Right-wing yoga
Suzanne Pacheco left a nice comment on the Pet Debate thread. "I applaud you for posting an animal welfare article on a conservative forum," she wrote. There's an implied premise there, obviously. Now, as I've argued, there's no reason concern for the welfare of animals need devolve from a left-wing perspective; it can just as easily be made, say, by George Bush's and Sarah Palin's speechwriter. (And has in fact been made, and made more effectively than it has ever been made by anyone associated with the Left.)
There are quite a number of issues and tastes that seem arbitrarily, or by accidents of history, to be associated with Utopianism, Marxism, hostility to private property, anti-clericalism and the other authentic core beliefs of the Left. Why, for example, is it a near-certainty that I can scandalize every other participant in any yoga class I attend, anywhere in the world, by declaring myself an avid admirer of Margaret Thatcher? I challenge you to read the yoga sutras and conclude from them that devotees of yoga must favor inflexible labor markets and an over-regulated financial sector. I challenge you to conclude anything at all from them, in fact; they're more or less inscrutable. About the only certain thing you can say is that the yogic sages took a dim view of ignorance and craving, as do we all, I'm sure. It's hardly a view that puts Patanjali next to Bakhunin in the pantheon of revolutionaries.
I love animals. I hate communists. There's really no inconsistency in these views. There's hardly even an intersection. Why yoga, of all things, should be seen as the purview of the Left, I have no idea, especially since yoga is almost exclusively the pastime of privileged, upper-middle-class bourgeois white women; indeed, you could pretty much scrap the UN's human development index and assess a nation's level of development by measuring the number of yoga studios per capita.
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May '10
Re: Right-wing yoga
You're right, it does precede President Obama. I justified it by rationalizing that he's made a bad situation worse. It was not very nice of me, really.
May '10
Re: Right-wing yoga
Yoga was for hippies when it was uncommon in America, because it was uncommon in America. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Since Yoga popped up on our side, its tie-dye sheen has worn off.
I'm not sure what liberals likewise consider cool because it's "other" today. Perhaps burkas are the new bell-bottoms.
May '10
Re: Right-wing yoga
Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! Is that how you spell the scream sound?
May '10
Re: Right-wing yoga
Duane Oyen
Andrea Ryan
Duane Oyen:
Andrea Ryan: No, Duane, I think she was just trying to help you with your laxative addiction.
Well, you know the pressures of maintaining my girlish figure at this age when the metabolism stops cold. · Jul 12 at 10:51am
Oh, it's not the competitive wrestling? · Jul 12 at 11:40am
Good grief, Drea, you were in Minneapolis when you were young, you should know that Vern Gagne ...and Da Crusher (an inch taller than me and 85 pounds heavier- ...didn't exactly have to slave away to maintain any kind of figure.
...All I need to do to stay in equivalent shape is to avoid the beer- easy for me since the stuff looks and tastes like septic tank pumpings. · Jul 12 at 12:08pm
That's right and look what it did for Jesse Ventura. I was actually thinking college wrestling, but, of course, we're too old for that. I love your analogy for beer. I don't like the stuff, either...except for ice-cold Guinness. If I don't have time to eat 3,000 calories I can just drink it.