Health.

[LibertyOrMartyrdom]

I believe that one of the most revolutionary things you can do is live a healthy life; physically, mentally, and whatever you perceive as spiritually. A clear mind and a healthy lifestyle help one see past the obvious illusions we are meant to accept as the truth.
Just recently I made an observation. It goes as follows: Until about a hundred years back or so, the wealthy, the upper classes of society led less than healthy lives. They were in possession of all the novelty food such as cakes, plenty of drink, and other sweet and fattening foods. Add the fact that they did not have to lift a finger in their lives, and you realize these were less than fit people. The peasants and lower classes on the other hand, ate what they grew out of the ground, or what others in their class grew out of the ground. And they worked, physically as was often the case.
Sometime in the mid twentieth century all of this changed (so maybe not more or less one hundred years ago?) Somewhere along the line the upper classes of society had the bright idea of making sweetening more affordable to the layman. The jobs less arduous, (of course this happened gradually) and the wealthy gained control of the organic, the healthy, and the time to exercise. The lower classes lost the ability to live on their own, to think clearly, and essentially... to resist. I'd love to know your thoughts and suggestions to this theory, which I'm sure I'm not the first to postulate.

[Sensible Socialist]

The upper class realized they like to live a bit longer. :cool:

When advertising really took hold, in order to attract American consumers to products using visually stimulating people, the idea of the "perfect look" became part of the American psyce. Even the upper class bought into this, as the rich wanted to be ahead of the game and get "the next big thing."

Basically, the rich are like many middle class people: trend whores. They buy into the norms set by advertisers like anyone else. Right now, being healthy with organic food and the newest diets and exercise is in. 200 years ago, being fat with tea and cakes was in. Things change.

[ZeroNowhere]

My experience with people who live healthy lives has not indicated that they are disproportionately intelligent. Quite the opposite, in many cases.

[Tablo]

My experience with intelligent people is they tend to be self-destructive. Makes me sad cause I'm stupid and self-destructive which makes me even more self-destructive. :(

[Quail]

I believe that one of the most revolutionary things you can do is live a healthy life; physically, mentally, and whatever you perceive as spiritually. A clear mind and a healthy lifestyle help one see past the obvious illusions we are meant to accept as the truth.
I don't really agree with you here, I'm afraid. I don't see how this is anything more than elitism. A "clear mind" (by which I assume you mean one that isn't clouded or tainted by drugs) isn't necessarily going to see problems with society any more than a fuzzier one. In fact, I've shared a lot of very interesting thoughts and conversations with people who weren't sober. Certain substances can, in my opinion, aid thinking outside the box. I'm also dubious that everyone has to be some kind of health freak who eats a perfect diet and exercises all the time to be a good revolutionary. You can spread ideas, organise the workplace, combat prejudice, etc, easily and still eat unhealthily and forget to go to the gym. I'm not the healthiest person around, physically or mentally, but I'm still very active.

[LibertyOrMartyrdom]

By clear mind I did not mean free of drugs. One of my highest interests is hallucinogens and their effects on unlocking the subconscious, and works by Terence McKenna. What I ment by a clear mind was a mind that thought outside the box, which I probably should have worded better considering the many eccentrics, scientists, and revolutionaries have had very cluttered minds. The reasoning behind "I believe that one of the most revolutionary things you can do is live a healthy life; physically, mentally, and whatever you perceive as spiritually. A clear mind and a healthy lifestyle help one see past the obvious illusions we are meant to accept as the truth." was that health tends to reveal new, or maybe old concepts to you. As if opaque spectacles were removed from your eyes, connections become more prevalent, and a certain amount of unnecessary hostility begins to abate. Of course I speak from my own experiences and this may not hold true for everybody. But living a healthy lifestyle is ultimately a positive thing.

[Communist]

Moved to Sports & Health, from Learning.

[bcbm]

Just recently I made an observation. It goes as follows: Until about a hundred years back or so, the wealthy, the upper classes of society led less than healthy lives. They were in possession of all the novelty food such as cakes, plenty of drink, and other sweet and fattening foods. Add the fact that they did not have to lift a finger in their lives, and you realize these were less than fit people. The peasants and lower classes on the other hand, ate what they grew out of the ground, or what others in their class grew out of the ground. And they worked, physically as was often the case.

depends when/where we're talking about. historically the rich probably had better access to a diversity of foods which is healthy and they weren't always lazing about if they were, say, knights or whatever. the poor certainly worked harder but their diet was probably shit, mostly grain based and extremely prone to shortages, molds, etc.

[Ele'ill]

How else could violent self destruction feel so rewarding unless it was coming down from a clear mind and healthy lifestyle. The last time I was down there I had the presence in mind to build a little platform made of birch limbs and some yarn I had in my backpack. Now when I fall from the top I rarely hit the bottom but I'm unsure if the monotonous view from the little cliff face tree stand is any better. I usually rely on friends to pitch down the barbed wire ladder for me to begin climbing back up and there are giant eagles there on the bluff- they're no sparrows and will willingly take more than your eyes out. Usually at about half way up the ladder dropped I can smell the forest and it gives me immense motivation to make it- it's like that first spring time morning that actually feels like spring, smells like spring and sounds like a lot of mating animals and thundershowers. I roll in the puddles when I get there.

[barney7lowe]

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT1l00LtlG5UMiZ8tFjzxjpY0EL21cu5 nQEy-lPhfNO-0mIcqnV


The combination of daily exercise and proper diet will be definitely result in good health. Everyone should look after their health.

[Jimmie Higgins]

depends when/where we're talking about. historically the rich probably had better access to a diversity of foods which is healthy and they weren't always lazing about if they were, say, knights or whatever. the poor certainly worked harder but their diet was probably shit, mostly grain based and extremely prone to shortages, molds, etc.

Yeah I agree. I think relative to the time, the rich in the Victorian Age still lived more healthy lives than workers and most peasants (though depending on where you were, being an industrial worker was probably less healthy than being a small farmer or peasant). Sure the rich ate bad (rich) food by today's standards, but it was still better than what most of the poor had. The rich were eating the "better" food - it was tastier and they got much more variety in their food. And actually due to less processed food, even their junk food was probably better than working class staples of today which are over-processed and made to sit on the shelves and be shipped across the globe without going stale.

I don't know if you were alluding to this in your above quote BCBM, but the Irish potato famine is a good example - before the British introduced for-profit cattle/beef into Ireland, the Irish staples were milk and bread and meat and after the cattle industry was introduced, the best land was given to grazing and the poor had to try and grow food in bad soil, so their crops became potatoes and turnips - things that can grow in rocky soil. When the blight hit, the poor starved while beef continued to be exported to England.

Anyway, I think if we look at birth-rates for different times, we'd find that in the past couple of hundred years, the rich probably had average longer life-expectancies than workers (as is the case today). Injury and death for working class people was so horrendous when industrialization really kicked-in that even the capitalists realized they had to take measures to increase life-expectancy for the working class (if only to ensure another generation of laborers).

But never the less, poor health for workers and shorter-lives can easily be identified as due to capitalism. First there are things like inequalities in health-care and access to medicine. Then there's the pace of work and economic instability and so on which shorten people's lives due to stress and not having the time to take care of health issues - many workers in the US never take sick-days when they are actually sick because they can't afford the time off, or need to save their sick days for emergencies or vacations. And as for the quality of food - the processed food I mentioned above are not just made because they can be preserved better and shipped (although this is a big part of it) but also because processing meat or other things adds labor to the process which then adds to the value of it and is therefore more profitable than fresh meat from a local producer (despite all the myths, capitalism isn't very efficient in reality). Add to that, the subsidization of corn making corn-syrup ubiquitous in most food in the US, and lack of access to fresh food in many working class areas and there you are: shitty shitty health that is totally avoidable if we did not organize society and essential needs on a for-profit basis.

[LibertyOrMartyrdom]

Ah, that makes sense. Well this was originally posted in learning, so I thank you for your knowledge.