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A Bid to Maintain One of the World’s Oldest Culinary Traditions

nytimes.com

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Re: A Bid to Maintain One of the World’s Oldest Culinary Traditions

#21

Post by [deleted] »

iak8god wrote: post #11
tathougies wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and before that it was Mongolian supremacy and before that parsi supremacy. In other words, cultures die and new ones form. We do not owe it to the world to preserve existing diversity. Sure take down artificial barriers to societal continuity for those who want it. That's human rights not particular to any group of people. But diversity is not something to be preserved. That's a regressively conservative approac…

> We do not owe it to the world to preserve existing diversity. How about if we compromise and just stop actively destroying it? > But diversity is not something to be preserved. Well, I want it to be preserved. The world becomes a much sadder and less interesting place if we all think and behave the same.

[deleted]

Re: A Bid to Maintain One of the World’s Oldest Culinary Traditions

#22

Post by sandGorgon »

It's a beautiful article. Most Parsi food joints in Mumbai are in the old colonial area called "Fort". It is an area that you can walk around unlike most of Mumbai.

Incidentally it is also India's financial capital with the main offices of the Reserve Bank of India in that area.

If you are ever in Mumbai, I strongly recommend walking around in Fort and taking in the sights and just eating your way through the place.

Re: A Bid to Maintain One of the World’s Oldest Culinary Traditions

#23

Post by tathougies »

iak8god wrote: post #11
tathougies wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and before that it was Mongolian supremacy and before that parsi supremacy. In other words, cultures die and new ones form. We do not owe it to the world to preserve existing diversity. Sure take down artificial barriers to societal continuity for those who want it. That's human rights not particular to any group of people. But diversity is not something to be preserved. That's a regressively conservative approac…

> We do not owe it to the world to preserve existing diversity. How about if we compromise and just stop actively destroying it? > But diversity is not something to be preserved. Well, I want it to be preserved. The world becomes a much sadder and less interesting place if we all think and behave the same.

> Well, I want it to be preserved. The world becomes a much sadder and less interesting place if we all think and behave the same.

You misunderstand. You dont want diversity. You cannot advocate for diversity when you simultaneously advocate for differences to remain the same. The world is naturally diverse because there are 7 billion people with 7 billion unique personalities. Attempting to artificially keep a dying culture alive does not cultivate diversity but rather outdated customs.

Re: A Bid to Maintain One of the World’s Oldest Culinary Traditions

#24

Post by dr_dshiv »

shriphani wrote: post #16
dr_dshiv wrote: post #3

Parsis are amazing. Zoroaster! Incredible. I can't believe how much cultural destruction occurs today -- simply through forces of homogenisation.

Well they do have a very strict definition for who is zoroastrian. If marrying outside the faith cuts off the entire bloodline from the faith it is not going to last very long.

To be clear, this is a cultural lineage that dates to approximately 1000BC -- so, yes, I'd be quite sad to see it die out. America is great, but we don't have very strong cultural traditions today. So I admire groups that have longevity -- their culture will likely have a longer duration than ours.

Though, I'd love to see America only fading away in the year 4776.

Re: A Bid to Maintain One of the World’s Oldest Culinary Traditions

#25

Post by dr_dshiv »

tathougies wrote: post #23
iak8god wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We do not owe it to the world to preserve existing diversity. How about if we compromise and just stop actively destroying it? > But diversity is not something to be preserved. Well, I want it to be preserved. The world becomes a much sadder and less interesting place if we all think and behave the same.

> Well, I want it to be preserved. The world becomes a much sadder and less interesting place if we all think and behave the same. You misunderstand. You dont want diversity. You cannot advocate for diversity when you simultaneously advocate for differences to remain the same. The world is naturally diverse because there are 7 billion people with 7 billion unique personalities. Attempting to artificially keep a dying…

On principle, monocultures are not desirable as compared to diverse cultures. Resilience. Thus, bias towards preservation of diversity.

Re: A Bid to Maintain One of the World’s Oldest Culinary Traditions

#26

Post by tathougies »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #25
tathougies wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, I want it to be preserved. The world becomes a much sadder and less interesting place if we all think and behave the same. You misunderstand. You dont want diversity. You cannot advocate for diversity when you simultaneously advocate for differences to remain the same. The world is naturally diverse because there are 7 billion people with 7 billion unique personalities. Attempting to artificially keep a dying…

On principle, monocultures are not desirable as compared to diverse cultures. Resilience. Thus, bias towards preservation of diversity.

The idea that the United States (or substitute any other large country, such as China, India, Brazil, etc), for example, is a monoculture is laughable. The death of a no- longer-significant culture signals neither a lack of external diversity nor an inability for diversity to arise again.

I've already said it... the way you get diversity is by having more people. In that regard, we're doing just fine. In the unlikely event that literally every person ends up following the same culture (which again, is not going to happen, despite the false dichotomy you are trying really hard to set up), I can guarantee you that in a few years, people's ideas will begin to diverge, and in a few decades, there will once again be factions, and in a few centuries, there will be mutually unintelligible cultures.

That is how the world works. It worked when zoroastrianism was the predominant religion for a large portion of the world, when its monoculture arguably gave rise to things like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and it will work in the future. In the meantime, we need not take any drastic action to ensure the survival of a culture that not even its inhabitants want to keep alive in any practical sense.

Re: A Bid to Maintain One of the World’s Oldest Culinary Traditions

#27

Post by dr_dshiv »

tathougies wrote: post #26
dr_dshiv wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On principle, monocultures are not desirable as compared to diverse cultures. Resilience. Thus, bias towards preservation of diversity.

The idea that the United States (or substitute any other large country, such as China, India, Brazil, etc), for example, is a monoculture is laughable. The death of a no- longer-significant culture signals neither a lack of external diversity nor an inability for diversity to arise again. I've already said it... the way you get diversity is by having more people. In that regard, we're doing just fine. In the unlikely…

We aren't discussing "drastic action to ensure the survival of a culture". We are discussing principles of value -- and I assert that functional diversity is intrinsically valuable (unless and until the diversity tears the broader system apart, resulting in less functional diversity).

On the face of it, more people does not automatically equal more cultural diversity. What's your argument?

To be clear: Walmart is a monoculture when it destroys diverse town centers in favour of standardized parking-malls.

But the argument is subtle -- why isn't the diversity of product offerings at Walmart sufficient to offset the diversity of town centers? I don't have a ready answer, but I intuitively believe that a nation of Walmarts isnt as strong a nation of main streets.

Re: A Bid to Maintain One of the World’s Oldest Culinary Traditions

#28

Post by tathougies »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #27
tathougies wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that the United States (or substitute any other large country, such as China, India, Brazil, etc), for example, is a monoculture is laughable. The death of a no- longer-significant culture signals neither a lack of external diversity nor an inability for diversity to arise again. I've already said it... the way you get diversity is by having more people. In that regard, we're doing just fine. In the unlikely…

We aren't discussing "drastic action to ensure the survival of a culture". We are discussing principles of value -- and I assert that functional diversity is intrinsically valuable (unless and until the diversity tears the broader system apart, resulting in less functional diversity). On the face of it, more people does not automatically equal more cultural diversity. What's your argument? To be clear: Walmart is a m…

> To be clear: Walmart is a monoculture when it destroys diverse town centers in favour of standardized parking-malls.

Apples and oranges. Walmart is not a culture. Walmart is a company. Last I checked, Zoroastrianism and parsi culture is a human culture, not a for-profit entity.

> We are discussing principles of value -- and I assert that functional diversity is intrinsically valuable (unless and until the diversity tears the broader system apart, resulting in less functional diversity).

I highly disagree. Individuals are valuable. Cultures are valuable and should be respected as long as individuals subscribe to it (and they are within reason). However, cultures as a whole do not have any rights in aggregate that individuals do not have. Attempting to maintain cultural diversity is a form of totalitarianism, basically fascism by another name.

If no individual can sustain their culture, no one owes it to them to try.

Look, I belong to a cultural group that is dying out due to a diaspora and intermarriage (see the documentary bottle masala in moile). I like people with my customs, but other than the fact that I feel more familiar with people like my family, I recognize there is no inherent value in my culture, and I actually oppose things like coercing children to marry within the group out of some notion of group identity. Of course, in our case, there are a few governmental barriers that ought to be taken down. But, if no one wants to marry or continue the customs, no one should be forced to and it's insanely weird to have outsiders who were not raised in it to all of a sudden decide they want to take part. Anyway, it's not like any culture completely dies out. As groups intermingle, ideas are mixed, and good ones continued. New cultures will form and new identities forged. That's called dynamic society, and should be the goal. A society in which all cultures stay the same is basically an overly traditionalistic, totalitarian one.

Anyway, I'm kinda done pontificating here. It's clear we value different things. I value dynamicism, creation, and cultural progress, and you want all cultural divisions to remain the same for the foreseeable future and view any intermingling as a form of cultural destruction. I'm afraid the viewpoints can't really be harmonized.

Re: A Bid to Maintain One of the World’s Oldest Culinary Traditions

#29

Post by yumraj »

rayiner wrote: post #19
bruth wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment adds no value to the thread but are you really applying the concept of software licenses to an eatery? This is a classic technique for generating buzz and demand. Many many restaurants do it. People are fine with it, no harm is done. It does not violate any rights. Owners can choose to serve whom they please.

If a restaurant did it in the US, it would be illegal discrimination on the basis of national origin. This particular restaurant would only fly depending on whether they could qualify as a private club exempt from the Civil Rights Act.

> Only members and their guests are permitted to enter, and membership is granted only to Parsis.

Implies that it is very much a private club.

Re: A Bid to Maintain One of the World’s Oldest Culinary Traditions

#30

Post by dr_dshiv »

tathougies wrote: post #28
dr_dshiv wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren't discussing "drastic action to ensure the survival of a culture". We are discussing principles of value -- and I assert that functional diversity is intrinsically valuable (unless and until the diversity tears the broader system apart, resulting in less functional diversity). On the face of it, more people does not automatically equal more cultural diversity. What's your argument? To be clear: Walmart is a m…

> To be clear: Walmart is a monoculture when it destroys diverse town centers in favour of standardized parking-malls. Apples and oranges. Walmart is not a culture. Walmart is a company. Last I checked, Zoroastrianism and parsi culture is a human culture, not a for-profit entity. > We are discussing principles of value -- and I assert that functional diversity is intrinsically valuable (unless and until the diversity…

>"you want all cultural divisions to remain the same for the foreseeable future and view any intermingling as a form of cultural destruction."

You have deceived yourself, good sir. I don't know why, but I'd reflect on it for your sake.

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