Ajanta lady
For a rational being, if he does not find any satisfactory answer to his question (why?), then he should not do that.
If one talks about Indian dresses then immediately suits and saris (SS) come into picture (for girls). It gives you a typical Indian look.
Hindus come to know about these dresses after the invasion of Muslims. In ancient India (from early to 12th century), women wore no upper garment to cover their breasts. Whether villagers or queens, housewives, townswomen or milkmaids. All of them remained bare above the waist just like men. To prove this thing one can take Ajanta caves as a significant example. Ajanta caves have pilgrims , ladies in waiting, dancing women, nurses attending the sick, idle townswomen looking out of their windows, all wearing no upper garment. This all are the facts of clothing of that time because painters and sculptors of those time cannot lie for over 2000 years. Also, there is a fine sculptor of king Mahendravarman ( 6th century) with his two queens bare above waist. If they wore anything above waist to hide breasts then can any sculptor dare to delineate them like that.
Today’s sari came into existence around 1780. Ancient India has much more amazing fact about its culture and standard of living. Indians of that time were much more civilized than rest of the world. When Europeans were in barbarian stage India had fully planned and civilized cities. The status of women and men was also equal. At that time many panchayats also used to be handled by women. India also contributed in science, mathematics and many fields.
But now India’s mentality and culture has got distorted in many forms. Moreover, it is of no use looking back and feeling proud of such things. We get nationality, serve name and mother tongue by default and it is useless feeling irrational responsibility for that. Capitalism teaches us survival of the fittest. It is very absurd to be emotionally attached to your mother tongue, nationality, dress code etc. Because of globalization we came across many new and different innovative things and as we always want the best for ourselves, something which is compact and can come under our budget; so if one can purchase the best quality and compact form of a thing which is also easier to handle then why shouldn’t one go for that!
Now things are changing, young crowd has a high and modern thinking about almost everything but still they argue for some things that it should be traditional because it reminds of their culture and sovereignty associated with it, Why? Because they do not accept this fact: survival of the fittest. For example, well educated girls in India also wear suits and sari some times in spite of having many other better option because they want to remind themselves and to people around them that although they are modern and highly educated they still have that traditional stuff. As if, some household qualities will come automatically to them after wearing suits. Why Indian men donot wear dhoti kurta once in a while to prove their traditional feelings? Because, not only Indian men, but Indian women too feel themselves inferior to men. They do not understand that clothes cannot purify their image in front of their selves.
SS are made to cover the best part of a woman’s body,the most attractive one. Sari can be compared to an old age computers: very big and very complicated to handle and carry. Nowadays we use higher technology of computer i.e. laptops. Why? Because it is compact, easy to carry, trendy and one take it anywhere one wants to easily. Similarly western dresses are compact, trendy, and easy to carry. Sari has unnecessary number of turns. Everything is becoming compact and modern because of technology that’s why we are bending towards western dresses (something better to wear).
One should pursue each and every action of one’s life with rationality whether it comes to friends, music, marriage, clothes or anything else.
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How reasonable are your cloths? Says:
April 17th, 2009 at 11:05 am[…] News Sources wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAjanta lady Are you a rational being? This is a question, which should be asked to one’s self regularly. All activities a man can perform like listening, sore sacking, wearing, writing, reading has to be kept in close observation to one’s self. For a rational being, if he does not find any satisfactory answer to his question (why?), then he should not do that. If one talks about Indian dresses then immediately suits and saris ( SS ) come into picture (for girls). It gives you a typical Indi […]
gopi Says:
April 19th, 2009 at 1:58 pmfor the first time, i found an article in this site that goes against libertarian principles!! i mean, if a lady wants to wear a sari saying that it reminds her of her culture and tradition, who r u to stop her? she may walk arnd in western clothes, sari or no clothes.. as long as an individual’s action doesnt encroach on the rights of others, it’s fine in a libertarian society, right? u cant say wearing a sari is irrational!! in hot places, it’s much more comfortable (and hence rational) to wear a saree / dhoti even though it might be a bit difficult to dress up. my point is : rationality is not absolute - one action maybe rational under one circumstance (or one climate in the case of dressing) and perfectly irrational in another.
even otherwise, if the feel good factor she derives out of wearing a traditional dress is greater than the discomfort of the process of wearing a sari, then dressing up in sari is perfectly rational for her. To drill into others what u think is rational, IS being irrational.
of course, if a person goes to the antarctic and wears a sari/dhoti, then he/she is irrational. but regardless of him/her being rational or otherewise, u hav no right to force the person into wearing what u think is rational.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
April 19th, 2009 at 2:18 pmThere is nothing “Anti-Libertarian principle in this article.
How can you say that anyone is trying to stop anybody from wearing a sari or burqA or kambal or whatever she likes?
Now that was really hilarious from you.
About some parts of India being “hot”, well there are many versions of “cool” cloths for Hot season available in market. Sari still is not reasonable. And who cares, its the person who really decides what she will wear, she should think reasonably about what to wear.
Wearing something because it is tradition or socially approved is silly, unreasonable and unintelligent.
In no way this article forces anybody to wear anything particular, although social compulsions surely forces many to wear sari no matter they want it or not.
As for example, IPL is going on these days, and the presenters and managers of IPL are “happy” that it is going on “outside” of India this time. Now no ridiculous gang of people forcing “traditions” on individuals will oppose the “cheerleaders”.
There are governmental rules which restricts people from wearing whatever they want. government restricts people, not the author of this article is restricting or forcing anybody.
there are people “somewhat” like you who on the name of wrong and falsified tradition, forces your likes of dresses on others. There are Muslim gangs and Hindu gangs who forces girls to wear Burqas, or dhoti or sari. there are people “very similar to you” who attacks Sania Mirza for playing tennis because while playing tennis, she has to wear short pants.
Because of its complications, sari itself is loosing trend, yet because of irrational traditional compulsions, people often denies looking for reasonableness of their cloths and that is condemnable.
Do you think “words” can attack people and force them?
Why don’t you try to point how an article “forces” anybody for doing anything?
Your comment was totally irrational.
rachita Says:
April 19th, 2009 at 3:45 pm@ gopi
I guess Gargi has said it all….
Just one more thing : your reactions to the article were driven more out of emotions and that is why you could not see the logics behind…
a tip:
before reading any unconventional opinion try to think out of the box with no prejudices, that way it becomes easy to understand things the way they are.
renegade_division Says:
April 19th, 2009 at 11:27 pm@Gopi
I actually agree with you on this one. Though its not really anti-Libertarian stuff, it is a value judgment passed against the people who wear Saris.
Libertarianism does not pass value-judgments. Wearing a sari is no different than wearing a burqa is no different than wearing a skirt.
In your personal viewpoint you can prefer all you want, but its definitely non-Libertarian viewpoint.
In my personal viewpoint I of course oppose wearing a burqa(and for all guy reasons), but from a Libertarian view point wearing a Sari or not wearing a Sari is not an issue because there is no law forcing women to wear the either.
On the other hand in Saudi there is a forcing woman to wear a burqa, now that comes as an issue of Libertarianism, because there is an institutional aggression involved.
A society of pure Liberty would not necessarily be a society of pure rationality, because if you want you can create your own voluntary group of people who consider 1+1 =3, you can open a school which teaches kids 1+1=3. All these things are highly irrational, yet there is no Libertarian value judgment involved in the above situation.
If you ask the question, Is a college(which does not receive any coerced funding, any public funds) teaching students 1+1 =3 Libertarian or not?
The answer is yes. But is that college rational? The answer is no.
Can Socialists create their own voluntary Socialist society in a society of pure liberty? The answer is Yes.
Can Socialists create their own voluntary Socialist society in a society of pure rationality? The answer is No.
Is there a contradiction between the above two situations, that is can a society of pure liberty also be a society of pure rationality?
Well to be honest I don’t really know, never really thought about it, but since we derive Liberty from Reason, I don’t think any further extension of reason can overturn Liberty(which was a more basically derived philosophy from Reason).
Preventing someone from doing irrational thing which does not really restricts someone’s freedom, is a violation of that person’s freedom, therefore an irrational thing in itself.
So I guess maybe wearing Sari is irrational, but then preventing someone from wearing a Sari is even more irrational.
Maybe the author should have made it clear that the topic is more about(in fact completely about) Rationality and in no way talks about infringing on anyone’s Liberty(even though when its implicit).
Though I still stick to the point that “Rationality judgments are value judgments”. Though its my own viewpoint.
gopi Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 12:21 am@ gargi : i see that u havent stopped putting words in other’s mouths even now.. i’ve never said nething against sania or her clothes [in fact i appreciate it ;)]. Nor do i hav ne problem wid cheerleaders. My problem is with you deciding what rational /irrational for others.i’m a south indian in delhi who wears lungi (kind of dhoti) - not bcoz it’s traditional or socially approved (in fact it’s not approved of at all in my hostel), but bcoz it’s more comfortable during summers here. r u calling me irrational? but i dont force my frnds to wear the same - they may wear jeans or nething they like.
@ rachita : plz give me any one instance where my reaction was based on emotion. this site is still called REASON for liberty, right?
@ renegade : thank godness at least one of u actually read my post.
@ the author of this article : i know that this article was inspired by a whole lot of ppl who r forced by society to wear traditional dresses (like sania). in that viewpoint, this article makes perfect sense. but u cannot say that all ppl who wear sari/dhoti are irrational because some of them do so according to their own wish. i appreciate & support the main idea, but not the way in which it was expressed.
gopi Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 12:27 am@ renegade : i support all viewpoints on ur previous post. it also got me thinking.. isnt a society of pure rationality superior to a society of pure liberty? bcoz pure rationality will imply pure liberty; but like u pointed out in ur post, a society of pure liberty can be irrational at times.. i’m not an experet in this. i leave my question open for discussion.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 1:34 amI have not put words in your mouth, I just showed you what is “forcing” and that an article cannot force on anybody on anything.
This site is about rationality, strictly about RATIONALITY and nothing else.
@ The discussion of rationality,
This site has NOTHING TO DO WITH LIBERTARIANISM. This site has everything to do with RATIONALITY.
If there is a group which assumes itself libertarian and want to establish 1+1=3, they are free to do so. This site is surely meant to ridicule those groups though.
And that is the CORRECT Libertarian way of expression.
I discussed this matter of “How irrationalities will be avoided and diminished in a Libertarian Society” here under heading http://www.reasonforliberty.com/philosophy/liberty-tolerance-freedom-of-expression-and-political-correctness.html And the current article obviously meets the standards of Libertarianism in every possible sense here.
@renegade
There’s nothing value-judgment passed on anything here, rather it is an opposition of the value judgments passed on individuals (women) by the society.
And, the site is OBVIOUSLY NOT ABOUT LIBERTARIANISM, it is about rationality, objectivism and Individualism, that is it. Luckily, libertarians often relates to rationalism, objectivism and Individualism, that is why the shape is like that.
renegade_division Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 2:49 am@Unpretentious
Well I just was trying to make it clear, because in one other post I took a lot of pains in explaining gopi on how saying something like “drugs are good or bad” would be a value judgment and I didn’t wanna do value judgment from a Libertarian’s POV.
@Gopi
Maybe, but then I don’t consider myself an expert of rationality, rather Liberty. A bunch of christians who believe in live and let live, are totally Libertarian according to me, but they are irrational according to the general definition of rationality(or popular definition of rationality).
Another thing is a society of pure liberty exists if there is no institutionalized initiation of aggression like its right now. It doesn’t mean there is NO Initiation of aggression of any kind. It simply means it does not have the Govt aggression, and its not accepted in the society as normal behavior. Like currently paying taxes is a right thing, and acceptable. If govt comes to your home and takes away your kids, that’s also acceptable. But these are an acts of initiation of aggression.
Patriotism is completely irrational. Why can’t you feel patriotic towards say Saudi Arabia, what’s so special about people living in the land we call as India.
Taxes and definition of it is totally irrational. How come Govt of India gets to take taxes from us at force. Lets say tomorrow Saudi Arabian govt decides to provide us Oil on subsidy, we want to buy it from whomsoever we want at market price, but lets just say they provide us for subsidy.
Then at 14th April next year they demand that all the Indian citizens must pay taxes to the Saudi Govt. Is that taxation justified?
Some people(in India and in America) talk about “taxation without representation” as an undemocratic concept. Ok fine, Saudi Govt says that they will give about 50 seats to the India in their council of ministers for the Royal King of Saudi, and people of Saudi Arab and India can jointly vote for the council of ministers.
How about now? Every single argument, made FOR the taxation by the Indian govt gets equally applied for the Saudi Representative govt’s taxation on India. I mean the biggest reason why we must pay the taxes is so that Indian govt provides facilities to the poor people. How about this, Saudi govt provides us subsidy for oil. And we cannot buy oil from anywhere else, that Saudi govt has ensured through their monopoly of OPEC.
Anyways,
Based on the similar grounds what is the definition of a society of pure rationality? Does everybody have to be fully rational about everything? An atheist society which believes in science and logic? Or does removing institutionalized irratonality be a sufficient condition?
Topics about Bollywood » How reasonable are your cloths? | Reason for Liberty Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 2:57 am[…] Freesoul put an intriguing blog post on How reasonable are your cloths? | Reason for LibertyHere’s a quick excerptWhy Indian men donot wear dhoti kurta once in a while to prove their traditional feelings? Because, not only Indian men, but Indian women too feel themselves inferior to men. They do not understand that clothes cannot purify their image … […]
rachita Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 3:07 pmHindu form of classical dance is the one which is most selfless.
Still people like it.
Indian form of marriage is a tribal one, still people go for it because they have freedom of choice, but having freedom of choice does not imply that whatever they choose is rational.Whatever is tribal, primitive and antiquated will remain so regardless of their choices.Wearing shapeless clothes like saree,burqua etc. reveals a lot about person’s self and rationality. Any rational person will automatically dislike such things. It is a natural corollary because rationality applies to everything even if it is wearing clothes.
A rational person should have rational choices and therefore it is proper for him to be rational in everything he does.
Given a choice between a tribal form of dress-up and a modern one I would choose the latter one. And every rational being ought to do that.
gopi Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 4:55 pm@ rachita : even though a sari is, acccording to you, tribal/primitive/antiquated/shapeless, there are people who like it and find it as a fashion statement (susmita sen looks awesome in sari). similarly, even though alchohol is, according to me, costly/bad for health/foul smelling, there r ppl who like it (for their own reasons like “allows social mingling”).even though i consider it highly irrational to consume alchohol, others do not. but is it right on my part to stop them from drinking alchohol? no. the problem is that RATIONALITY IS NOT ABSOLUTE. each person has their own view point on what is rational and what is not. it wud be foolish to say that only my view point is rational and all other who do not agree with me r irrational. i mean, as far as de case of alchohol is concerned, i can argue both sides effectively. in fact, now that gargi has explained that this is a site for rationality and not one of libertarianism,i would like to see an article in this site titled “Is consuming alchohol rational?”
GP Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 5:41 pmBased on the similar grounds what is the definition of a society of pure rationality? Does everybody have to be fully rational about everything? An atheist society which believes in science and logic? Or does removing institutionalized irratonality be a sufficient condition?
<<<<<<Rationality is always subjective cause people always don’t have understanding of both sides of coins Those who think that “wearing sari is irrational” simply forgetting the fact that - not all ppl (ladies/eunuchs) wear it out of obligation / social norms. Some of them just do so because they feel more comfortable in sari than in suit or salwar so who are u/anyone else to say its irrational? I mean - say whatever u want but u can’t make it absolute(read unanimous stand of all rationalists in the world) coz rationality is subjective in most of the cases. : )>>>>>>>
@Rachita
If you are not married , Are u going to wear suit or salwar during your matrimony ?..i mean whether ur choice of clothes will be based on your comfort / logic OR based on traditional customs being followed in Hindu Matrimony? ..if ur planning to do register Marriage then plz ignore my question. : )
renegade_division Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 8:34 pm@Rachita
I totally disagree on that one. What is rational for you, something so non-universal as a Clothing item, may or may not be rational for anyone else.
Say you are married and your husband is from tribes, you may found wearing modern dresses rational all your life, but now there is a new factor. Your husband finds you attractive in tribal-wear. And you really care about making your husband happy. So here what would be the rational thing?
a) Still keep on wearing modern dresses
b) Wear tribal dresses
Or are you going to say now that the husband’s brain is cross-wired in an irrational way to think that tribal-wear is hot, and his arousal to see his wife in Sari is completely irrational and has no place in a rational society??? Or maybe the fact is irrational that you are trying to please your husband, because pleasing your husband by doing irrational thing is totally IRRATIONAL??
Now add another factor in the example above. What if your husband wants you to wear sari, but you don’t give a damn to his opinion? Wearing a Sari now would be irrational.
Rationality is about Reason, a conclusion which is based on reason is called a rational conclusion. A conclusion G derived from the reason A, B and C is a rational conclusion, and is universally applicable to wherever A, B and C exist.
But, same conclusion cannot be applied if an additional reasoning is introduced or one of the existing reasoning is removed. For example G may or may not be true for A, B, C and D, and G may or may not be true for only A, and B.
Pythagoras theorem
Another example in this regard is Pythagoras theorem. It used to be believed that Pythagoras theorem is like the rational truths of the universe, and it was used in such a way as an example by the Greek philosophers. That is the day when they discovered that Pythagoras theorem is not applicable to Spherical Geometry and is only true for Euclidean Geometry.
Also when they found out that Pythagoras Theorem is not applicable on irrational numbers.
This is precisely the reason why Liberty must supersede rationality, and that’s why value judgments about these things cannot be made.
rachita Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 10:39 pm@gopi
what is tribal remains tribal…
i will not choose a tribal way opf getting married because I am a rational being. I will stick to a registered marriage and wear clothes which reflect rationality. BTW my article is just an extension of rationality in daily life. As I said before, it is a personal choice to wear a tiger skin or leaves or anything. But that does’nt change the fact that even clothes reflect a person’s sense-of-life and rational bent of mind. And just as modern architecture is the best form of architecture same way the best form of clothing is the one which has a shape and defined curves. Suhsmita Sen may look hot in a saree but looking hot does’nt define the best form of clothing. Saree is shapelss and because a film actress wears it does’nt give it shape. Neways you can carry on wearing whatever you want because your concept of rationality itself is relative. Therefore any more discussion is fruitless.
rachita Says:
April 21st, 2009 at 12:02 am@renegade..
since my husband won’t be a tribal and use his rational faculty to the fullest, his choice of clothes would reflect the best possible and since his choice of clothes would be the best and most rational, our choices would coincide, don’t worry about that.
the law of identity says “A is A”
this is what is the definition of rationality.
Seeing things as they are and not the way I,you or anybody wants to percieve them, therefore I see things the way they are..and not subjectively like you.
Neways why are we discussing definitions of rationality here?
For all rational beings the definition of rationality would be the same. You can go ahead and marry a girl who likes wearing saree my article was for people who want the best in their life.
saree or an evening gown
a desktop or a palmtop
landline or a mobile
they are choices but since I want the best in life I go with the best.Any person who wants the best in life will accept what is best. Rest is no concern of mine .
Just wash of whatever you read in the article and you will have no contradictions since reading my article was your choice and I din’t force it on you if you don’t agree to it I don’t care. But please don’t try to explain rationality to me here because I know it already, it is for you to discover it the right way. If you want I can help you put your thots rite as I see loopholes in your definition of rationality not because I disagree to it but because it is flawed, just as earth is round because it is round and not because you and I think it is round. But apart from that I would abstain from a futile discussion on rationality of clothes here because first you need to understand rationality the right way then only you can understand what is written in the article, in case you disagree againto what I say, it is your choice and since we belong to different world of thots we need not deal.
Barbarindian Says:
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:25 pmSari has unnecessary number of turns.
ROFL.
rachita Says:
April 25th, 2009 at 3:36 amgud 4 u….
rema Says:
May 12th, 2009 at 7:29 amHi, I left a comment but it seems that it has been withheld. Maybe you did not care for it. However, I will try to say this again. I do not find anything “reasonable or unreasonable” about “my cloths”. I love wearing a sari and unlike Rachita, do not think it makes me tribal or backward. I have been in the U.S. for a decade, have been wearing both saris and western wear equally often and I am glad the U.S. is a country that enables people to make choices without judging them. Women from the Sri Chinmoy group, all western women, wear saris everyday. So as an Indian, why should I feel ashamed or less cosmopolitan or any other adjective for that matter. I pity the Indian man or woman who would like to equate their dress style to intellect or any degree of professional respect. Some people would find it hard to respect the Mahatma because he chose to wear a homespun dhoti.
Not sure whether we should be amused or insulted by your words. “Sari can be compared to an old age computers: very big and very complicated to handle and carry.” Or for that matter that “Sari has unnecessary number of turns. “ The sari is world renowned as a versatile, graceful, unstitched yards of material that a woman can wear and meet kings, queens, prime ministers and presidents. So, with all humility, I would request you to consider carefully before typing words on a blog (I would have said ink to paper, but in the “modern” world, we don’t do it much). I hope this will be posted in the interest of other readers.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
May 14th, 2009 at 4:05 amI pity the Indian man or woman who would like to equate their dress style to intellect or any degree of professional respect.
Wow!
And I pity you and your claim that what you wear does not reflect your persona. I pity your idea that no matter what your requirements are, you should keep yourself bungled up in a sari or burqa. Anyways, it doesn’t matter you are free to keep wearing Sari. Nobody is going to live forever.
kylie @ Saree Clothing Says:
July 29th, 2009 at 9:33 pmThe trend of Men wearing Dhotis and Women wearing Sarees in major Indian cities is becoming an Old fashion stuff nowadays. As our lifestyle improves there is nothing wrong in the way we dress unless it causes inconvenience to others