IN THE previous post, I wrote:

I was in a restaurant the other day and there was a little sign on the table that listed all the medical ill effects of dehydration. It said that if your water intake drops slightly, you are likely to become confused and unable to function mentally. The water industry has done a great job of convincing people that constant water consumption makes you smarter, thinner and more energetic.

 Lawrence Auster writes:

Think of it — every moment of our lives, we’re that close to a breakdown in our mental functioning! Only constant vigilance and nonstop water drinking can protect us.

But then what happened to the liberal idea that the universe is safe and nothing bad can happen to us? Oh, I’ve got it. The universe is safe when it comes to crime and predation, because man is naturally good, especially nonwhite men, and therefore every time a white woman is raped or murdered, no matter how reckless her own behavior or how crime infested the neighborhood where she went jogging alone, it comes as a “shock.” So the human universe is naturally safe. But the civilized universe is dangerous, because it doesn’t naturally provide us with a constant supply of fluids and therefore we must be attentive to that need every moment of our lives, or else suffer a mental breakdown. 

                                          — Comments —

Reader N. writes:

Possibly I’m the only person commenting on your site who recalls seeing Dr. Strangelove, a Cold War era movie intended to lampoon pretty much the entire conservative side of America at that time. In those days, the John Birch Society and others were strongly opposed to putting fluoride in the public water supplies, for various reasons. One of the lampoons in “Dr. Strangelove” had to do with General Jack D. Ripper writing a bizarre note concerning the “threat to our precious bodily fluids” and the importance of protecting them.

Fast forward a little over a generation, and we see what was once farce has become common wisdom: We must protect our precious bodily fluids at all times, by carrying about a plastic bottle of water (purified, with no fluoride I guess).

Laura writes:

I picked up a reusable water bottle the other day –  it was a bottle made for hikers on the trail –  and the top was so emphatically nipple-like (you had to actually suck on it like a baby) that I broke out laughing when it was offered to me and refused to drink from it though I was very thirsty because I was hiking in the mountains. I am far too old to suck from a plastic teat and would rather my IQ drop a few points from dehydration. 

At VFR today, there are these two comments which I think sum up the water bottle phenomenon, even its bizarre resemblance to adult breastfeeding:

Josh F. writes:

In our radically autonomizing society, I would say the water bottle is the answer to the question, “If you were stuck on a deserted island, what would wish for?” It seems that the water bottle–much like the cell phone–is evidence that we all live on deserted islands, i.e., radically autonomous.

LA replies:

Exactly. That’s very good.

And not only autonomous, but without a civilization or culture supporting us. Life is about surviving, one minute to the next.

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