Just curious, as LRC tends to, which I find an abomination.
There are many criticisims that can be leveled against modern medicine. All of them would require a lot of work and dialogue. None of them would require esotericism and obfuscating language.
e.g. Why use the word “Chi” when something like homeostasis or whatever would suit the word just find. Why use the word “meditate” / Buddhism when going fishing,playing baseball, etc have the same connotation.
I understand a leisured class set of yuppies are bored, and hence get fashionably subversive - but there are consequences to ideas, ideas these people tend to have a slippery accountability towards - and many consequences I could see that could hurt the “less fortunate” as a by-product of their debauchery way before it would affect them.
As for the rest ,there may be something to various folk remedies, etc and even a way to think about them - and we shouldn’t be too arrogant about such things. But in as much as they become “marketed” in some universalist and / or mystic way at the expense of what is probably one of the greatest practices to develop by mankind, red flags ought to be going off.
There’s two takes on it. People like myself, who take a traditional approach when trying to understand such things, or New Agers who are a damn plague. The Westernization of Eastern traditions and practices has been a bastardization of those very things, and it is very fashionable, as well as very annoying. Luckily where I live is the hub of New Agers (sarcasm). Virginia Beach is the home of the Edgar Casey center, the founder of New Age before there was even a New Age. Plus all the organic food markets that you see more yuppies at than anything.
I do have an “interest” in holistic healing/medicine, but I believe this to be a broader scope than just homeopathy.
“most” people actually do not, thats why a place like lrc would provide a forum for alternative viewpoints. Because the scientism/mainstream indoctrination is so pervasive that most people actually have a hard time even being exposed to these ideas in their true form. For example:
because chi is not homeostasis. Chi is the chinese term for life energy. In the west, there are a variety of words that find use describing this thing but there is no one single word, so we use a variety of loanwords. “chi” and “ki” predominate because japanes and chinese martial arts have been fashionable for quite some time.
they absolutely do not have any overlap as per the denotation. There are many ways of meditating, and one could meditate while playing sports, but they arent the same at all. Meditation is many things, I would say that broadly defined, meditation consists of refining ones perceptional abilities. Youre trying to experience the fullness of your senses. Zazen is practice for the rest of your life, where the same attention to the senses should be applied.
there are consequences to cultural insularity, people get stuck in mental patterns. One mystic says something unintelligible, therefore all mystics are irrational nonsensical muttering hippies.
I wouldn’t actively give someone water and hope for a “placebo”. Nor would I actively seek out the outre in hope for the “placebo effect”. The term is a place holder
I think you are creating a false dichotomy when you say we must reject one half of the world’s esoteric knowledge for the other half’s. I also wonder how you can reject so many cultures out of hand. Surely youre not so well-studied that you can make this reccomendation from your own knowledge. Are you?
furthermore I would suggest that the mysticism is equal parts secrecy (on the part of the mystic), unfamiliar (to the westerner) vocabulary, and laziness/arrogance (on the part of the westerner). If the science is there, then how do you justify rejecting their doctrine and substituting your own? I suppose I could just take all the data we have and come up with my own equally valid theory and simply reject the atomic theory of chemistry.
Still no clue what that means. That was an example. Use widget. Or if it works sub “life energy” with what ever works best: blood/oxygen, genitles, whatever.
Youre trying to experience the fullness of your senses.
Once again, I’m non-cognitive. It was just a illustration. So far as I’m concerned it’s pretentious Epicureanism / Stoicism (which is to me a pretentious way to give intellectuals self esteem). And there is probably nothing one can get from Eastern Martial arts that you couldn’t get from renaissance / western martial arts.other than needless terminology, and dealing with a different set of antiquated weapons…but that’s beside the point.
Point being:
if you can’t say anything clearly don’t say it all
I think for most people the body is really a mystery. And there is at least some evidence that the mind has a connection to the occurance of chronic pain, but it is unclear what exactly. So many people probably think what the hell why not?
And it is the case that Western science has not found all cures; at least some of them exist in the East, have yet to be found, or will not be found. Also, in the East, I think many hucksters like to make money off tourists and Westerners. They probably figure it is an easy way to make money. Partially based on the situation in the West also. And perhaps some of ‘healers’ in the East are genuine, namely some of the Chinese.
Meditation is not quite the same as playing basketball or fishing. Serious meditation will allow one to approach either though.
And if you watch mixed martial arts fighting, you will know empirically that european styles do not suffice. You can use whatever you want, but mostly they go to the Asian stuff or the Brazilian derivation such as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to win. And they combine different techniques from the various styles. There is no ‘chi’ involved that I know of, but definitely a science to targeting muscles and using physics to one’s advantage. There is nothing pretentious about it; European and American fighters know what works, as do the Asians.
I will define it for you with a short paragraph. Chi is the subtle energy that pervades every living thing. It is inside everyone and flows and sustains and directs biological and physical processes. Chi is cslled subtle energy in the west because modern science and culture pretends that it cant be detected. Of course people saw auras for thousands of years all over the world and only gradually learned to stop seeing the subtle energy when they didnt like what they saw. But people see auras nowadays, they are just dismissed as crazy people because american scientism groupthink wont acknowledge technology that it used to cure cancer in russia. Theres a scientist that developed instruments that can detect the aura, I will post a link later.
thats kind of arrogant, and I am probably the most voracious advocate of western martial arts on these forums. Ask me sometime. But theres stuff in the east that is top shelf, like muay thai, some forms of silat, some schools of ninjutsu, judo*, not to mention vietnamese infantry and all the obscure stuff like krabi krabong. I didnt refer to anything russian or phillipine martial arts because those are both sort of east/west hybrids. And for actual bladefighting and firearms technique the west, and especially the anglosphere, rules. A western swordfighter in 1600 had better technique and equipment than his eastern counterpart did, all the way up to westernization where they bought into it and blades were in the process of being displaced anyway. Kendo is still inferior for anything except traditionalists. Iai-do is the hotness though.
*I mention judo because its like wrestling, except with clothes on, so it should appeal to westerners.
as for meditation itself, I can only say that if it doesnt interest you, then it doesnt interest you. If a bunch of pretentious people latch onto somethng and use it to form a clique and act like they are better than other people, its hard for me to imagine that they gave you an accurate impression of a practice. Unless you think tibetan monks are pretentious? I mean, we canprobably agree that any tibetan monk that you would see on tv or read about in the newspaper is a pretentious individual, perhaps, but do you have a problem with asian men in temples in the mountains abstaining from physical pleasure?
Yah there is chi involved, havent you seen rocky 3? Its the eye of the tiger man, you gotta have what it takes to win. Mixed martial arts is like a potpourri, nowadays, everyone can throw low thai kicks, western takedowns, and japanese/brazilian positions and submissions. Its also designed to be reasonably safe, which is to say its a decent facsimile of combat. Thats why it works so well for streetfights, because those are typically nonlethal encounters. When it comes to bladefighting technique and technology, the western fencers are definitely superior. Firearms technique favors the americans and the british, as far as we can tell, but infantry technique favors…a bunchof different eastern countries, and a few western countries. The united states is good at attrition warfare, the chinese are good at both maneuver and attrition warfare. As far as polearms go, I think the west would have a slight edge but the eastern arts are much more accessible, oddly enough. I would still take a western sword-and-shield man from before the time of Christ against a samurai, 7/10, provided they were both on foot.
I did not mean to imply WesternFighting is better than Eastern: I was mostly stating there is no reason to “platonize” Eastern martial arts. Take what works and get rid of the rest. There is nothing inherently special about it. If the japanese ,chinese or whomever on a whole developed a better method of hand to hand combat I wouldnt be particularly surprised. However I see no reason to “uphold” any for of tradition that may be associated with it.
Either way, that’s enough of that and way off topic.
I don’t care about “Chi”, I was half joking when I said it. It holds no interest to me on this thread (or probably in anything, ever for that matter). This is about why people are quick to embrace and politicize trendy medicine and frankly stupid advice (anti-vaccine, etc) so quickly when I don’t think they have much reason to. This is not a critique of various long established folk practices, as such - which I already hinted at is not my game on this thread.
In my experience, people tend to hold to an anti-vaccine position because of all the people who got sick from vaccines, especially the ones who won lawsuits and were awarded damages because they were able to establish a link in an adversarial court system. Its not very “trendy” to have to move to another school district or state in order to get a philosophical exemption from immunizations so your third kid doesnt get autism. Its also illogical, like, if the other kids are immunized, then whats the problem with my kid attending school? Arent the vaccinated children immune to whatever the normal kid is supposed to catch?
funny how inoculation has existed for thousands of years but vaccine-related illnesses have only existed since the use of vaccines. One of tose things that just wont pass peer-review I guess. Because its too trendy.
Malachi, I have a friend who practices Shurin Ryu and Kenjutsu. I cannot remember his master’s name at the moment, but I can say this guy definetly knows his shit.
Anyway the reason these traditions and forms still exist is because, at least in some extent, they work, and that’s why they last, which could be said of any “traditional form”.
Its all about the fighter. That said, traditional japanese swordfighting technique has some historical artifacts, and things that interfere with the modern goal. For one thing, the katana was derived from a cavalry design, its not ideal for dismounted fighting. Many westerners, myself among them, would argue its not ideal for cavalry either. The style was also developed my noblemen who were vassals of a lord, and believed the most honorable way to die was in combat for his lord. Western sword technique was developed in actual swordfights, and in duels where it was many times more important to wound or humiliate your opponent than to kill him. Western swordfighting is designed to give you rhe option of killing or disabling your opponent, while remaining alive yourself. Japanese traditional swordfighting is designed to retain and increase your honor.
Its not very “trendy” to have to move to another school district
This is a political policy point, and for the purposes of this thread not my concern
As for the medical things you’ve listed - while you have listed some things tha tI do think are pointing to common myths (massive lawsuites in 80’s, etc), I would like to see citations please so I know what page you are on.
