Guilty Pleasures

Okapi appears with a skeptical expression. -Tell me Zebra...

Zebra has just held his black nose to the sun and surrendered to the warmth. -Yes, please?, it asks politely, although there is a faint undertone of irritation at the intrusion.

-Can you explain the concept to me? What are guilty pleasures? As I understand it from my reading - it points to a magazine lying open on the floor and enumerates from memory -it's about sensual pleasures, reveling in physicality, feasting on good food, surrendering to pleasure....

Zebra looks up at the sky, mentally absent, apparently.

-Hey, are you listening? Okapi asks impatiently.

-Yes, yes, Zebra tries. -What exactly is on your mind?

-Obviously, that's where the guilt starts, if you want to follow the designation. For some, coffee is also part of it, or smoking. Or watching a movie that isn't "especially valuable" or has received 5 awards. Okapi shakes iis head uncomprehendingly. -What interests me: Where does this first step of condemnation come from in the context of pleasure? Is this Protestant or Catholic? Or just twisted?

Zebra now seems interested in the question after all. -Strange indeed. So if you allow yourself something nice, you are immediately on the way to the abyss with one leg....

-I don't know why, but I remember a discussion I once heard. It was about the topics of renunciation and veganism.

Zebra grins. -A classic! Let me guess what came next!

-Go ahead! says Okapi.

-If you give up meat, you can't eat anything that tastes like it and isn't made of meat. And certainly not if it is delicious. Same with cheese, etc.

-Hahahaha. Sorry, laughs Okapi. -Right. I know it.

Zebra continues: -Because if I enjoy, I also have to make myself guilty at the same time, according to this view at least. So again, if I have, eat, do something nice... someone else has to suffer for it. Or, in any case, I make myself guilty because I enjoy instead of suffering or working....

-The ideology sounds familiar. Although this concept would not mean anything to old JC, as a friend would point out, Okapi says. -Background of the argumentation is thereby also still: there is not enough for everybody to thrive.

-With guilt and competition you can direct people well, sighs Zebra.

Okapi nods, lost in thought. -Probably. But that brings a political dimension to it.

-Yes, and that's exactly what's exciting about it. Because the call to go vegan is also a political one.

-Can you say more about that? asks Okapi. -What should be political about it?

-Well, the question of how we treat each other is a fundamentally political one. Who has something to say. Who has influence. What role models exist. Even in ancient democracy...

Okapi interrupts: -But it wasn't democracy at all in our understanding! Only Greek men were allowed to participate!

-Right, if you had let me finish, I would have mentioned exactly that: that after all it is about who has to decide here. Who is a valuable member of society and who is not...

-There we are once again with the statement: the private is political! says Okapi not at all dissatisfied.

-I agree 100%, says Zebra, and then resumes the pose from before. -And I'm going to enjoy the sun now.