Jan 23, Why is purity so valued?

Ivory soap, "its 99% pure.....!"

The advertiser here clearly thinks that it is appealing to have something that is pure.....never mind what that thing is.

Would it matter if it is 99% pure poison?  we don't seem to want to know.  Just thinking that it is close to perfectly pure is good enough.

When going for ethnic food, a very common question is "is it authentic?"  Kind of a similar move as preferring purity.
 
Children of mixed blood have long suffered the scorn of society until recent times.  The change in attitude is remarkable in that mixed blood children are now cherished as having the best of both worlds.

What are the possible reason for preference for purity and authenticity?

1. Precious material. Something like gold which is valuable and expensive in its own right would be cheapened if mixed with some other cheaper metal.  Therefore, in valuable commodities, purity indicates no degrading from the valuable material.  (But soap is cheap!)

2.  Tribalism. When there is pride of association with a social group, there is a natural preference for a "true blue" example of that group as value is defined by the group.

3.  Deferral to expert.  If a trusted source said that Chinese food is good, then we want to find a place serving "authentic Chinese food" just so that we can experience what our expert recommended.

4.  Easy classification.  We make sense of the world by categorizing everything into stereotypes.  These stereotypes reside in neat, well defined boxes in our minds and we do not want to complicate our understanding with blurry edges, in between situations. 

5.  There must be other reasons.  Let us know what you think!

So,  should we prefer purity?  Let's look at some counter examples:

Pure gold is soft and yellow.  The 14K and 10K gold is much stronger, better suited to making intricate jewellery, prettier color according to most preferences.

Metallurgist have long discovered that alloys of different metals makes for better strength and other physical characteristics.  Purity is definitely not valued here.

Fusion foods is all the rage. Combining ancient practices with new food groups is continuing to expand our taste buds.  After all, if it taste good, does it matter what category we put it in? Is variety not preferable to narrow selection?

While tradition can be a distillation of experience from those before us, we can also benefit from explorations outside of tradition.  A good tradition will stand up to these tests while changing circumstances will demand shifts in tradition to suit the times.  The pursuit of purity in tradition makes it rigid and gradually falls out of favor for being irrelevant with the times.

The conclusion?  Purity, but for what purpose?

Not all purity is worth going for, even if some may be.