Chess, Ketchup and a Small Act of Social Defiance

(WARNING: As previously noted, I was knee-deep in graduate school research while launching The Cellulite Investigation.  The following article may contain needless metaphysical reasoning and arcane references to International Relations Theory.  I apologize in advance and will try my best to limit such occurrences in the future.)

I started researching the causes of cellulite during my first semester at graduate school.  As is often the case, I soon found myself relating the concepts I encountered in the classroom to ideas I was exploring in my extra-curricular studies.

One of these concepts is the idea of “social facts,” or facts that exist because all relevant actors agree that they exist.  In contrast, there are facts that exist in the material world.  Mountains, gravity, and population rates are all examples of facts that exist whether or not relevant actors agree that they do, while money, marriage, and Christmas are examples of facts that are socially constructed.

A classic example is the game of chess.  The rules of chess do not just regulate what moves can or cannot be made on the chessboard, but they also create the very possibility of playing chess.  If the participants were following different rules, such as jumping red pieces over black ones in an attempt to clear the board, they would no longer be said to be playing chess but might be considered to be playing a different game, such as checkers.  The game of chess exists because all relevant parties agree that when you follow certain rules, you are playing chess.

Unlike physical facts, social facts are more fluid and can change drastically over time and space.  The game of chess is in a continual process of being socially constructed.  While the origins of chess are unclear, the modern rules of chess first took shape in 16th century Italy and continued to be modified over the years until they reached their current form.  The rules changed when both the players and their relevant audiences simply agreed to a change in the rules of chess, either consciously or unconsciously.  In spite of the official endorsement of standard chess rules widely accepted by international chess governing bodies, over two thousand chess variants continue to be played throughout the world.

In what was undoubtedly a flash of inspired late-night clarity (likely involving a plateful of the local fish and chips), I began to wonder if ketchup would be considered a social fact.  Like chess, there are certain “rules” (i.e. a recipe) that must be followed in order for a subject to qualify as ketchup.  Does “ketchup” only exist because all the relevant actors agree that following the rules of the ketchup recipe results in the creation of ketchup?  This question got me thinking.

Like chess, the rules of ketchup have changed over the years.  Traditional food experts believe ketchup was first created by the Chinese as a pickled fish sauce, “the universal condiment of the ancient world.”  Tomatoes didn’t enter the recipe until American seamen added them centuries later.  By 1913, Webster’s Dictionary defined ketchup as “a table sauce made from mushrooms, tomatoes, walnuts, etc.”  In the modern version, the chief ingredient next to tomatoes is usually high fructose corn syrup, and yet most people still agree that the red stuff in the plastic bottle labeled “ketchup” is, in fact, ketchup.

Since ketchup is a social fact, as long as the relevant actors agree that the red stuff in the plastic bottle is ketchup, well, then it’s ketchup.  So in a small act of social defiance, I would like to graciously disagree with that claim.  If enough people reject the modern interpretation of ketchup, then the modern food system itself will be forever changed.

Tagged as: Diet