A New Member from India

[Guest guest]

Hello everyone,

 

I have been a member of this group for some time now and I have

taken advantage of this forum for very useful information. But I have

not taken advantage of this forum for dialogue..nor have I

taken the time to introduce myself. As a passive member of this

revolutionary group for the last 2 months, I have found this

association highly inspirational, thanks to the relentless and highly

creative postings and guidance of stalwarts like Frank and JoAnn. I

can only look forward to these brave humans as the pioneers of the

highly promising New Civilization that seems to be very much in the

offing.

 

I am M.J.John and from India. I am a practicing `Social Naturopath'.

You may wonder what it is. Well, this is an attempt to understand the

ailment of the society that is chronically sick; and this is an

attempt to find ways to treat this social sickness—NATURALLY and

HUMANLY.

 

SOCIAL NATUROPHY

 

Modern history may be described as an era of cultures formed by

various addictions. The very concept of addiction may have lost its

meaning considering its prevalence to almost all strata of population

in one form or another, and which, in the process, has rendered a

whole people and a whole civilization as its victims in the wake.

 

Today the situation has become such alarming that man cannot complete

a single day without the helps of a hundreds machines attached to him

or he being hooked to them, thanks to the emergence of market both as

the sole distributor of these modern `inconveniences' (and that is

how Mark Twain described these modern mechanical systems of

conveniences) and also as the leader of modern man. If we can believe

advertisements, what matters to these people most is the personal

ownership of machinery: cooking machines, blending machines, driving

machines, picture machines, sound machines, tooth-brushing machines,

computing machines, machines to kill insects, deliver intimacy, send

messages through wires or the naked air, entertainment machines,

shooting machines, and many more mechanical extensions of our

physical self. Indirect control over even more ambitious machine

seems to matter a lot, too: flying machines, bombing machines, heart

and lung machines, voting machines, and a great variety of other

mechanical creations.

 

But how can the world fight addiction when it is surviving just on

the tax collected from those who sell these addiction, a major

portions of which comes from none other than what we call " modern

conveniences " , leading to their mechanical addictions. And this

pathetic state of no-win-situation has become a reality when market

has become the leader of man. Mechanization is the story of a

planet's life being badly hit by synthetics, the non-cyclic residues

generated and left by an irritant species called modern man. This is

the story of how man has become an enemy of his own species; how man

is fast eaten up and destroyed by other enemy species; how modern

man, being anti-nature and anti-human, is only helping his own enemy

species; how man, in the process, is destroying other friendly

species in nature that is otherwise essential for sustaining the

planet's very life process.

 

Formerly everything evolved cyclically. This means there was no

waste as such. Waste from man was food for other species in nature.

But in the synthetic age of today, everything evolves non-

cyclically. Which means waste is no more cyclical – waste remains

multiplying and keeps on accumulating. Waste from man and man-made

system are not only no food for other species and nature but are also

poisonous or injurious to all life forms due to its non-cyclical

manifestations. Waste from man and man-made systems, since the

last 50 years, fill the planet's limited biosphere to the extent that

it not only constitutes more than a thousand folds of what man had

left, as waste, on earth for millions of years before, but also that

it is all set to remain non-biodegradable for the next tens of

thousands of years to come, for example, plastics. And the most

threatening reality about this mortal fact is that this waste

creation is a highly accelerating process and thus the massively

threatening de-life process.

 

 

But how can the world fight addiction when it is surviving just on

the tax collected from those who sell these addiction, a major

portions of which comes from none other than what we call " modern

conveniences-mechanical addictions " . And this pathetic state no-win-

situation has become a reality when market has become the leader of

man.

 

The market and science raised modern man, the way they raise their

counterparts in the animal world, for example, the broiler chicken or

the g.m. tomato in the world of vegetation. All these modern

technology-raised materials, including modern man, too have many

things in common. For example, modern man, like his counterparts, the

broiler chicken and the G.M. tomato, may be big in quantity (obesity

wise or otherwise), but far less in quality. Modern man may have

taller buildings, but has only shorter tempers (zero tolerance); he

may see things thousands of light years away, but has problems to

cross the street to meet the new neighbor; he may have more experts,

but more problem; he may have more medicines, but less will being. He

may have more degrees, but has less sense, more knowledge, but less

judgment.

 

And this in the story of how this disease of an era has rendered

man, as a social addict to the prevailing systems, more and more

market-friendly and less and less man-friendly; ending up more as a

machine that uses man--than as a tool-using animal that he was for

hundreds of thousands of years. Thus it is evident that most of the

life style-induced diseases like obesity, diabetes, cancer etc. can

only be tackled socially, and not individually. Here I am taking the

case of obesity, as an example.

 

OBESITY

 

Terrorism today is a highly temporary and preventable problem that

can be tackled either by the world or by the terrorists themselves

through change of minds for which there are enough possibilities. But

what about a threat to mankind that is not only permanent and

unpreventable but also is killing millions of people the world over

every year that only goes on spiraling every year, and spelling doom

for the mankind, as a species, in a very short span of time from now.

 

Yes, obesity is killing an average of about three lakhs of Americans

every year and the figure is steadily increasing. Now if we take the

toll by diabetes and cancer, the twin diseases for which obesity in

the prime cause, the death figure may well exceed a million in

America alone, in a single year alone. Now tobacco too is linked to

obesity, as both have their origin due to addictions, obesity may be

described as the disease of modern era that is all set to mark the

end of the human history on this planet in the immediate future, not

necessarily in its present form but in some newly emerging

complicated forms of obesity.

 

Today what we identify as obesity may be yet another disease or a

more problematic ailment tomorrow, just as it was considered not only

not as a disease in the not-so-distort past but was treated as

something virtuous, healthy and worthy.

 

A few decades back obesity was considered something great, for

example, in some quarters, as a symbol of power in the world,

especially in this part of the third world. Those who became over-

weight were those who could afford to eat more food who were the

wealthy then. Those sections of fat people were meant to be as

belonging to the section of the wealthy, as part of the oligarchy

sections of then society and hence a symbol of wealth and power.

 

 

Why do almost all the hitherto remedies for obesity not only just

fail but also complicate it further?. Why is it not only limited to

man but also to his society, and thus the whole planet, as well?

 

The answer to this question is not just multi-disciplinary but is

also multi-dimensional.

1. The basic reason our failure to see the totality of the

problem. It stems from the fact that almost all the present de-

obesity attempts and remedies, being highly symptomic, address only

about less than one present of the problem, even when such remedies

happen to succeed, the eventuality of which too in rare. Obesity is

not just one disease or one malformation. It is the chronic

conditioning of a number of diseases and malformations have their

roots not just in One's food or life styles but also in his genetics,

environment and even in culture.

 

2. Solution to this problem is taken up by the same forces and

methodologies that created this problem in the first place.

 

Here it is seen that obesity is a disease of the modern era, the main

trends of which are mechanization, market economy and addictions of

all sorts. Today almost all the present day synthetic scientific

remedies like surgery, over the counter medicines, the Mc Donald's de-

obesity fast food remedies, including the so-called weight reducing

exercises and other food limiting strict regimentations too may not

only prove ineffectual but also counter productive in many respect.

 

3. There simply cannot be any individual or even sectarian

solution to a chronic problem that is more social than material, more

civilizational than individual, more environmental than individual,

more global than sectarian, more fundamental than anything

superficial, and more mental/spiritual than physical/material. Here

even the so-called holistic remedies too will have only very limited

roles to play if the approach in on individual basis.

 

Here it also relevant to ask why naturopathy too is proving more

effective only for naturopath than for the rest, to the extent that

today allopath doctors too depend more on nature cure methods for own

health problems!!!

 

It is because remedies for these problems have to come from the

mind. What we see as the health problems on the body, including the

basic virus or bacteria are just the symptoms. Unless we treat them

both mentally and physically no basic cure is possible. And because

naturopaths themselves are aware of these basic facts, they are able

to produce better results for themselves.

But, however, why is naturopathy proving only partially effective,

even for naturopaths?

 

Because even individually, naturopath too forms only a very minute

part of the rest population, and of the environment that he lives in.

The rest, that is, the 95% of his environment, being highly

synthetic, part of his hereditary too is synthetic, mechanical or

anti-nature, he will get only a minute part of positive result even

if the naturopath become 100% natural. Thus, the only option left is

to change the environment, now that all the rest, options including

allopathic and other modern science attempts being not only merely

faulty but are proving gravely dangerous.

 

 

 

A Whole Civilization under Addiction

 

 

JUST a few years ago, researchers were astonished to find that the

number of people suffering from hunger or malnutrition worldwide was

equivalent to the number of overweight or obese people - about one

billion each. Recently, the London-based International Obesity Task

Force revised the estimate of overweight people to 1.7 billion.

 

The problem of obesity in the United States is known throughout the

world. In 2000, the economic cost of obesity in the U.S. was over

$115 billion. Many families endure daily worries over diet-related

diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure.

 

And the number one culprit for obesity is fast/junk foods.

 

Now, there is a parallel development on the mental health sector :

the growing 'obesity of the mind' the development of a mechanical or

synthetic mind-set. And the culprit here is the same 'fast/junk food'

for the mind, with no real food for thought. An example is

the 'successfully marketed modern pulp fictions.

 

 

As the sparkers and wheelers of new ideas, books are indeed the foods

for the mind that keep it healthy, just as the nourishing food is to

the body. But it is a pity that; like the emergence of the highly

health damaging tantalizing and addictive synthetic fast/junk food

culture damaging the human body (for example, obesity), the fast

creeping of a parallel `fast/junk food for the mind' culture today

is damaging the mind, as is evident in the quickening of the

shrinking thought process. The result is the growing `obesity' of the

mind, the thoughtless mind, the mind without conscience or soul, the

mind getting activated without a thought, the mind getting enlarged

as if it is growing like a tumor-- the development of a synthetic

mind-set.

 

For example, like a highly promising wonder drug hitting the market,

the new book `Harry Potter', intoxicates the would be the reader

before he even sees it. Market seems to have completely downed man as

it rules the roost at its zenith. It seems to stop at nothing in

exploiting the addiction traits of the mind as it has done in

exploiting the addiction traits of the body.

 

Long subjected to cheap consumerism, modern man has been made an

addict to everything in ready-to-use packages and in style. Like fast

food, he cannot resist anything superficially tantalizing. He is not

much bothered about the content so far as it is in world class

package. And what we call world class packaging is all that go with

aggressive selling and the mind-managing techniques like style, big

name, sponsorship, awards, high advances, trade marks, high technical

qualification, and tantalizing `news' favoring the product etc.

 

The market force wants these writer to do with words what it wants

Michael Jackson to do with light and sound, what it wants Maradona to

do with football. The market force wants them all to be spin-doctors

hoodwinking the gullible readers, onlookers, man-on-the-street or

common man and thus sending the sale proceeds graph going into

tailspin.

 

Today ample natural resources are generally wasted in the production

of a multitude of products, processed foods, cosmetics, drinks,

electronic machines and drugs, which undermine human health and well-

being and promote physical and mental decline. Finally, the system of

market economy, by controlling the medical system, is promoting the

over-prescribing of many unnecessary drugs.

 

Never before, in the history of humanity was there a greater

production of products, which are more or less unnecessary and

harmful to human health. And all this for a simple reason: to make

profit. Never before there were people who used more addictive

substances, like alcohol, cigarettes, psychiatric drugs and

narcotics, sugar, coffee, excess of meat, and other over-processed

fast foods, all of which contribute to human degeneration and

decadence.

 

For millions of years man ate food made by nature which thus made him

the crown of all creation. However, for the last few thousand years

he ate food prepared partly by nature and partly by man, and he

slowly started to become partly ill. For the last few year decades,

however, man started to eat food produced not only not by man nor by

nature nor even in nature but food produced by machine and in the

assembly lines--factories. This practice has robed his status as the

crown of all creations and bestowed him the status of slave – " the

tool of his own tools " . He is now completely sick and rendered

untreatable by nature as well, and is all poised to extinct in a few

decades from the planet.

 

Obesity: More a matter of the Mind

 

The theory behind it is that many people fail to lose weight, not

because they cannot stop eating, but because the brain will not let

them do so. Previous studies have shown that once a person gains

extra weight, the brain 're-programmes' itself to accept this as

normal.

 

Putting it differently, the theory behind it is that modern world

fails to shed its vitiation process, not because it cannot stop it,

but because the `worldly wise' (market-led) global brain will not let

it do so. Therefore, before we can develop good medicines to stop the

obesity epidemic, we need to understand how the body's own hormones

regulate appetite and body weight.

 

According to studies of the British Professor Jonathan Seckl, an

expert in molecular medicine at Edinburgh University, any subsequent

attempts to reduce the weight are then interpreted as a threat to the

body's survival.

 

As a result, the brain automatically slows the body's metabolic rate

to reduce the burning of calories. Scientists involved in the study

hope to find out exactly how the brain does this but think they

already know why - evolution.

 

" Back in man's hunter-gatherer days, or even in Britain in the Middle

Ages, starvation was common, " says Professor Jonathan Seckl, " So the

body learned to turn off its metabolism and go into survival mode so

it could live through the famine. Now when somebody is obese and they

try to lose weight, they immediately feel hungry and the body reacts

as if they were a five stone weakling. It tells the brain 'I am being

starved' and starts to retain calories like crazy. "

 

Evolution lagging behind

 

Professor Seckl believes although famine has been almost unheard in

the developed world for many years, evolution has yet to catch up.

 

More and more people are obese . This means that while food is

plentiful, our brains have not yet re-programmed themselves to

recognize that it's not always necessary to kick-start survival

mode when food intake drops.

 

Thus it is evident through all these studies—both scientific and

naturopathic--that any effective remedy for the life style-induced

chronic diseases like OBESITY, DIABETIES, and HYPERTENTION etc. can

only be found through SOCIAL NATUROPATHY.

 

My work, as an author

P.S. You can read me, as an author here:

http://www.fireflysun.com/book/authorsunite.php

 

My first book was an attempt to expose the fallacies and dangers of

PROFESSIONALISM in basic and creative social sectors like politics,

education and health care.

 

For an example, a decisive step in the formation of the modern

medical establishment was the founding of the American Medical

Association (AMA) in 1847, which capped decades of struggle to

transform a diverse, unregulated array of practices and practitioners

into an exclusive, credentialed profession. Resistance to

professionalizatin, which was widespread in the nineteenth century,

was collectively known as the Popular Health Movement (PHM). Like its

post-1970 descendant, the Alternative Health Movement, the PHM

comprised a diverse array of supporters who shared distrust or

outright paranoia toward institutional medical authority. Today, the

split between the profession and the public is more pronounced than

ever: the AMA is reputedly the strongest and richest lobby in

Washington, while the Alternative Health Movement has grown into an

institution in its own right.

 

The widespread damage done by unbridled professionalism in other

creative social sectors is no different.

 

My second book, now on its finishing stage, is an attempt in

explaining and redefining the growing pathology of the culture of

today's market-led mechanical life. It is about the adverse and

catastrophic effects of commonly-practiced mechanical life styles,

its mortal addictive traits and the highly adverse withdrawal

effects that have rendered modern humanity highly passive--as slaves

of his own machines and the prevailing hi-tech market systems. When

people become chronic users of most of the hi-tech modern

conveniences and get

addicted to commonly-practiced mechanical life styles, they develop a

sort of a `chemical' dependency to market mechanization and they, as

a whole society, remain emotionally immature, without ever knowing

these mortal realities. The highly commercialized and market-led hi-

tech systems may take only minutes to decide and `advice' what kind

of solution you need in the form of a product or expert service, for

a temporary problem, but you can end up an addict to it by taking it

for months, years, or a lifetime

 

Yes, it is difficult to realize we have been " duped " by a system we

were taught to trust in

 

The book is an attempt to show how the ecology of the Earth's life

support system is disintegrating; how the modern society is

literally undoing the work of organic evolution; how the institutions

we have created are destroying the livability of the whole world; and

how modern man, for the moment's pleasure and escape, is fouling his

own nest. In this effort to explain the high relevance of SOCIAL

NATUROPATHY today, I am taking up the case of OBESITY, as an example,

 

I hope that the subject or the theme of this book will ultimately

emerge as the one quite near and dear to the heart of every reader,

for it is all about people like you and me, here and now.

 

I thank you for reading this pretty long letter. And I hope to hear

your opinion on SOCIAL NATUROPATHY. You can also help this cause by

forwarding this letter to those individuals and institutions that are

interested in similar projects and works. I am only too happy to

present these papers before any interested groups or institutions.

 

Regards,

M.J.John