Civilization and Orifices

Becoming civilized is a matter of gaining control over the body, and this bodily control is largely centered, as Mary Douglas recognized, on orifices. Infants have no control over their sphincters: They can’t hold urine or faeces, they fart and burp at inappropriate moments, they regurgitate milk and don’t care if it dribbles on their chin or splats on the floor. The foundational goal of parenting is to train children to control these openings. And once that’s done, parents move on to train children in more subtle controls of the body, particularly bodily openings: What they say in public, what they let themselves hear and see. Finally, at the high point of cultivation, they move beyond control of bodily openings to graceful control of their bodies as a whole ?Etraining their fingers for the piano keys, their hands for sculpting, their feet for the dance.