111–120 of 360 posts
Someone mentioned in the comments of TFA, but soap-making was an industry in a southern french town since ancient times. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marseille_soap
That's not ancient times. That's practically Renaissance.
ughh I dislike when pop history takes this smarmy tone and is also not particularly accurate. > In fact soap is a motherfucking medieval invention. Yes. It is. The Romans – whomst I don’t see a bunch of basics going around accusing of being filthy – did not, in fact have soap, in contrast. They usually washed using oil. Medieval people? Oh you better believe that they had soap. Wait a minute, what about Aleppo soap?…
I think it's incredibly silly how tied we are to the idea that something was invented once and then spread. Soap is literally just a fatty acid salt with some phytochemicals that have antimicrobial properties (extremely easy to come by considering most secondary metabolites of plants are specifically produced to keep them from succumbing to bacterial/fungal degradation). Soap has probably been "invented" a million ti…
I feel very grateful for reddit.com/r/askhistorians. I feel like they are the only source I can trust on figuring out the best truth we know about history.
> I feel like they are the only source I can trust on figuring out the best truth we know about history. I hope this isn't a widespread belief. If it is, then this concerns me.
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IMO, the writer doesn't present any argument at all. All she does is repeat that "clearly, fucking clearly medieval people bathed and were clean and into it" in a number of linguistic variations. The evidence presented consists of a list of rules from a public bath and some skincare tips from Hildegard von Bingen. How that implies "[M]edieval people bathed regularly. I am very serious. It is true." is beyond me.
Unless it's a joke?
Its funny that western history distorts the history of the rest of the world. I hear western kids saying no one used to bathe in the ancient times. As an Indian, it was practically mandatory for each and every individual to take a bath at-least two times a day. Additionally the following customs were very prevalent till recent times. 1. Washing legs after coming home from outside. 2. Washing hands, face and legs befo…
Indians definitely still have certain specific hygiene practices that Westerners don't. Anybody who has worked at a large tech company will have taken note of the tooth brushes in the bathrooms. I found this to be very confusing at first, but then I noticed that a good amount of my Indian coworkers would brush their teeth after lunch.
Tangential question: Why do humans place emphasis on bathing, when most other animals don't seem to need to do it? (I think in the US we bathe more than we actually need to, but on the other hand I assume that the strong cross-cultural emphasis indicates that we do actually need to do it to some degree to stay healthy.) Maybe something about our unusual skin, and how we sweat to stay cool?
A lot of animals bathe/groom. Birds, other primates, cats. Tons of mammals swim as well. Deer, bears, etc (what other animals are there??) I've noticed that the more I exercise, the cleaner + healthier my skin is. Showers only get me partly there - I need to sweat through a full rinse cycle to get all the funk out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't characterize it as that. Population was low enough, compared to food production. Feeding people is a cultural norm in India, rooted in the scriptures that ones hunger should not be a cause for doing business. The highest ideal in Hinduism is "Sarve jana, sukhino bhavanthu" (All living things should be happy) The reverse logic in your statement is also pertinent, in that if there was a lot of feeding going…
> Indian norms and culture emphasizes on moving away from materialism and advocates for distribution of wealth. Greed is frowned upon and actively discouraged in a society. Wealthy are encouraged to perform rituals and festivals and distribute their wealth. This is also a bog standard description of Christianity and a bunch of other religions. There isn’t anything special about India here. > India is the only civiliz…
I never said India is special in this regard.
>Bullshit. Just the history of England and France alone are packed full of wealthy and privileged people focusing their life on the pursuit of enlightenment (spiritual, artistic, and/or scientific) and giving up pre-arranged lives of power and wealth.
Name 2 kings or monarchs who did this voluntarily.
>Again, this is standard guidance you’ll find in all of the major religions.
Where does it say in Christianity or Islam that this world is an illusion, that there is one god, that all paths lead to the same god, or that the soul inside you is the very same god you pray to ?
>India was not special.
Spiritually, It is special, in the sense that Hinduism is not a religion but a philosophical way of life, that encourages debate, discussion, logical analysis and introspection. Historically, the only gift for questioning ones religion was a beheading in the case of Christianity and Islam.
Christians roam around the world converting people. Its so annoying. I never understand this obsession of "my god is the only path, your god is false, and if you don't follow my god and don't accept my god, you will go to hell and are not even fit to be considered a human being". Christianity has lost its soul. The history of the church is the history of Christianity and how low it has fallen from the true path of Christ.
History is only an expedient story, not that much to do with reality. We really can't know how people lived a 1000 years ago, despite what might appear to be mountains of evidence. This evidence is actually the creation of historians in the past century... and when you look at their sources for yourself, you will see that they are open to interpretation despite being presented as fact. For the ruling structure today,…
Medieval lives in the west were very prone to disturbing forces : invasions, successions of lords/kings, religious clashes, poverty, draughts and deceases. My own ancestors in the 17th/early 18th century died from 6 different deceases and floods and harsh winters. There were “poor hunters” , hunters who kept out the poor from the village. Of 14 children, only one ancestor survived in that time of whom I descent.
Another part of the family in another section of the country lived reasonably well and in peace at least. They were able to marry into better living conditions.
Life in medieval times could be pastoral, but it could just as well be a wretched existence. It depends where you look and in what time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see some anthropologists themselves quarrelling over the definition of 'poverty' though. Yes they are much knowledgeable than us, but you shouldn't think of them having a straightforward 'answer' like what you usually have for math problems. So if you are bringing academic authorities to the question, at least namedrop some academics/books/papers, so people can have a constructive debate about this.
That’s not how this works; you cannot discredit an entire scientific field and then demand some papers and books for the lazy to get into it. Anthropology has a corpus of millions of papers, and you demand what? A proof that they aren’t full of themselves.
And also, how can you possibly start a conversation about anthropology (or anything generally academic) without bringing any written literature? The worst way for academics to start a conversation with people outside of the field is "We are the authority on this topic, and you are ignorant so you should stop talking". Give us something interesting to ponder about, that's all!
EDIT: Since maybe I'm being a hypocrite by not providing any interesting links/sources myself, I'll have a try. The whole sub-field of developmental anthropology (some Wikipedia links below) seems to have close relations to the current modern concept of poverty (and to a broader extent global neoliberal politics) and is surely interesting. I'm also seeing many criticism towards their approaches from other anthropologists (Arturo Escobar is one prominent example), and taking a close look at this debate seems much more interesting than just claiming "Anthropologists are experts and we should let them just do their research" (which is a dead end to any interesting discussion on HN). And no, don't get started with "These people are fake anthropologists, real anthropologists use carbon dating and 3D scanning all that scientific jazz..." Anthropology has historically been intertwined with politics and ideology from the start, since it doesn't just end with obtaining the facts, but extrapolating and interpreting from the facts to infer what kinds of human societies were there in the past. And it is in that interpretation that all kinds of disagreements come in to play.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_anthropology
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_poverty
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropology_of_development
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep in mind that India was and is a huge and diverse place. A unified India did not exist until fairly recently. Neither as a political entity nor as a culture one.
This is blatantly false. A western trope resounding forever. Culturally India was a unified entity for millenia. As in, perhaps not having a unified government, but having the same cultural and literary background throughout the region. Ancient texts like Ramayana and Mahabharata talk about various places and practices across the length and breadth of India, which are remarkably similar and have a unified core. The g…