I also don't care if Rousseau was not perfect and I know he was criticized heavily in his time (for heaven's sake--his book was burned--didn't you notice that I wrote that?). He was an early contributor to the Instincto/Paleo timeline. It's easy for us to find fault with his errors today, given that we are advantaged by the fields of modern anthropology, Paleoanthropology, archaeology, and evolutionary biology that were not fully developed in his time (Darwin wasn't even born yet). Science is not about perfection--it's about asking questions and continually learning and adding to knowledge. Instincto also has its vegan elements, but it has its meat-eating elements too. The key point you're missing entirely, but which Alphagruis seems to get, is that Rousseau was one of the earliest prominent Westerners in modern times to recognize that older (more "primitive") diets are better. He didn't get the optimal foods right, but he got the broader concept right. My guess is that our French comrades probably understand this. If Rousseau did not influence the development of Instincto or Paleo-type eating at all, I'm sure they'll let me know. BTW, by coincidence Dr. Cordain recently mentioned the contribution of Rousseau, which made me think of him again. So at least two other people have noticed the connection (Alphagruis and Cordain).
My knowledge of Rousseau or other philosophers in general is unfortunately limited and I’m just a physicist who happened to also turn into a raw paleo dieter eleven years ago. So my perspective and comments are rather the ones of a scientist.
What strikes me most about Rousseau is that he was a deteriorationist as opposed to a progressivist i.e. he had become aware that civilization brought about by the invention of agriculture was, in many respects, not a progress or improvement in human condition ( diet, morality, equality etc). Rousseau was not an idiot, Tyler, he obviously didn’t claim that « natural » men were all equal or their diets perfect. He just noted that civilization has artificially drastically increased inequality and immorality and brought about quite inappropriate and toxic diets.
And Rousseau expressed this view about 250 years ago, i.e. long long long before a certain Tyler on a certain RAW PALEO forum had to recognize that the modern civilized diet is indeed highly toxic and was forced to change his diet precisely in a way that more closely resembles the ones of « natural » or paleolithic man.
And Rousseau expressed his views about 250 years ago, i.e. long long long before modern science, namely anthropology, biology, life science, geography, biochemistry, physics etc, finally provide clear cut support of his ideas. Diamond among many others is a respected scientist.
So I certainly agree with you PaleoPhil. Jean-Jacques Rousseau indeed deserves our respect and should be honored by the modern RPD as a predecessor with deep insight and far reaching views. Yet one cannot expect from a man living in the 18th century where neither modern biochemistry nor the concept of darwinian adaptation existed to arrive at the modern RAW PALEO concept !
As to the instincto movement, it’s likely that Burger, which is a well educated man (musician, physics, mathematics etc), was more or less influenced by Rousseau. It is interesting to note that Burger is initially actually a Swiss citizen from Lausanne, a city located in the French speaking Protestant « Canton de Vaux » to which Geneva, where Rousseau is born, belongs too.
What is most remarkable with Guy-Claude Burger and his instinctotherapy is that it very clearly and unambiguously pointed out already about 40 years ago the RAW PALEO concept :
-raw : As a physicist Burger clearly understood that cooking generates potentially a lot of toxins in the form of damaged or reacted biomolecules and so cleverly proposed to see what happened if one completely abandons this ubiquitous practice. Recent scientific work nicely confirms the generation of these toxins 30 years later or so.
-paleo : Based on neodarwinist arguments he also strongly questioned the adaptation of modern man to neolithic foods and proposed to abandon them completely and to see what happened if doing so. Again there is now clear cut support of these ideas from mainstream science.
Burger demonstrated that it is indeed possible to eat along these lines with numerous positive effects on health. When he did this it was not even obvious if homo sapiens was able to survive on a 100% raw diet !
Again he did this about 40 years ago and I consider that this is an outstanding most remarkable feat.
Burger also pointed out the importance of alliesthesy, i.e. olfactory and gustatory sensations in food intake regulation as described here :
http://www.rawtimes.com/anopsy1.htmlYet he went so far as to claim that there exists an « alimentary instinct » based on these sensations that is by itself capable to ensure essentially perfect nutritional balance. This is unfortunately utterly wrong and from a scientific point of view a statement like the following one taken from above link can be readily falsified.
quote from Burger
17. Taking account of the alimentary instinct suggests a particularly simple and efficient way of approaching the problem of dietetics. Instead of assessing the needs of the organism from the outside (with all the risks of diagnosis in the face of the extraordinary complexity of nutritional processes and their inevitable fluctuations over time), it is enough to comply with the olfactory and gustatory pleasures, expressions of an instinct which is directly in touch with the body's actual needs and which can track unforeseeable and sometimes surprising variations in quantity. Note that Anopsotherapy is not a "diet" ; it implies no obligation nor any prohibition against nature. It tends to eliminate the artifices that are likely to defeat the aliesthetic mechanism (or to pose problems not manageable by metabolic processes). For the artificial scheme of diagnosis - prescription it substitutes the natural process of probing - acquiescence.
end of quote
In other words it is unfortunately not enough to comply with olfactory and gustatory pleasures to determine which food is best for us and ensure nutritional balance and health.
Most people who tried to do so just ate usually far too much sweet or oily fruits and not enough food of animal origin. This results in health damage after a while quite similar to the one observed in vegans.( I have recalled the main arguments against Burger's instincts on a French speaking forum recently
http://paleocru.webatu.com/forum/)
This part of Burger's work about « instincts » is thus just pseudoscience and unfortunately means that he is indeed a dangerous guru. A guru recently released from jail after 12 years for pedophily, a guru who even applies his pseudoscience about "instincts" to human sexuality....
I add that by "guru" I just mean the leader of a movement or ideology who has been clearly shown to be wrong in some of his statements and often is quite aware of it but nevertheless still stubornly claims he is right and thus misleads his followers.
Topic: Vive la France! (Read 14178 times)