The point is that these people are deeply concerned about the food they consume, its quality and nature of producing. Such anxiety about their lifestyle can be explained by aesthetical need to look attractive in their own conceit. Anyway, we usually notice such people and admire them because they seem stylish for us, but in fact it depends on what food they eat. Spiritual Need and the Symbol of Food Finally, we’ve come to the highest step of human needs pyramid which is the spiritual requirements. On this stage food mostly plays symbolical role which means that people eat several products in order to self-actualize and show their moral position on different things. The most famous example of such demonstrative behavior is when people choose to become vegetarians. The researches on motivation of vegetarians claim that in most cases vegetarians are those people who want to stand on a position against animal cruelty and by refusing to eat meat they demonstrate everybody around that they are sure about this position (Fox and Ward 2008). The reason why they demonstrate it in such a way is quite simple: they want to show that their words are confirmed by their actions. Another example when people use food to stand for something is a hunger strike, which in fact isn’t about consumption of food, but vice versa is concerning denial of the consumption at all in order to force somebody to do something for their sake. This method is widely known in politics, when people assert a hunger strike to force government to listen to them. These examples evidently describe the situations where food plays symbolic role, as people use it mostly to prove something or to self-actualize themselves and their certain position in society. Conclusion Consumption of food plays important role in society and not only because human beings can’t live without food, but also because food frequently plays even more symbolic role in our lives. We don’t even notice how we use it in different ways to satisfy our social needs: in belonging to some culture or social group, in confirmation of our social status, in the need of getting aesthetical satisfaction, and in self-actualization of ourselves in society. References Cantarero, L., Espeitx, E., Lacruz, M.G., and Martin, P. (2013). “Human Food Preferences and Cultural Identity: the Case of Aragon (Spain)”. International Journal of Psychology, 48, 881-890. Feeley-Harnik, G. (1995): “Religion and Food: An Anthropological Perspective”. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 635, 65-582. Fox, N., Ward, K. (2008). “Health, Ethics, and Environment: a Qualitative Study of Vegetarian Motivation”. Appetite, 50, 422-429. Jones, M. (2008). Feast: why People Share Food. New York: Oxford University Press. Lecso, P. A. (1988) “To Do No Harm: A Buddhist View on Animal Use in Research”. Journal of Religion and Health, 27, 307-312. McKenzie, J. (1974). “The impact of Economic and Social Status on Food Choice”. Proceedings of Nutrition Society, 33, 67-73. Read More