Product Description

Does disgust bring order and meaning to lives? Does it help to animate the world, and make it a more dangerous, magical and exciting place? The author analyzes the world of disgust and makes these points, arguing that disgust and contempt play roles in creating and maintaining social hierarchy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #328463 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
While "The Anatomy of Disgust" does disgust, it also enthralls, enlightens, dazzles and entertains. It "anatomizes" disgust--which Miller defines as a "strong sense of aversion to something perceived as dangerous because of its powers to contaminate, infect or pollute"--by exploring it as both a physical sensation and a moral sentiment. In both cases, it turns out, disgust has enormous political and social implications. But perhaps the most striking thing about "The Anatomy of Disgust, " as Miller himself says, is its willingness to be "methodologically promiscuous," to draw on history, literature, moral philosophy and psychology as well as on events from Miller's own life...What this beautifully written book reminds us so brilliantly is how much the humanities--and in some ways only the humanities--can tell us about the empirical world, the world of physical sensation, social behaviour, and political conflict. -- Andrew Stark "Times Literary Supplement"

Customer Reviews

A valuable study of the concept of disgust
The author starts by pointing out that linguistically the word "disgust" in English is linked to the word "taste" ("gustus" in Latin). It describes actions or things which are repulsive, revolting or abhorrent principally because they become polluting by being out of place. Freud's theories are efforts to overcome a deep disgust with sex which is often the cause for anxiety, neurosis and psychosis. Disgust is also a psychic need to avoid reminders of our animal origins and it is accompanied by ideas of some sort of danger like pollution, contamination or defilement. It has the function of protecting our organism from dangerous matter. And disgust is culturally and socially determined.
The author argues that disgust has powerful image-generating capacities and that it plays a part in organising and internalising many of our attitudes toward the moral, social and political domains. He also demonstrates how the conceptualisation of disgust varies by virtue of the sense doing the perceiving: touch, smell, taste or vision. The body's orifices and wastes are not forgotten either: mouth, anus, genitals, nose, ears and skin. Moving away from the visceral, Mr Miller takes up the delicate issue of the relationships of disgust to desire and desire to prohibition. He also discusses the changing styles of disgust and the disgusting through time and then moves to the issue that disgust is a moral sentiment. Finally he concentrates on disgust in the political and social realms where it confronts democracy and the idea of equality.
A fascinating study with plenty of references to famous writers like Orwell, Shakespeare, Sartre or Darwin. There is also an exhaustive bibliography which will help readers find related studies to the concept of disgust.

makes subject come to life- regardless
Readers will enjoy expanded coverage including Dr. Disgust..Paul Rozin,PhD....in Psychology Today, Jan/Feb '98. ..almost too much to stomach