Perfume: “If a man who smells unpleasant because he works harshly on the roads repels you, while a corrupt bureaucrat wearing imported perfume pleases you, then you must retrain your nose; philosophy demands this of you,” said my professor in a political philosophy class. This statement raises a question: what does it say about us if we feel moral disgust at a labourer who smells of sweat but respect someone who wears imported scents?
Theoretically, ethics and aesthetics are two separate sets of value judgements. Ethics deal with moral judgements regarding what is right and what is wrong, while aesthetics are concerned with the judgement of beauty. However, in practical life, these two judgements intersect, and what appears desirable becomes confused with what is morally right. Since both of these judgements are value judgements, their intersection in practical life is more likely.
Like other sensory perceptions, smell is also socially conditioned and politically charged. Smell carries memories and emotions, and these memories shape how we look at things associated with a particular smell. Our mind registers some smells as “good” and some as “bad”, and the objects associated with those smells are likewise taught to be loved or hated. Similarly, different smells are associated with different classes of people or professions. The odour of oil and grease coming off a car mechanic, or the smell of paint from a painter, creates an association of these people with these odours in our memory.
Sweat, Perfume, and Power The Moral Politics of Odor
A compelling example of how particular odours are associated with certain kinds of people is Mustansar Hussain Tarar’s novel Aye Ghazaal-i-Shab. In this novel, a character, Mustafa Islam, smells of leather because his father is a shoemaker who has stored it in his house. The entire household comes to be identified by that smell, which serves as a social marker throughout the novel.
The social stigmatisation of certain odours dates to millennia. For instance, in ancient Egypt, perfumes were only available to a class of rich elites, while the poor and enslaved, who gave off a smell of their sweat due to their intense labour, were stigmatised for their “natural” scent. The classification of people based on their smell persists today. Foul smells are not just unpleasant; they tend to symbolise “inner rottenness” and unite the physical with the moral.
Cleanliness is considered morally good, but the standard of cleanliness is often based on class. Some professions allow a greater degree of cleanliness, while others do not. People belonging to the lower socioeconomic class work as labourers, construction workers, fruit vendors, carpenters, plumbers, and car mechanics. They sweat more due to the intense nature of their work. They cannot afford the degree of cleanliness that someone working in an office can maintain. However, we come to associate a lack of cleanliness and foul smell with people belonging to lower classes. People feel moral disgust towards those people and alienate and stigmatise them, which reinforces social hierarchies.
Nietzsche observed that a “different sense and degree of cleanliness” often separates people more profoundly than religion or ideology. Although scents and perfumes are more accessible these days, their use depends upon the nature of one’s everyday life. A labourer or car mechanic has no use for wearing a scent and clean clothes. He will eventually smell of sweat, dust, oil, or grease. This scent should not be confused with someone’s moral or intentional lack of cleanliness.
Similarly, places are also associated with certain kinds of smell. In cities, there is a clear segregation between rich people who live in posh areas that are well developed and the poor classes who are crowded in underdeveloped areas. These low-income neighbourhoods are characterised by dirt and filth, sewage water on the streets, and foul smells. This disparity also creates a feeling of disgust for these places and the people living there.
However, there’s a structural aspect to this division of smell. Low-income neighbourhoods are often located near factories, open drains, or garbage dumps, disproportionately exposing the poor to pollution and foul odours. This division of smell is also a part of environmental injustice, where the poor are not only physically segregated but also burdened with degraded sensory environments.
To retrain our nose is to separate our moral judgements from aesthetic ones. We should take a moment to consider whether the person who feels unpleasant to our olfactory perception deserves the disgust and repulsion we feel for him or her. We must learn to question our first instincts, not because they are unnatural, but because they are often unjust. To retrain our nose is to retrain our society: to separate sweat from sin and labour from moral failure.
