Social Purity (1891)

AUTHOR: Kellogg, John Harvey

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen):

The text condemns sexual immorality and sexuality in general. The Preface states that Kellogg's address was originally “delivered by request before an audience of more than one thousand people, fully two thirds of whom signed the purity pledge” (3). His initial diagnosis of the status quo is that “the foul cancer of moral rottenness” is pervasive and all-encompassing (5): “this monster of iniquity – unchastity – rears its vile head in every stratum of society, and among the fairest results of modern culture” (6). “Every grade of society,” Kellogg continues,

is being permeated and corrupted by the most horrible and ineradicable diseases, maladies which have their origin in social impurity. And there are evils still more hidden which are doing their work of physical and moral destruction. Personal impurity is sapping the vital energies, debasing the mental faculties, and blunting the conscience of thousands of youth, who are ignorant of the present and eternal ruin which they invite. Unwarned and unrepentant, thousands are going down into the grave a sacrifice to hidden vices. If I could unfold to you one-tenth part of the iniquity which is covered by a garb of decent respectability in every community, it would seem to you that the days of Sodom and Gomorrah had returned (6).

In addition to religion, a plant-based diet that is unstimulating and non-irritant is an important remedy for such unchastity: “Nothing tends so powerfully to keep the animal impulses in abeyance as a simple, unstimulating dietary” (47). Veganism thus acquires ethical importance as it precludes or at least counteracts immorality. Conversely, a diet based on animal food and other stimulants and irritants invariably fosters sexual desires:

When old enough to take food in the ordinary way, the infant’s tender organs of digestion are plied with highly seasoned viands, stimulating sauces, sweetmeats, and dainty tidbits in endless variety. Soon tea and coffee are added to the list. Pepper, ginger, mustard, condiments of every sort deteriorate his daily food. Overeating, eating between meals, hasty eating, eating indigestible articles of food, ices, late suppers, and various other dietetic errors, all contribute to the establishment of morbid conditions which encourage impurity (42).

In this context, Kellogg holds up William Alcott as a model to emulate for his adherence to “a diet the most abstemious in character, and from which all flesh food was rigidly excluded” (43).