Turning Men into Nutella

We've gone from pulse-grind to puree in just a few decades.

Have you ever really looked at peanuts? Every peanut is unique.

Like most things in nature, the diversity of peanuts is astounding. Some are large, some small, some bumpy, some smooth, and don’t even get me started on shape. They’re diverse enough that a mechanized shelling machine proved a challenge (compared to walnuts for example.)

Unlike most nuts, peanuts grow underground. Compared to a tree nut, they’re a pain to harvest. But harvest them we did, and mechanized the process eventually, and thus now we can seamlessly eliminate the great diversity of peanut shells and produce a readily consumable, salted, roasted, snack food of uniform size and largely consistent shape.

We did this so well that not only are they easily snackable, they are the cheapest nut and, on a per calorie basis, among the cheapest source of fat and protein on the planet. (Remember that — it’s important later.) But even then, there’s still diversity. Some refuse to separate into halves. The particularly obstinate ones even cling to their red husks.

Oh, but we can do even better. Courtesy John Kellogg, we transformed the diversity and individuality of the humble peanut once again.

That creamy thing in the center came from those bumpy things the bowl, but you’ll have to take that on faith, since you certainly can’t tell visually.

Thus we arrive at the perfect product of modern, late industrial, Machine capitalism: cheap, fluid, produced with minimal labor, and utterly homogenous.

It’s not just peanuts…

What liberal-capitalism has done for peanuts (and a great variety of other products), it is now doing to man.

Like peanuts, humans are incredibly diverse. We all come in different shapes and sizes, from different backgrounds, with different life experiences, motivations, dreams, and goals. We speak different languages. We worship different gods. All of which (like peanut individuality) makes human individuality a real pain in the ass.

Diversity is a problem for the Machine. It requires understanding individuals and local customs and personal histories. It requires treating people as fellow creatures made in the image of God. That’s expensive and annoying. How much more efficient it would be if humans were alike, interchangeable, homogenous… like peanut butter.

The process of homogenizing humans stretches back to pre-history, but we upped the speed to “blend” during the industrial revolution. The factory system requires humans to show up at a particular time, have similar levels of strength and dexterity, sometimes be similar sizes, and to generally play well with others. The last few decades have upped the blender speed again.

It is ironic that, while the West is convulsing in an orgy of diversity-obsession, it is simultaneously working to eliminate as much human diversity as possible, to separate us from our roots, our languages, our nations, our gods, our families… from every unchosen constraint in our lives. They insist it’s liberation, but most of the benefits seem to flow upward. What started as grinding off our rough edges using standards of virtue like Aristotle’s or Confucius’ or Jesus’ has now advanced to pureeing us. We are being homogenized and rendered palatable for consumption by the Machine and those who (think they) run it. Transhumanism is simply this logic applied to biology itself, the last constraint of our individuality and uniqueness which must be eliminated.¹

Zygmunt Bauman’s liquid modernity personified.

Nutella Man will be uniform. He will be adaptable. His labor will be cheap (like peanuts). He will have similar skills, likes and attitudes to his peers. He will flow wherever he is needed, cross industries or borders freely. To achieve this, he must have no attachment to family, to place, to country, or to religion. He must own little or nothing so that he can move readily to where he is needed.

Where do we see this today? Ironically in the laptop class, whose likes and dislikes are governed by their online peers (which really means by the Machine) and who scorn God and country. They work closest with the Machine and it has already Nutellized them. Now they’re helping the do the same to the rest of us.

How do you fight this? You don’t. How do you survive it? Pray every day. Start a book club. Have a garden. Share it with your neighbors. Find a church where the people are actively involved in each others lives… and get involved. Join a local govt committee. Home educate your kids. Help educate other people’s kids. Do things in person more than online. Be eccentric and unique. Find other distinctly countercultural people (think Vaclav Benda and his devout wife finding common cause with hippies against communism.) Start a Red Hat Society chapter. Resist the cultural blender in absolutely every way you can. The Early Church was intentionally countercultural (at enormous cost). Be like them. Rootedness is the one thing the Machine despises most, so be rooted.

Because Nutella Man is to Man what peanut butter is to peanuts.

1. I teach Brave New World with my civics students every year. Aldous Huxley saw Nutella Man coming long before Nutella even existed. If you haven’t read it, slog through the first 3 chapters. It’s worth it, since Ch 17 may well be the most important piece of fiction from the entire 20th century.