Fibers, Morality of

Politicians in the U.S. have a tendency to engage in slightly overwrought prose about whatever it is they don't like eroding or destroying the moral fiber of the nation.  Dedicated to precise definitions as I am, I asked a very talented seamstress (my mama) what, in her opinion, were the least and most moral fibers.

She replied that any fiber that is made out of liquid that comes out of the ground and used to be a swamp is immoral, while fiber from currently grown plants in non-swamp conditions are moral.  This makes sense, as swamps are creepy places full of mosquitoes, angsty gothic types, and sometimes overly large dogs covered in glow-in-the-dark paint.

So while I am willing to accept that synthetic fibers are immoral while your cottons, linens, and whatever is made from sisal are moral, I do wonder about fibers which are covered with sequins.  Sequins, the cheap kind, are plastic, but I deeply believe that sequins are moral.  On the other hand, I have the moral and aesthetic sensibility of a magpie.

It is also possible that such politicians are referring to fiber in the sense of nutrition.  But I'm not really sure how, even in a society that likes to label foods as good vs bad, fiber can be mapped onto morality.  If you don't eat any, the GI tract will suffer, and if all you eat is fiber, you will die of starvation.  There is a Chinese legend about vermicelli, which is rather fibrous, becoming magically transformed into chains in someone's intestines, helpfully recounted by E.T.C. Warner (and freely downloadable from the Gutenberg Project) thusly:

Sun Hou-tzŭ, the Monkey Sun, the rapid courier, who in a single skip could traverse 108,000 li (36,000 miles), started in pursuit and caught her up, but the astute goddess was clever enough to slip through his fingers. Sun Hou-tzŭ, furious at this setback, went to ask Kuan-yin P’u-sa to come to his aid. She promised to do so. As one may imagine, the furious Page 222race she had had to escape from her enemy had given Shui-mu Niang-niang a good appetite. Exhausted with fatigue, and with an empty stomach, she caught sight of a woman selling vermicelli, who had just prepared two bowls of it and was awaiting customers. Shui-mu Niang-niang went up to her and began to eat the strength-giving food with avidity. No sooner had she eaten half of the vermicelli than it changed in her stomach into iron chains, which wound round her intestines. The end of the chain protruded from her mouth, and the contents of the bowl became another long chain which welded itself to the end which stuck out beyond her lips. The vermicelli-seller was no other than Kuan-yin P’u-sa herself, who had conceived this stratagem as a means of ridding herself of this evil-working goddess. She ordered Sun Hou-tzŭ to take her down a deep well at the foot of a mountain in Hsü-i Hsien and to fasten her securely there. It is there that Shui-mu Niang-niang remains in her liquid prison. The end of the chain is to be seen when the water is low.

That could conceivably be immoral fiber.

Your thoughts, my indefatigable boozers?