Is Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s the chief propaganda officer of the Culture of Gluttony?

Portfolio’s Joe Keohane reports on the masterminds behind the infamous Gutbuster burger, and the new fast-food culture it has spawned. Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. now emphasize the tremendous number of calories in their meatastic creations as a major selling point.

Keohane sums up the success of the campaigns when he writes:

Anyone can make Americans fat (hell, everyone already has), but only one fast-food company can make them fat and allow them to feel good about it, even get them to feel like they’re making a statement and striking a blow against the forces of political correctness.

There’s truth there, but it reminds me of the great Emily Dickinson poem: “Tell the truth but tell it slant. Success in Cirrcuit lies.”

Carl’s Jr. doesn’t make anybody feel anything. Carl’s Jr. is simply doing a sickeningly good job of articulating a feeling that’s already strong in the culture, a feeling that is symptomatic of America’s completely ass-backwards relationship with food and our bodies.

You can say that the restaurant is celebrating a rebellion against the nags, the food police, the sanitizers of red-blooded American life. Sure, that’s part of it, but it’s not the whole story.

At heart, the fast-food chain and its affordably-priced calorie-bombs are celebrating a rebellion against the body. The Carl’s Jr. phenom, the ultimate emphasis of quantity over quality, is symptomatic of the divorce between body and mind that’s become a defining aspect of American culture. The fatter we get, the more we pretend that we’re our brains — or our “spirits” — not our bodies. The more we sanctify the soul and mortify the flesh.

Really, that separation’s been central to the Western definition of the self since Descartes. Actually, it goes back even further, to Thomas Aquinas’ two appetites and the Dominicans’ mortification of the flesh. Since the 14th century, the Western mind has been trained to actively hate the body, elevate the spirit.

In other words, Carl’s Jr.’s been given a lot to work with.

Where does that leave us? Well, fat. Today, modern wealth and abundance, and the fact that many of us are now lucky enough to use brain power, not muscle power to make our livings, has taken the separation to a blubbery extreme. And smart businesses, not just Carl’s Jr., seize the opportunity.

But on a bright note, Carl’s Jr.’s patrons haven’t lost all sense of discrimination. The restaurant’s Fourth of July burger - a beef patty topped by a hotdog and all the usual toppings - sunk like a fat kingpin with weights around his ankles. Even today, nobody wants to ruin a good hamburger with a stinky hotdog.