We have seen a number of silly episodes on college campuses this fall, and I appreciate that people have grown exasperated. But even a broken clock is right twice a day. In this case, it seems to me, the students who object to the University of Ottawa\u2019s yoga class have a point\u201d\u201dthough perhaps not the one they think.<\/p>\n
The problem is not that a yoga class wrongly appropriates a foreign culture. As critics of the university\u2019s decision rightly point out, there\u2019s nothing necessarily offensive in that. And there\u2019s no indication that the teacher or students in this particular class did anything to mock Indian culture. I imagine most of the students didn\u2019t think about yoga\u2019s cultural roots at all. Probably some of them assumed yoga was a Western invention. American tourists in Italy frequently tell Italians that we invented pizza.<\/p>\n
The problem is that yoga, in its essence, is a religious exercise.<\/p>\n