Well I am not sure how to begin this month’s blog. A proper
investigation of the topic at hand could take several Parts, but I will try to
at least get some ideas started so that many of you can begin to at least
question your questions and perhaps being a process of thinking differently.
One of the more key tenets of a Tao- based understanding is that if you are not
finding the right answers, then you are not asking the right questions (within
yourself).
Another key aspect of modern brilliance is the non-acceptance of
reductionist science as ‘truth’ in and of itself, and that wholes are always
greater than the sum of their parts. The modern tendency toward ‘isms’ is
categorizing many useful practices in ways that end up amounting to no more
than ideologies masquerading as truth. In this sense there is no such thing as
Tao-ism.
It cannot be surmised in
that way as a category of truth, thought, or practice. It is a much greater and
more profound whole than what can be captured even in discussion. For some of
the more ethereal topics in life, mere discussion or delineation is a mode of
reduction that negates its own wholeness. (For example trying to explain ‘love’
without context)
To make matters worse the modern trend has been to accept as truth
what is anything but. I have been speaking a lot lately about paradigm
blindness and its associated ‘isms’ Of these, scientism and within that,
nutritionism are two accepted ‘truths’ that are as arrogantly employed as all
of their previous ancestors which over time were proven either false or at
least faulty.
The modern issue now is that nutrition study has turned into
nutritionism, an ideology all its own, which does not stand on truth. And the
same can be said of science, now becoming ‘scientism’ a false ideology that
influences application, thought and practice based on little else but
interpretations of questionable science of questionable scientists.
These are now huge industries. Industry has a need first and
foremost to perpetuate itself. Industry is selfish, not self-less and that
should always be kept in mind when consuming ‘information’ or propaganda in any
form from any industry. Tradition, which was faulty in and of itself, has now
been replaced by scientism, which is just as faulty, when context is not
considered. As an example I would like to address in greater depth the notion
of ‘nutrition-ism’ in this month’s blog.
In recent years at the top of the academic chain there has been a
shift away from reductionist thought and toward looking at whole patterns
rather than component parts. This is decidedly Tao as well whether labelled as
such or not.
Science is still employed
within that mode of investigation, but it more appropriately places science
back as the horse before the cart within inquiry and investigation. The move is
away from mechanistic reductionist approaches to more quantum understanding
that focuses on relationships, contexts, flow, rhythms, connections etc.
We see and know that the
body is more than a machine; it is more complex than what reductionist science
would have us think. And yet the beauty is that within that complexity lays the
simplicity that allowed man to flourish and adapt as a species.
A study of nutrition can yield very specific answers to very
specific questions, and yet at the same time alienate us further and further
away from our own nature. This is what Marx referred to as ‘alienation from
species being.’
It should be noted that food and nutrition are different things,
yet a study of one or the other is inclusive of both. And herein lays the
problem of context.
Man is much more than sum of his parts. It is ironic that as
science and nutritionism replaced culture and tradition in the last 30 years,
man has become more and more ill and less healthy because of it, and not in spite of it. We need
look no further than our own industry of health and wellness to notice the
irony and the falsehood of nutritionism.
A recent long term study
showed that over a period of 5-7 years, the group that gained the most unwanted
fat and became overweight, was the group that qualified themselves as ‘chronic
dieters.’ Those who ate freely manifested less weight issues, metabolically,
physically, and more importantly mentally and emotionally.
So lets’ get to it then. What is this ‘nutritionism’ that I am
talking about? Nutritionism as an ideology has as its core many pernicious
myths. One is that what matters most is the nutrient and not the food; another
is that the purpose of eating is to promote a very narrow concept of physical
health and wellness.
And yet the irony of this science is that it has produced the most
unhealthy and unwell consumers among its believers. Everyone following a
western diet mentality now seemingly ‘eats for a purpose.’ In
our industry it can be to get lean, get ripped, compete, or off-season to bulk
up, to gain muscle etc just to name a few.
But much is lost in this quagmire of ‘purpose.’ And the key thing
lost is the connection of the dots to awareness and health.
“ There comes to be a disassociation
between mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of health and wellness connected to food”
The ideology of nutritionism like most ideologies produces a
duality in thought and process. Food becomes associated with good/bad,
healthy/unhealthy, positive/negative, fattening/not fattening etc. And yet this
duality itself produces more problems than nutrition science solves.
Reductionist science can never encapsulate or address metaphysical
forces so important as vitality, vitalism, wholism, and the connection of these
parts to overall wellness and completeness. In original cultures across the
globe there was no such thing as an unhealthy diet, until the modern western
diet and western thought
associated with it, replaced traditional cultural thinking.
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