Digest Number 430

[Guest guest]

Todd Todd Todd

 

I still like your columns, when you stick to Ayurveda.

You digressed and went out of the realms of Ayurveda, and into holistic

medicine.

Nothing wrong with that , except that you opened a can of worms, because

holistic implicates all biases, social and otherwise. It is a truly whole

person, including our biases, and we all do have our biases. Not only that ,

everyone sensed a slightly holier than thou attitude, not just discussion. This

too, is a natural extension of becoming a " moderator", where every moderator

wants to perpetrate their own thinking, and win all arguments, whether they are

right or wrong. So, I see a whole lot of resentment from many quarters.

Coming back to our column,

We are not going to win any debates here, because these ideas have been around

for as long as mankind, and will continue even longer than the life of this

column. We have gone all the way to Cain and Able and Buddha. We do not know

what Buddha ate ona daily basis, and perhaps did die from a infected pork,

which was perhaps given as a medication. But, we have gone all the way back to

ancient times and the discussion in those days was also the same !!! All

religious texts have their own biases too, depending on The Original Bias of the

Person writing it.

We need to understand that no Western Society really understands

Vegetarianism.( not meant as an insult, but I have lived here longer than in

India) To several people , it is just eating salads., or pizza. No vegetarian

finds a good vegetarian food in the west, unless he/she goes to a chinese or

indian or other asian reataurant. It is also important to realize that all our

grain and meat is not really natural. In our greed to get more profits or a

higher yield, we have injected hormones and brought in extraneous factors like

genetic mutation. It perhaps does not matter any more, what we eat, if we do

not eat naturally raised food, because all of it will lead to immunological and

other problems.

[Guest guest]

 

 

on the other hand, it is only among the herbivores, e.g. mountain

goats/sheep, walruses, that undergo intense battles for social

supremacy, i.e. the seasonal rut prior to mating - you don't see this

among carnivores, where the hierarchy is firmly established; in fact,

you could say that the elders are respected, venerated and cared for

among carnivores, whereas in herbivores, the elders are usurped from

their position of status, and are left to fend for themselves

 

perhaps vegetarianism causing fighting, revolution and disrespect for

the elderly? (tongue in cheek - no reply needed ;-)

a) Yes, there are pack animals that follow social rules.

But, look at the non-pack carnivores, they are not only single, but are looking

for total supremacy. They perhaps come together only for copulation, but then

are extremely territorial.

b) Look at the Elephants, or any of the other herbivores, they do follow social

protocol.

c) Talking of Butting heads, perhaps there is always a male domination, just as

in this column, or atleast an attempt to do so, regardless of their food habits.

!!!!!

 

>

> 2) A point was made that an average Indian is miserable. I do not

> think we can equate it with food. Misery may be from lack of jobs, lack of

>water supply, lack

> of electricity, from pollution, from lack of money to do things, from

> the " overly conservative social attitudes" that do not let average boys

> and girls mingle together, etc.....and may have nothing to do with food

> consumed, vegetarian or otherwise.

 

this wasn't a point i was making other then to point out the fallacy in

thinking of course its ridiculous to assume the lot of the average Indian is due

to diet!

 

d) If you did not want to associate Indian misery with food, you should not have

brought up the subject. Now, that there is an explanation, you are hiding

behind--that's not what I meant .

 

Durgesh Mankikar,MD