"Dreck ist gesund" (Dirt is healthy). One can read or hear about this insight regularly, both in scientific and every day life context. Dirt is framed healthy because we live in a world that is too clean; so clean that it seems unnatural; so clean, that we get ill of its cleanliness. I wonder which kind of dirt is the clean type: A quick glimpse into google gives me a preliminary answer: it is soil, mud or clay that is healthy (see also deep face cleansing). E.g. 'some medical experts say' eating mud or clay 'may be beneficial, especially for pregnant women'.
Anyway, the dirt-is-healthy insight obviously stems from a world that perceives (or experiences?) itself as very clean, assumingly by comparing itself to others or the good old past. Travelling to “dirty countries” might therefore serve an affirmation of the travellers cleanliness (and all the different meanings that come with it e.g. civilization, distinction, education,…).
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