SOUR ANTI-BACCHANALIAN?

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Re: "Not By Meat Alone" (Dec. 19, by Seth Kupferberg): Why is it that what The Crimson serves up in the way of political analysis always smacks of sour grapes? The taste is annoying, especially to one who finds himself agreeing with the politics but not the petulance.

To suggest that Harvard's meatless days are designed to soothe middle-class consciences is as valueless as pointing out that The Crimson's insistent demarcation of the true political path, be it ever so impossible to tread, is designed to soothe the conscience of Marxist boy-editors. It may be correct, but even if it isn't, who cares?

Far from "encouraging people to ignore issues" such as the politics of famine, meatless days would raise the issues simply because, unlike so many other student sponsored causes, the proposal if carried out would actually affect student life. It would be a significant change in consumption patterns, not a symbolic gesture comparable to skipping Christmas dinner as is implied. For this very reason its future is dim.

As for Mr. Kupferberg's idea for a "collective decision to cut back meat production"--if he is talking about this country, then I wonder how far in the future he imagines this process will occur. The oil-producing countries of the Third World started collecting a fair price for oil because they put together an effective cartel; not because the U.S. collectively decided to buy at higher prices. In the case of food, if the Third World is to get some of the protein it needs there will necessarily be less meat for Americans. How will this happen? Meat consumption will decrease when prices go high enough to override current tastes. Jean Mayer's proposal is nothing more than nudging along, with a humanitarian as well as nutritional rationale, the change in tastes that must eventually come.

Concern about co-optation is misplaced here. No one is going to be convinced that corporate capitalism can feed the world because eggplant parmesan replaces greasy ribs on Wednesday.

Agreed that poor and working people suffer disproportionately from food price increases. Agreed that Harvard is on the explotive side of that disproportion. Agreed that eating several meatless meals a week is not so great a sacrifice. It requires less effort than training to build elementary water systems in Africa, as one student I know is doing, or working in one's home community over a long haul to build a class conscious, worker-led movement, to use another acquaintance as an example. That doesn't mean that every smaller or less politically conscious commitment has no use.

While Mr. Kupferberg is rubbing our noses in the futility of our efforts, he might reflect that political consciousness without an alternative program in which ordinary people can participate is equally futile. This is true even of the prodigiously informed, finely turned consciousness attained in Harvard's History and Literature department, in which I believe Mr. Kupferberg is a concentrator.

As someone who cooks his own in a Radcliffe co-op, may I suggest that Mr. Kupferberg rethink his opposition to the cheese souffle, the rice and bean casserole, and the friendly omelette? Who knows? He might even decide to live in a co-op like Radcliffe's Jordan K, where, as in the real world, switching to five meaty days a week would be no cutback. Adam Glass '77

I did not oppose Mayer's proposal.   --Seth Kupferberg