Non-Western Worldview

[Cyrano]

Chinese media warfare is dump money, corrupt, honey trap, blackmail to control the media actors. And play aggrieved victim at the slightest sleight and try to ruin those who don't fall in line one way or other.

Not our usual style.

[Rudradev]

The point is: does it matter? And if so, why? Exactly what are the goals of this "countering" the Western narrative? I am not saying there are no worthwhile goals... but I think it is worth identifying exactly what we want to achieve and understand why, rather than proceeding on a simplistic basis of outrage over misrepresentation.

Knowing what WE want as the end point of a finite game (or clearly defining our rationale for an open-ended game) lets us focus our efforts on securing that outcome rather than on "rebutting" stuff-- which effectively lets others set the agenda while wasting our time and energy.

See, at one level, you'll find no shortage of people in India who identify white people with "loose morals", poor family values, and overall consumerist decadence. However, white people for the most part don't care what the majority of Indian middle-class people think of them or their culture. Conversely-- many Western whites may think that Indians are basically slum-dog stereotypes who live in $hit while persecuting "minorities". But by the same token, many Indians think that gori chamdi wimmenz have no respect for their own bodies, and most educated Indians think whites in general racially discriminate against blacks and other minority groups.

My point is-- our popularly-held opinions don't make much of a difference to white people. So in real, concrete, absolute terms-- why should we care what any average white Western person thinks of India or Indians? Is that average white person going to harm us (or our loved ones) as individuals on the basis of these beliefs? Is he/she going to actively do something that harms Indian interests?

Sometimes I think the unspoken expectation many of us have is that white Americans, British, Australians, Canadians etc. must start to see the world just as we see it. That the populations of Western countries will one day fully accept that Pakistan is the irredeemable epicentre of global terrorism, that China is the ultimate evil empire ... and then they will force their democratic governments to behave in accordance with such beliefs. Not only should they demand that their countries adopt the exact same kinds of policies India does towards these "evils", but they should insist that their governments pursue them even more aggressively than our "coward babus" would ever dream of.

This is a futile, not to mention stupid, not to mention pathetic, expectation. Indeed, none of us would admit to entertaining such an expectation in our rational thoughts. But in fact, when we are upset by some particular element of Western narrative, many of us respond emotionally as if supporting India is somehow a realistic expectation that Western countries and people have-- either through ignorance or malevolence-- betrayed. How dare they be so adharmic as to not see things our way, etc.

This is all part of a deeper postcolonial pathology that we've internalized through a certain upbringing in a certain political system and educational milieu. Not much point discussing it further here, except to say the sooner we get over it the better. People-to-people wise the relationship will always be ultimately transactional. Where there are mutual interests, e.g. money to be made by commerce (or even such neutral matters as pursuing school reforms in neighbourhoods where our children are educated alongside theirs), we can collaborate as individuals and families with our White western counterparts. But in the end, they will have their irrational views of us, and we will have ours of them, and "never the twain shall meet". '

So that's how things are at the level of individual citizenry. Let's go all the way to the other end of the spectrum. At a government-to-government level, there is currently no problem. The GOTUS for example has come out and officially expressed support for GOI's Farm Bills; they have also refrained from making any controversial statements on human rights regarding the landowner protests, Article 370, CAA or any other issue. Yes, Justin Turd-eau put his foot in his mouth once, but soon had to eat crow when he came begging the GOI for vaccines. Apart from this there has been no criticism of GOI's policies at the official state level.

So the battlespace is somewhere in the middle. It is at the level of politics, local (city council and state legislature) as well as national (e.g. UK parliament and United States congress). It is at the level of school and university curricula in certain humanities and social-sciences departments. It is at the level of the mainstream media discourse-- which so far, has not shown the capacity to influence corporate business entities to any degree.

Let us also be clear that the corporate world of business has every reason to resist pressure from any and all quarters-- media, universities, politics, government, etc. being exerted through anti-India narratives. There is a lot of money to be made from the world's 3rd-largest economy on a PPP basis, period. Business is by and large not just neutral, but on India's side, as long as it can figure out a way to pursue its interests without running too far afoul of public opinion back home.

We need to look more closely at the battlespace. This is already getting to be too long a post, so I'll just try to provide an overview of the domestic political battlespace for now.

In the UK, we saw Labour going all in for the Pakistani and Khalistani vote and allying itself with the Indian leftist opposition-- and in a model of how the diaspora everywhere should behave, we saw British Hindus organize themselves and counter-mobilize with what has been a very effective campaign of supporting the Conservative party.

In the United States, there are some aspects of the battlespace that have been consistent with earlier times, and some that are relatively new. The consistent, long-standing features are largely at the level of the national legislature-- the US Senate and the House of Representatives (Congress). As long as we can remember there have been pro-Paki, pro-Chinese, and anti-Indian voices in these bodies (e.g. Dan Burton, Robert Toricelli, Wally Herger, Gary Condit etc.) The ONE new development at this level has been the fact that Indian-American congresspersons have been drafted into the anti-India fronts: most notably Ro Khanna and Pramila Jayapal.

This has had some effect on the optics, but in general the dynamics have remained the same. Pakis (Pak diplomats as well as Paki-Americans) spend tons of money buying Congresspersons and Senators and compelling them to advance the Pakistani line in exchange for continuing support. Indian-Americans give tons of money to Congress/Senate candidates, take a photo with them, and never ask for accountability after that. Indian MEA considers itself "above" lobbying-- so in contrast to the Pakistanis, GOI makes no serious effort to buy Congressmen and Senators to back the Indian point of view. The Congressmen and Senators of the "India Caucus" are mostly there at the behest of the US government and US business interests trying to make headway in the Indian market (and to some extent, Indian service providers like Wipro and Cisco trying to cover their bases in the US market). But overall, matters proceed as always.

Now what's changed in the US? Two things. First, at the local civic and state level, a lot of individuals backed by Pakistan, global Islamist organizations, and/or China have decided to become involved in politics. Many of them have done so taking advantage of the groundswell of organization against Trump by left-wing political groups over the last 4 years. These anti-India individuals cleverly ally themselves with BLM/Antifa/Climate-Rescue type organizations and use existing networks of fundraising, publicity, and grass-roots promotion to advance themselves; they accomplish this largely by posturing as fellow "victims of a fascist government" (in this case, the "Hindu Nationalist" government of Narendra Modi). By such means, they have found their way into a lot of local civic bodies and state legislatures, completely unnoticed and unopposed by Hindu Americans. This is why you see resolutions being passed by multiple city councils against CAA or Article 370, and most dramatically in recent times, a "Kashmir American Day" resolution by the New York state assembly.

The second thing that's changed in the US is that with Bernie Sanders' speech to the ICNA, we saw for the very first time a candidate for office at the Presidential level bringing up a false grievance derived from the anti-India narrative as a vote-getting measure. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren have done similar things during their campaigns for the Democratic Party nomination (though Kamala herself has been carefully silent after actually becoming the VP candidate).

Now these two developments REALLY begin to show what the battlespace is like, and suggest what our precise goals should be in fighting against the anti-India narrative in US media and academia. At this point, that narrative has NOT affected (1) Govt-to-govt relations (2) Indian-Americans' individual interests as private citizens (3) business or commercial relations between India and the US. What it HAS done is opened new fronts that need to be countered because they have the potential to become dangerous if unopposed.

I think our time would be much more productively used focusing on those fronts (which at present, are disposed in favour of the enemy) and perhaps also opening up entirely new fronts that would be favourably disposed to us. A general, once-size-fits-all approach of "how to rebut Gadhanand Dhume or Michael Kugelman or Mehdi Hassan on Twitter" is of little or no use. It amounts to completely ignoring our requirements for the battlespace, but instead walking headlong into the enemy's entrenched artillery positions and trying to toss grenades into their gun barrels. It may feel good to go online and give them gaalis but in the big picture it is a complete waste of time and effort.

Just my thoughts.

[Suraj]

I found that asking questions to clarify question/statement the premises behind the question quickly deflates these holier than thou types.
For example, a conversation would go like this:
Q: Why is there so much caste discrimination in India?

That's way too much detail. You could simply show them two pictures and ask them to tell you which one is the 'upper and lower caste person' . That's always fun.

Back during the Khobragade incident there was a discussion on bhestern news site about how this demonstrates Khobragade's Brahminical casteist discriminatory mindset. I congratulated them on their brilliant insight and posted information showing Khobragade is Dalit, and inquired if they'd like to come up with another brainless theory instead. There was sputtering that I was lying, and then claims that 'even Blacks can be racist' etc. I didn't bother to do anything more than laugh at their backpedaling - I wanted to show them as clueness.

Your approach is too informative, too respectful. People who have already confidently asserted some argument about something they are completely clueless about beyond having spent 2 prior minutes on Wikipedia or Google, are not to be treated with respect. They need to be mocked, not educated. Education is suitable for those who are humble, express understanding of their own ignorance and show a desire to learn.

For the others, as I once replied, it's easier for me to use their ignorance against them than to educate them - education is only worth my time when they demonstrate the humility beforehand to learn. I'm not going to teach someone who confidently asserts garbage, I blow a hole through it, and they whine that Im attacking the messenger instead of educating them. I'll educate when I control the narrative, not when they're busy trying to do that.

[sanjaykumar]

Most people I come across are not trying to antagonise me, but if they were, I'd reply on similar lines as well

In fact this is a shortcut to a quick education. We all have ethnocentric biases. A common one is that our own society is a utopia.

All that is needed is a reminder of just much of a utopia it is for blacks/blecks, travellers/Jews/Irish (no blacks or Irish was not uncommon on properties to let into the 1960s)/Chinks/Hindoos/niggers/spics/wetbacks/Japs/daygos/gooks/krauts
/pollocks/russkies etc etc.

Of course there is plenty in India of the same. The recommended approach is a shortcut into cognitive biases, that is all. It is not necessary to offend those who are not educated in these matters.

[AshishA]

Chinese media warfare is dump money, corrupt, honey trap, blackmail to control the media actors. And play aggrieved victim at the slightest sleight and try to ruin those who don't fall in line one way or other.

Not our usual style.

This may not be our usual style but it does sound effective and interesting. We should try this out. Except, we make it more efficient than the Chinese in terms of money because our pockets aren't as deep as China's. Throwing money at problems is not how we do things.

As Rudradev said, we need to get involved in US politics in a major way. Since the Americans don't mind whoever decides to interfere as long as their side (aka left or the right) can win, we must use every trick in the book to ensure we dominate their elections. If non democratic countries like Chinese and Pakis can do some dirty politics in USA, I am 100% sure we can do better than them. Considering we have a large experience in democratic systems.

Hence its time for BJP to establish it's USA branch. BJP USA. I like the sound of it.

[KLNMurthy]

The point is: does it matter? And if so, why? Exactly what are the goals of this "countering" the Western narrative? I am not saying there are no worthwhile goals... but I think it is worth identifying exactly what we want to achieve and understand why, rather than proceeding on a simplistic basis of outrage over misrepresentation.

...

Here's why it matters:

All the phenomena you described--excessively valuing the white man's opinion of us etc., are symptoms of a deeply-ingrained individual and collective self-doubt, which is one of the outcomes of centuries of suppression and repression. V.S. Naipaul (much as I have my own issues with his work) put it thus: "India, a wounded civilization" and he is more right than I care to admit.

These wounds have to be acknowledged, and they have to heal. Deep down, we wonder whether the worst things the whites say about us--like Katherine Mayo's drain inspector's report--are actually right, and "we are like this onlee." We need to develop a counter-narrative that responds to the canards that are flung at us so relentlessly and cavalierly, so that we can actually start believing that we are, in fact, not worse than anyone else, and are better in many ways. Sure, we do engineering, medicine and math better than the average white, and our military is second to none, and we run a hell of a Kumbha Mela and General Election, but I am talking here about the ways of our people--our fathers, mothers, ancestors, ways that live and persist to this day, subject to sterile analysis, denunciation and revilement, all of the time.

In a way, the whites and their Indian acolytes are doing us a big favor: by making us think, apply our knowledge and information, and revise and reconceptualize the narrative so that, we heal from the wounds inflicted on us, and, in our own eyes, take our place among the common run of humanity, a place that has been denied to us so much and for so long, that we now deny it to ourselves.

A time will come when it no longer matters, and we are secure in our goodness and humanity. But to get there, we have to pass through the difficult phase of learning to react creatively to all the mud that is being flung at us, with the aim of making us sink deeper into the Slough of cultural Despond.

[Vayutuvan]

A better approach might be:
Why do you have caste discrimination in India?

Answer. For the same reason English discriminate against the Irish in marriages, employment, housing etc.

Or, for the same reason blacks face discrimination in America.

One woman, a good friend, asked me whether she can be a brahmin. So the conversation went this way.

Q. Can I be a brahmin?
A. Yes sure. You need a gotra. Since you are not married, I will accept you as my sister. You will be a kashyapasagOtra. As it is you live a brahmin lifestyle; you are a vegan, abstain from smoking and alcohol, and practice yOga. It is much harder for you to be a daleet. Most lower "castes" do not want to be considered brahmin.
Q. Why? Who would like to want to live like them?
A. What do you mean? There are poor in all "castes" and rich folks in all castes. Let me ask you this.
Now I started asking questions.
Q. Can I be white (with a smirk on my face)?
A. You are white. You live in a nice house, have money, are well educated, and kids going to college.
Q. But am I white?
A. <silence>

Me: You won't and are incapable of understanding India unless you live there for a few decades.
R: Oh but would I be safe? I heard there are a lot of rapes.
Me: (turning to my wife who was listening to the conversation with interest) What do you think? Would she be safe?
My wife: (Big grin on her face)
Friend: (sheepish grin on her face)

[sanjaykumar]

Q. Can I be white (with a smirk on my face)?
A. You are white. You live in a nice house, have money, are well educated, and kids going to college.

That is the most significant part of the exchange.

In America one can aspire to be 'white', bizarre as that may sound.Except for black people.

Race much like caste can actually be nebulous and elastic.

Race is contextual. I had an odd experience on the hospital wards; after managing a somewhat more complex case, I was asked if I was Belgian by the patient, with the family nodding eagerly.

Now I know Belgians must be very handsome, but I perhaps can be called Italian-looking by an Italian or have a French Canadian speak French to me or perhaps a Latino in Miami may ask me something in Spanish, but Belgians are white white. Unless there has been a history of French migration into Wallonia.

At any rate if you present as 'successful', speak well, and perhaps reek of money your jati may not be stable.

[NRao]

Hope this is the right thread.

Greek Kings and Indian Emperors: Diplomacy between the Hellenistic Kingdoms and Mauryan India

[Rony]

500 years later, Mexico recalls but doesn’t celebrate Spanish conquest

In a country that takes great pride in its museums and monuments, the final resting place of one of Mexico’s signature historical figures is easy to miss.
A simple red plaque — just a name and the years he lived — marks the spot where his tomb is embedded in a wall to the side of the altar in a dilapidated downtown church. Few worshipers take notice.

The name alone, however, recalls centuries of conflict and a never-ending debate about the essential identity of Mexico:

HERNAN CORTES 1485-1547.

The legendary Spanish military commander may be hidden away in death, but a few blocks away, authorities are readying a remembrance of his momentous triumph — the conquest of the Aztec Empire.

Friday marks the 500th anniversary of the fall in 1521 of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, now the site of Mexico City. The bloody siege culminating in its surrender launched three centuries of Spanish dominion in Mexico.

The conquest still stirs profound disquiet in the national psyche.

Politicians and activists have put their own spin on history, casting Cortés as the coldblooded archetype of European imperialism. But regardless of the denunciations, his military campaign is what led to Mexico’s modern identity as a mixed-race nation.

“We were all born from the conquest, no longer Aztecs, no longer Spanish, but Indian-Hispanic-Americans, mestizos,” wrote Carlos Fuentes, the late Mexican author. “We are what we are because Hernán Cortés, for good or for bad, did what he did.”

This week in Mexico City’s central plaza, or zócalo, workers have been erecting a more-than 50-foot-tall replica of the emblematic Templo Mayor, the main sanctuary of the Mexicas, as the Aztecs called themselves. A multi-colored light show will flash images Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent, and other Aztec motifs.

“A society needs to know where it comes from to know where it is going,” Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s City mayor, said at a forum last month detailing plans for the occasion. “How can we resolve some of our great problems if we don’t know where they began?”

By any measure, Spain’s arrival in the New World was a global milestone, a meeting of civilizations that had evolved distinctly through the millennia.

“It was a turning point in human history, and we will never go back,” said Matthew Restall, a professor at Penn State University and author of “When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting That Changed History,” chronicling the encounter between the Aztec ruler and the Spanish conquistador. “These were human beings who had been on the planet for tens of thousands of years and never knew about each other.”

Portraying the Spaniards’ arrival as a nationalist parable of good versus evil — a glorious native culture devastated by European marauders — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has called for historic “reconciliation.”

“The so-called conquest was accomplished with the sword and the cross,” he declared a few months after taking office. “Thousands of people were murdered during this period. A culture was imposed, one civilization on top of another, to the point where Catholic churches were constructed on top of the temples of pre-Hispanic peoples.”

Both Spain and the Vatican have rebuffed the president’s demands for apologies. Events from five centuries ago cannot be judged by “contemporary considerations,” the Spanish government said. The Catholic Church pointed out that during a 2015 trip to Bolivia, Pope Francis already apologized for colonial-era abuses committed against Indigenous populations in the Americas.

“We want him to do it in Mexico too,” López Obrador shot back.

No one disputes the culpability of Cortés and his captains in massacres, torture, forced religious conversion and enslavement in a quest for glory and gold. However, many historians also dismiss López Obrador’s good-versus-evil template as one-dimensional.

“It’s a simple vision of history in which one sees everything as black and white,” said Alfredo Ávila, a historian at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “The historic reality is never that simple.”

Mexican officials have dubbed the remembrance “500 Years of Indigenous Resistance.”

The “resistance” tag overlooks an uncomfortable fact: More than 90% of Cortés’ troops in the siege of Tenochtitlán were Indigenous rivals of the Aztecs, notably warriors from the Tlaxcalan and Totonac cultures. Post-conquest, historians say, other Indigenous peoples bowed to Spanish hegemony, while Cortés rewarded allies in the war against the Aztecs with favored treatment, including exemption from some royal taxes.

“Many Indigenous groups collaborated with the Spanish,” said historian Miguel Pastrana Flores, also at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “It was an alliance that not only fought with the Spanish, but provided the Spanish with food, shelter, helped fabricate their arms and build their boats.”

The Aztecs ruled a vast realm, from present-day Central America to central Mexico. But divisions roiled their domain. Resentment seethed among vassal communities fed up with their overlords’ demands for tribute, including victims for human sacrifice.

Cortés skillfully played on these deep fissures, recruiting personnel to bolster the thin Spanish ranks.

Today, some view the events of 1521 less as a Spanish-versus-Aztec struggle than as a tipping point in an internal Mesoamerican clash among the diverse Indigenous populations of the day. An alliance of convenience with the bearded outsiders brought the benefit of horse-bound cavalry, sophisticated military tactics and technologically advanced weaponry, including cannons, muskets and crossbows.

As historical interpretations have evolved, the Spanish usurpation and how it is construed remain a tinderbox in Mexico.

Sheinbaum, the Mexico City mayor and a protege of the president, recalled her youthful miseducation about Mexico’s origins.

“They made us see — or at least, that was the history that I learned in school — that the conquest of Mexico had been almost romantic, and that there had simply been an ‘encounter of two worlds,’ ” she said. “And, in reality, history wasn’t like that.”

Cortés, an ambitious and ruthless adventurer with a penchant for defying his superiors, arrived on Mexico’s Gulf coast in 1519 and set his sights on the treasures of the Aztec Empire, based hundreds of miles away in a high-altitude valley flanked by volcanoes. He and his 500 or so initial troops proceeded north, convincing legions of Indigenous adversaries of the Aztecs to join them as warriors, porters and laborers.

Accompanying Cortés was his interpreter and trusted consort, Malintzin, an Indigenous woman now known as La Malinche, who remains an incendiary figure in Mexico — denounced in popular culture as a traitor, but celebrated by some as an extraordinary woman who overcame slavery, prejudice and misogyny.

The Spaniards were awed at first sight of the wondrous island-city of Tenochtitlán, with its broad causeways across a series of lakes.

“These great towns … and buildings rising from the water, all made of stone, seemed like an enchanted vision,” Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a member of the expedition, wrote in “The Conquest of New Spain.” “Indeed, some of our soldiers asked if it was not all a dream.”

Montezuma, both wary and curious, had sent emissaries in a bid to dissuade the strangers from venturing to his capital. When Cortés insisted, the emperor extended a welcome to the newcomers, providing luxurious lodgings and a “sumptuous dinner” after thousands of Aztecs lined up to gawk at the foreigners’ motley ranks, wrote Díaz del Castillo.

The Spaniards, fearing a gilded trap, hatched an audacious plot: They grabbed Montezuma at his palace and forced him back to their quarters and held him hostage. The great monarch whose many underlords could not even look him in the eyes would never be a free man again.

The Aztecs revolted in 1520 after a Spanish massacre of their noblemen at the Templo Mayor. The conquistadors and their allies suffered heavy casualties as they fled the city. Killed during the tumult was the captive Montezuma. The Spaniards pinned his death on a native mob, but many historians believe that the enraged conquistadors executed Montezuma.

Mexican schoolchildren have long learned about the Noche Triste — The Night of Sadness — as the Spaniards’ nocturnal retreat from the Aztec uprising is known.

This year, in another revisionist touch, Mexico City renamed the plaza where a grief-stricken Cortés supposedly mourned his losses as Noche Victoriosa, or Night of Victory.

“It’s time to give a voice to the original peoples of our land,” Sheinbaum tweeted last month, heralding the rebranding of the plaza. “It’s time to revise the past in order to transform the present.”

One problem: Historians say casualties among the Indigenous rank and file aiding Cortés far outnumbered Spaniards who perished in the chaotic withdrawal. Scholars also dispute the mayor’s comments that contemporary racism in Mexico can be traced to the Spanish.

“This government makes political use of history and thinks that changing the name of a plaza changes history,” said Alejandro Rosas, an independent historian. “The typical idea is that [Mexico] was practically an earthly paradise until the Spanish brought all the bad. That’s also false.”

Cortés soon regrouped and, with reinforcements from Spain and additional Indigenous recruits, launched his siege of Tenochtitlán.

By then, a smallpox outbreak — the native people of the Americas had no immunity to the virus — had ravaged the Aztec capital. Nonetheless, its warriors mounted a spirited defense, using hundreds of canoes to transport forces between the city and the lake shore and to thwart enemy advances on the causeways. Cortés deployed newly built brigantines with sails, oarsmen and cannon while blockading supplies of food and fresh water to the city.

In what is surely one of the epic battles in the history of the Americas, tens of thousands were killed in months of cavalry and infantry charges, door-to-door urban warfare and naval engagements. In his firsthand account, Díaz del Castillo describes onslaughts of arrows, darts and stones and the doleful sight of Spanish prisoners being placed on sacrificial altars as captors cut open their chests and “drew out their palpitating hearts which they offered to the idols before them.”

But the battered, starving Aztecs finally surrendered on Aug. 13, 1521, their last emperor, Cuauhtémoc, captured and tortured. Cortés ordered Cuauhtémoc executed four years later for alleged treason.

“We could not walk without treading on the bodies and heads of dead Indians,” wrote Díaz del Castillo. “The stench was so bad that no one could endure it.”

Cortés eventually returned to Spain to deal with various legal and financial entanglements. He died there in 1547. He was 62.

Convinced that his achievements had been underappreciated in Spain, he had wanted his body returned to Mexico. It took almost two decades, but in 1566 his remains were shipped across the Atlantic.

As anti-Spanish independence fervor gripped Mexico in the early 19th century, some feared that independistas would desecrate the remains. So in the 1820s, one of Cortés’ sympathizers reportedly collected the remains for safekeeping, hiding them in a hospital. Years later, he secretly hollowed out a space at the Jesus of Nazareth Church, deposited a lead, wood and glass container holding the bones — including a skull wrapped in lace — and then repaired the wall, according to various accounts in the Spanish and Mexican press.

The church is said to be around the corner from the spot where Cortés and Montezuma first met, though contemporary, traffic-clogged Mexico City is unrecognizable from the island Aztec capital.

The whereabouts of Cortés’ remains were a mystery until 1946, when the discovery of a document revealed the secret and Mexican officials authorized a team to extract them. The bones were returned to the church wall the following year with the simple red plaque.

Amid Friday’s memorial events, none are planned for Cortés.

[sudarshan]

From kigetartS thread:

^^^ western society under the leadership of the ultra left has lost its collective minds. With gender being a social construct.

In school you have a situation where a biological male can use the female toilet and if girls object then they get abused as transphobic.

The rapper Zubi and one of the conservative peer had nicely exposed this stupidity. The constant attacks on author JK Rowling for saying that she is a woman and her experiences matter.

In another situation a biological male who was a serial sex offender was put inside a prison for females and went on to assault female prisoners.

In the state of Virginia in US. One of the school districts had a horrific situation where a biological male claiming to be a trans assaulted female students in the girls toilet. The incident got covered up and the student transferred to another school.

No legal action was taken against him.


The IOC during Tokyo Olympics had taken this to a different level.

By permitting trans men to compete with biological women and permitting their testosterone levels to be 10 times higher than the permitted testosterone level for biological women.

Post Olympics they have decided to conduct more studies on the topic.

Rachel McKinnon and Fallon Fox are well known examples of biological male transiting to women and beating up biological women.

Pratyushji
A noob pooch
I am just proposing this hypothesis with no approval from Ethics Committee and no study conducted
A trans with a 'Wang' acts as a 'Alpha Male' if he is the only 'AM' around (a la per Desert Cult you can use any orifice) but if he is surrounded by Uber 'Alpha Dogs' then meekly submits for GUBO
But gets off either way a kind of 'Double Dhamaka' so to speak
Mods please note I am not Homophobic!!

You can duckduckgo for "what fraction is LGBT" and you will get estimates ranging from 2% to 4%. Though they make it seem like 20% to 40%. That's what an outsized political voice does for you. And what with celebrities using it as an easy way to get some attention for themselves, it even seems like they are in the majority.

Of course there was persecution (still is), based on the views of certain "bookish" folks (if you know what I mean), but nowadays the real reason why people are annoyed by it all, seems to be more to do with the extreme narcissism of the entire movement. It just has to be "in your face." They go out of their way to provoke responses, and then play up the victim card for attention and other incidental benefits such as a million dollars from a lawsuit. And the pronouns have graduated way beyond just "they" or "them," it seems the recent trend is to refer to themselves using tree pronouns or demon pronouns, etc. And also to insist that everybody respects their pronoun preference, else the victim card is always ready.

Nobody has as yet challenged me to articulate the "Hindoo view" of all this, but my response is ready. "Paropakarartu idam shariram." This body is to be used for the service of others. Not so much for chasing every single fantasy which may cross one's mind. Take a look at the amount of poverty and hunger around, start doing small things to address that, and before one knows it, it will become a full-time occupation, and one will no longer have time to wonder about pronouns. This is regardless of whether one is straight or spiral or hyperbolic.

What I find baffling, is that the Hindu epics and puranas are full of tales (to use the words of P. G. Wodehouse - paraphrased) of "men who did, and women who shouldn't have, but who took a pop at it anyway." But all of those are hetero, so to speak. No stories from the homo point of view. But the desert cults are fascinated by that meme. Maybe it's got to do with the rigid interpretation of "paapa" = "sin" and ... erm ... what's their word for "punya" again...? Oh, that's right, they don't even have one!

There are those who snicker at Arjuna's words in the Gita saying to Krishna "I never realized your greatness all these days, forgive my familiarity for treating you as just another friend, as we even lay on the same bed - please forgive it the way a wife tolerates and forgives the familiarity of her husband." But that's just their interpretation of course. Nilesh Oak also mentions being startled by a story in the MB, wherein, Krishna and Arjuna are sporting with their wives in private, and the scene is of Arjuna in repose, with his feet in (IIRC) Rukmini's lap! But the truth is, that to the best of my (feeble) knowledge, I can't find a single romantic "gay" story from the epics or puranas, they just aren't interested in that perspective.

There's no "phobia" - Shikandi was a transgender, who went on to become a Maharathi; and Shiva Himself sports the form of "ardhanareeshwar." If one is that way, fine, good for you and all that, but the perspective isn't glorified to the point of narcissism. And certainly neither romanticized, nor demonized.

[SRajesh]

Sudarshanji
Thanks
My point was more from the Venal, self-centred, selfish and more about self-gratification point of view and not from the cultural/civilizational point.
All this in-your-face, victim-card etc represents self-centred/selfish approach isnt it!
Though there are no direct references in the puranas, I often wondered about the terms Kinnara/Kimpurusha!. But did not find any derogatory terms in the limited amount I have read.
From the Indian/Hindu society point of view the treatment of Trans or Hijaras though not appalling could have been better. And not many in the Indian society come out about excess or maltreatment though anecdotal incidents of mistreatment in the police station or by close family members are galore!

[Cyrano]

Isn't there a Bengali sect/community of semi-ascetic celibate men who live together bound by love and intimacy without the relationship getting into homosexuality? I remember watching a documentary on it many years ago and the western film maker's perplexity that such relationships could exist. Cant recollect the sect's name though.

[ramana]

Very good articulation of the crux of history as we see Non Western world asserting it self.

https://twitter.com/US_China_Menu/statu ... jC8og&s=19

[Cyrano]

This is perhaps the right thread for this excellent article?

Hippocratic oath and Charaka's oath:

https://brhat.in/2022/05/28/reclaiming-medical-ethics/

[ramana]

Book Review of Eccentric Civilization
By Ram Madhav

Do identities matter? A debate has been raging in the Western world for several decades now. While classical liberalism rejected group identities in the name of individual liberty and freedom, neo-liberals tend to emphasize identities of marginalized groups while rejecting larger identities like nation as oppressive. There is an ongoing inherent conflict between these two groups within liberal tradition, which was highlighted by Francis Fukuyama in one of his recent books, “Liberalism and Its Discontent”.

On the conservative side, the argument was always in favor of larger group identities like race, religion, and nation. The conservative thought upheld society above individuals and thus became the target of an intellectual onslaught from the liberal left.

Two decades ago, Samuel Huntington, a renowned American conservative thinker and political philosopher from Harvard authored an important book, one of the dozen or so that he had written, called “Who Are We?”. As the subtitle of the book suggested, it was about the “challenges to America’s national identity”. Much like his earlier book, “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order”, this one too immediately raised the hackles of the liberal establishment who denounced him as a parochial nationalist. Yet, what Huntington did in his 2003 book on America’s identity challenges was to contest the description of that country as a ‘melting pot’ and insist that the first English people, whom he calls ‘settlers’ and not ‘immigrants’, had brought with them a cultural identity. He calls it the American core and describes it as ‘Anglo-Protestantism’. It is not just the political ideas that form the foundation of the American constitution like liberty, equality, individualism and laissez-faire, called by Thomas Jefferson as the ‘American Creed’, but a national cultural identity developed over three centuries on the core ideals of protestant ethics, the English language and the rule of law.

Around the time the debate over this identity question was raging in America came another significant book, “Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization”, by Remi Brague, a French historian of philosophy. Although called ‘Western Civilization’, Brague’s book primarily deals with the identity of Europe as a civilization and culture.

When a reporter asked Gandhi once what he thought of Western civilization, he famously replied with a smirk: “I think it would be a good idea.” Remi wouldn’t agree with Gandhi. He insisted in his book that Europe, the cradle of Western civilization, has had a cultural identity of its own for a long time. Remi also disagrees with Hegel’s ‘depreciating’ statement that “From the beginning, Rome was something artificial, something violent, and not at all original”.

Instead, the central thesis of Remi’s book was that the core identity of Europe was Roman. He argues that Europe’s culture comes down to two elements “that cannot be reduced to one another”. Those two elements are Jewish tradition and pagan antiquity. By pagan, what Remi meant was Europe’s Greek history. But then, he emphatically argues that “Europe is not only Greek, nor only Hebrew, nor even Greco-Hebraic. It is just as decidedly Roman”. To make it more radical-sounding, Remi adds, “we are not and cannot be “Greeks” and “Jews” unless we are first of all Romans”.

Historically speaking, this will be a problematic proposition because both Greeks and Jews predate Romans. But when Remi talked about ‘Romanity’, he was talking about an idea, not a history. Europe is the integrated sum of Greek and Jewish components “from a Roman point of view”.

But then, what is that ‘Roman point of view’? Rome was the successor of Athens, thus inheriting Greek paganism and also philosophy. Judaism too predates the rise of the Roman empire. But the Roman empire turned Christian, when Emperor Constantine embraced Christianity in 312 AD. Thus, in Remi’s view, it was Christianity that was the third and integrating component of the Greco-Jewish lineage of Europe. “This ‘Roman’ structure is the very structure of the Christian reality”, Remi concludes.

As this Romanised European identity was taking shape came the Islamic intervention. Remi appreciates the initial centuries of Islam when the Arabs zealously collected, collated and Arabized the knowledge available in Greek, Roman and Hindu traditions. But then, Islam also declared that Judaism and Christianity were impure carriers of God’s word, which Remi finds troubling for his thesis. The prophet of Islam, although he admitted that the Jews and Christians received previous prophets sent by the God, argued that they failed to fully grasp the meaning of His Word. It resulted in distortion of the Word and Islam came as the final pure interpretation of it. This concept of tampering with the Word had resulted in Islamised Arabs destroying all the previous original knowledge sources, leaving only the Arabic translations. “In doing this, the Islamized world made the phenomenon of ‘renaissance’ impossible”, rues Remi.

While Byzantium and Islam didn’t leave any scope for renaissance, Catholic Christian Europe had allowed it. It is this renaissance worldview that had led to the European construct. “The civilization of Europe has been constructed by people for whom the end was not at all to construct a “Christian civilization”, but to make the most of the consequences of their faith in Christ. We owe it to people who believe in Christ, not to people who believe in Christianity. These people were Christians, and not what one might call “Christianizers””, Remi quips.

Remi concludes his thesis with the fervent plea that “the cultural task that awaits Europe could therefore consist in becoming Roman once again”.

Remi Brague’s thesis on Europe’s identity came out in 2002, around the time when Samuel Huntington was presenting his theory of American identity. Both presented identical arguments. For Huntington, Americanism involved Protestant ethics, while for Brague, Europeanism meant paganism, Judaism and Christianity. Both of course clarified that they were not talking about any organised religion, but only about the cultural ethics.

Remi didn’t face as much opposition as Huntington did. The reason could be, as Remi himself pointed out in his book, that Europeanism consisted not only of Judaism and Christianity, the two definitive creeds, but also of a more liberal paganism and later day Greek philosophy?

An interesting philosophical work for students of history, culture and civilization.

[ramana]

I finally realized Manu Smriti is about the four types of people needed to run human societies. Intellectuals/Brahmins, Warrior/Kshatriyas, Mercantile/Traders/ Vaishyas, Industrious/Artisans/Shudra. It describes the characteristics of these groups. It was translated literally and thus reads difficult for modern Xianised education.

Confucius also divided society into 4 groups Scholars, Farmers, Artisans, and Traders. Again it is the idea that dominates the minds of these people.
Jacques LeGoff classifies Feudal Europe as Noble/ Priests/ Farmers.
Tsarist Russia had nobles and serfs

KM Munshi in his preface to one volume of Medieval history laments that this age which was prevalent in India and further in East Asia for many millennia got swept away with the advent of Mahmud of Ghazni.

I don't think it got swept away for Bharat survived and restored itself. Let me explain myself.

The early Sultanate period from 1200 AD to 1526 AD was the Muslim Khshatriya Age. The Mughal-Maratha period was a system run by intellectuals Wazirs and Peshwas, the British period was run by a mercantile or Vaishya mindset. The Freedom struggle would not have come without the vast industrious peasants and factory working middle class and can say was powered by the Shudra mindset. Sadly they retreated after the British were removed and slipped back into intellectual class till 1962. This period got taken over by mercantile in politics and society. Till NaMo revolution was powered by Kshatriya mentality.

We are here now.

[ramana]

Order is the Cement that holds society together. Manu Smriti gave an Ordered society not based on military primacy unlike in the Judeo-Christian/Greco-Roman West. The danger with military primacy is one defeat upends ancient/existing order and uncements/unglues the society. Reading the "Seven Military Classics of Ancient China" shows gradually the emphasis of changing order primacy from military to 'political' strategy so much so that by Three Kingdoms period even though military victory is important for establishing new dynasties it is through strategy implemented over the succeeding generations that kept China together despite divisions. And the need for constant mobility in the ordered society.
An even better example is the Song dynasty which changed administration from military leaders to scholars selected by a rigorous examination system.

[khatvaanga]

I finally realized Manu Smriti is about the four types of people needed to run human societies.

our itihasa and puranas have always held this true .. in the sense caste wasnt as rigid as it is made out to be. i think either in Manusmriti or elsewhere I remember reading that any brahmin whoz intellect is not that well developed but is interested in arts or arms can become one. so to your point... it will be really really good for us to more or less go back to the 4 groups..

i see this happening now and in near future..

1. Skill India to strengthen the shudra aspect in us
2. MUDRA et al to strengthen the Trading / Vaishya aspect
3. Agniveer to strengthen the Kshatra in us.
4. Focus on Civilizational India + increase in IITs, AIIMs etc as strengthening the "learned". For scholarly in true sense it has to come from within and GoI / Modi cannot jumpstart that in us. Maybe when our abrhamic constitution gets rewritten into Dharma / Smriti based ones I dont see that happening on large scale or at least the scale that we need to.

[sanjayc]

I finally realized Manu Smriti is about the four types of people needed to run human societies

I had this epiphany too .. but the concept of Varna is much deeper and directly derives from laws of basic human nature.

Any human society, when left alone, will automatically organize itself into these four groups ... all four are essential for its survival.

A society achieves its maximum potential when all four of these are present in it and all are equally strong. This is an ideal society where humans can maximize their potential. Such a society dominates the world and the whole world looks up to it (like ancient India). But all four varnas should remain in balance. Any varna that becomes stronger than others skews the nature of the society, opening itself to threats from others in weaker varnas. For example, when Indian society began to lack in intellectual rigor (brahmin varna), Western academicians stepped into the gap and started defining our history and culture for us. If you lack in enough people interested in doing physical labor (shudras), the society is forced to import them from other countries (hence Indian labor migrating to middle east or Europe to do menial work because those societies shun the shudra element).

Like societies, all the four varnas are represented in an individual too. An individual with all the four varnas dominant is an ideal human, complete in all respects (but rarely exists in this world.) In others, one of the varnas is dominant in one's personality. Varna is the "temperament" or natural aptitude that one is born with. (Hence it is said that Varna is by birth.)

For example, some people naturally excel in military thinking even though have no military background (Sardar Patel, for example), some in intellectual pursuits, some have dexterity with hands or physical labor, and some are natural businessmen. You cannot escape the Varna you are born with -- better to recognize what Varna is dominant in you, and try to build your life around it as that would be your natural strength and you will naturally excel in that field.

This is a philosophy that Westerns are unable to comprehend, and turn it into a caricature. This is because Abrahamics do not have the deep insights into the working of human mind, as our ancestors had.

[ramana]

Can you write an essay and blog it?

[Adrija]

A society achieves its maximum potential when all four of these are present in it and all are equally strong. This is an ideal society where humans can maximize their potential. Such a society dominates the world and the whole world looks up to it (like ancient India). But all four varnas should remain in balance.

Precisely- the varnas were based on principle of balance and no single one becoming overwhelmingly powerful. Kshatriyas- whol held political power- were enjoined to act only on advice of priests/ ministers (brahmins); brahmins who had influence were prohibited from acquiring wealth; the vaisya- who did commerce- were barred form either owning the means of production or holding political office; and shudras, who held and operated the economic assets (means of production) were prohibited from exercising political power or wealth

IMHO that is what allowed India to escape the worst of feudalism a la Eurpean societies which even now offer little or no social mobility to their underclass. India in contrast ofers perhaps the most social mobility in the world. Previuosly that was the great Murican dream but that has eroded and almost disappeared starting from Reagen's time, accelerated under Clinton and Dubya, Trump and now Biden

[nandakumar]

Isn't this similar to what Ravi Batra wrote? I recall reading a book of his in 1990 where he spoke of four classes of people (resembling our four Varnas). He went on to postulate that these classes move up and down over time to the reins of power at different times. He pointed to the example of Iran where the priestly class (Ayatollah) which assumed power in 1979 and continues to lord it over the society since then.

[ramana]

Yes he did. Based on PR Sarkar books.

[Cyrano]

I wonder if we can draw some parallels between Maslow's tier pyramid and varna system as an organism. Something to ponder...

[ramana]

Cyrano, We need to make all models we can to understand.
In Maslow's pyramid also need to look at different thickness for the layers.

[Cyrano]

Exactly Ramana garu...

[ramana]

Pre-Colonial Africa map

[ramana]

A look at Greco-Roman foundations of Western society


Gifford Lectures:

https://www.giffordlectures.org/lecture ... and-ethics

Lecture 1 - Introduction: murderous games

Monday 6 May 2019

This lecture introduces some of those moral and ethical dilemmas in studying the classical world, asking how we understand remote ancient cultures that have come to stand both for the pinnacle of "civilisation" and for the nadir of corruption and cruelty. Choosing the gladiatorial games as one case study, it takes aim at the sense of moral superiority that we so often display in the face of some of antiquity's worst "crimes".

Lecture 2 - Whiteness

Tuesday 7 May 2019

This lecture moves from the colour of ancient statues to the skin colour of the Greeks and Romans themselves. Why have these issues proved so inflammatory in the study of antiquity? Who is committed to a white vision of the ancient world, and why? It argues not that antiquity was a world before racism, but that its very different ideas about colour (skin and otherwise) can destabilise our own.

Lecture 3 - Lucretia and the politics of sexual violence

Thursday 9 May 2019

In ancient Rome political change was regularly tied to sexual violence (the Rape of the Sabines, the Rape of Lucretia, the murder of Virginia).

How do we make sense of this? The lecture argues that the Romans themselves discussed these (mythical) incidents much more subtly than we often give them credit for, and that the Rape of Lucretia in particular has for 2000 years raised important questions about power, responsibility and consent.

Lecture 4 - Them and us

Monday 27 May 2019

This lecture explores various forms of exclusion and inclusion in antiquity, from slave versus free to women versus men. Can we ever understand how that might have seemed "natural"? And what does it tell us about our own exclusions? Given the drastic disparities in power, wealth and influence that underpinned all ancient cultures, in what sense can they ever be seen as a model of inclusion and "toleration"?

Lecture 5 - Tyranny and democracy

Tuesday 28 May 2019

This lecture is about politics ancient and modern. What political inheritance do we imagine we can trace back to the ancient world? On what does our admiration for Athenian democracy rest, or our hatred of Roman autocrats?


Lecture 6 - Classical Civilisation?

Thursday 30 May 2019

This lecture concludes the series by facing head on the idea of "classical civilisation". How far has it always been a weapon of elite exclusivity? Or how far has it simultaneously acted to challenge elite power? And what is its future?

[Yayavar]

Shouldn't it really be Egyptian-Greek-Roman->western? Egypt was the established leader in the region when Greek's rose, and the Romans took over from the Greeks. It is the same region around Mediterranean with land connection.

[ramana]

They don't like to acknowledge Egyptian contribution.
Besides Egyptian were finished by time the Greeks rose.

[ramana]

https://twitter.com/ramana_brf/status/1 ... VODag&s=19


"It is possible we are in the early stages of the Russification of Germanic Europe which took over from Roman Europe. BTW, Rome was taken over by barbarians who were Germanic people. It took 1000 years for them to emerge out of Dark Ages. Secular Europe, commerce empires, etc..."

[ramana]

Chancellor Olaf says

https://twitter.com/ramana_brf/status/1 ... sxwuA&s=19

President Putin trying to re-establish Russia as an 'imperial power' in Europe : German Chancellor Olaf

[Pratyush]

Chancellor Olaf says

https://twitter.com/ramana_brf/status/1 ... sxwuA&s=19

President Putin trying to re-establish Russia as an 'imperial power' in Europe : German Chancellor Olaf

That's because the idiots in western Europe and USA didn't leave Russia with any choice but to become an imperial power again.

Talk about doing everything to make your worst fears come true due to your own actions.

[Haresh]

And here we go, it was the Indians who were responsible !!

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... nformation

[Tanaji]

And here we go, it was the Indians who were responsible !!

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... nformation

Trust the local Gungadin to pipe up and blame Modi and hindooooooo

[titash]

Cross-Posting from the India-UK forum:

The agendas and wish-lists of the 'Radical Left' (its really hard to call them 'Left liberal' anymore) and the 'Islamic Right' have aligned so closely that its very hard to associate them with anything other than blatant Hinduphobia.

Whether the Western/Indian leadership and society elites likes it or not, this overt Hinduphobic bias will eventually drive India into a close embrace with Russia and China. Unlike the Democrats & the Labor Party & NYT / WaPo / BBC / Al Guardian, etc., Putin and Eleven have never said or done anything about our core belief systems

Eleven's actions in Xinjiang have clearly shown to all and sundry that:
(1) how the correct application of an oiled danda can pacify a rebellious peacefool province
(2) peacefool countries like iron birathers / ummah leader / wannabe ummah leader etc. don't give a rats ar$e about Eleven's actions
(3) if you have a large manufacturing / technology economy + a large navy + nukes, everyone will line up to kiss your ar$e

None of these data points are missed by any Indian neta / babu / sainik / aam aadmi

[Vayutuvan]

Chancellor Olaf says

https://twitter.com/ramana_brf/status/1 ... sxwuA&s=19

That's because the idiots in western Europe and USA didn't leave Russia with any choice but to become an imperial power again.

Talk about doing everything to make your worst fears come true due to your own actions.

Germany elected an O(l)af.

[ramana]

S. Gurumurthy speaks on the impact of the Ukraine War on the Western World.



He talks in English after 5:00 minutes.

He quotes HAK and Soros speech at WEF decrying the coming fall.

[Rony]

delete