Toilet
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A toilet, plumbing fixture and disposal system primarily intended for the disposal of the human waste. Before the 20th century, toilet universally referred to personal grooming, bathing and washing combing or arranging one's hair, shaving, etc., a sense preserved today in toiletry 'personal grooming item'. Nowadays, it is mostly used to indicate a lavatory. "Toilet of the mouth", however, is still is use by oral surgeons.
Toilet philosophy
A number of philosophers have been interested in human waste and can be considered -- not meant in a derogatory way -- toilet philosophers. Among them are Georges Bataille, who was called and "excremental philosopher" by André Breton, Peter Sloterdijk in his remarks on the role of the arse in Critique of Cynical Reason:
- "The arse seems to be condemned to live in the dark. Among the different parts of our body, it leads the life of a tramp. It truly is the idiot of the family. Yet it would be a miracle if this black sheep of the body did not have a ready opinion of the events taking place in higher regions, just like those who have been rejected by society often express the most sober views of it."
and Slavoj Žižek who cites Erica Jong:
- "German toilets are really the key to the horrors of the Third Reich. People who can build toilets like this are capable of anything."
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