Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Anand K · Post by **Anand K** » 27 Jul 2014 08:37

AFAIK the concept of will and "free will" is not a big deal in Indian philosophy as it is in the West. That is, in the way it is defined and dwelled upon over there. Add to it epistemology based purely on Grace and right there you have fundamental divergences between West and East. I mean just look at how something akin to the Gettier Problem is seen in various Indian darsanas versus Christian theology.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 27 Jul 2014 08:41

A_Gupta wrote:However, it is the nature of Christians and Islamics - they are compelled by their religions to seek religion in every encounter with other cultures. And thus "Hinduism" was born.

I think the level at which to engage the "religions" is at the level of Smritis. It has beliefs, values, rules, goals and defines what the age of consent is for goats.

The problem is two fold. The Smritis stopped evolving for the past 1000-1500 years. The other issue is most Macuaylite Hindus are ashamed and are unable to defend the ideological contours of their society and its practices and laws and when faced with "western" precepts tend to junk their heritage and learnings rather than reform and update its smritis , in adherence to its ideological contours. I attribute this degradation partly to the lack of organization amongst our sampradayas but mostly to the lack of political unity allowing others to step in and compounding issues.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 27 Jul 2014 10:14

I am trying to locate a blog article by SN Balagangadhara that says what he said in the following news

Concept of human rights has roots in religion

Prof. Balu said that although the human rights values have been defined rather recently through the Uinted Nations and other such forums and people, the base for such values has always been religious thelogy. “It was only recently that people decided to get rid of the word ‘God’ from there and secularise it”, he said.

He said that there is a need to rethink religion in India as people know India mostly through the framework and perspective provided by the west. “It is not the description of India or Indian culture. It is a description of the European experience of India”, he said.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 27 Jul 2014 12:05

Anand K wrote:AFAIK the concept of will and "free will" is not a big deal in Indian philosophy as it is in the West. That is, in the way it is defined and dwelled upon over there. Add to it epistemology based purely on Grace and right there you have fundamental divergences between West and East. I mean just look at how something akin to the Gettier Problem is seen in various Indian darsanas versus Christian theology.

In fact free will is freely allowed in Indian tradition. That is what explains the chaos and "lack of respect for law" in India

This post from Arun Gupta, taken from SN Balagangadhara explains the problem

The question of what a human's "rights" are are derived from Christian theology. A sovereign (Raja/ruler) has absolute rights to do what he please within his domain. His domain is what he created and what he owns.

God created everything, so God is the sovereign who enjoys absolute rights over everything. The problem that crops up here is whether man has any rights at all. If there is only one God, there is only one sovereign and that sovereign rules over his domain and no one else has rights.

So does a farmer have rights over his produce?

if you say 'Yes he does" then you are immediately creating two sovereigns and two domains. One is God the creator and his right over everything, and the second is your farmer whose produce is his domain and he has absolute rights over that. Technically not even God can have rights over that. But this is a contradiction that does not work. You cannot have two sovereigns treading on each others' toes. When it comes to the farmer's produce, does God have absolute rights over it as he created everything? or does the farmer have rights over his produce?

This issue has been solved by removing God and "secularizing" the issue and creating multiple sovereigns - multiple humans who have multiple domains over which they have absolute rights - and these domains could be ownership rights or moral domains such as freedoms to so something. When you have billions of "sovereigns" claiming absolute rights over their billions of domains it causes the following issues:
1. You have rights over your domain all right
2. Your rights get restricted the minute someone disputes your domain and insists that you are encroaching on his domain
3. There is no good reason why you or anyone else should respect the other guy's domain (the other guy's claimed rights). In fact one could, and one does take the "might is right" route

So already you have a structure in which your rights are restricted by what others feel are their rights. This has been further aggravated by imposing "laws" where a legalistic view is taken. Laws are imposed saying "These are your rights. These are not". So any rights you may seek as an individual and the rights you have are entirely defined by a statute book made by someone else.

It is a direct contradiction to claim that you are an individual with rights after which the state or system then proceed to award you "rights" that others have imposed on you. These would not be your rights. They are simply rules imposed by an outside agency - the state laws. Now go back to God. If God has absolute rights over everything, then what he says is your law. Your right is only to obey God's law - which is also a law imposed on you by an outside agency, which is God.

The exact same model of rights bestowed by God is followed in the western model of rights, except that the name "God" and his commands has been removed by "secularization" and replaced by imposed laws. Every man is told he has rights but no man has freedom to do whatever he pleases as would be expected from the true meaning of freedom and liberty. If you were brought up in a system where the church ruled you, you would accept this fudging as "rights". The only thing that this fake model of rights does is to allow you to break the rules of Christianity. For nations with a Christian ethos this is itself might seem like tremendous liberty. But it does not actually allow any freedom or rights outside of a law that has replaced the Bible/Church.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 27 Jul 2014 16:09

Christianity undiluted by the Enlightenment:
http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs ... -20-years/

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 27 Jul 2014 17:17

shiv wrote:
Anand K wrote:AFAIK the concept of will and "free will" is not a big deal in Indian philosophy as it is in the West. That is, in the way it is defined and dwelled upon over there. Add to it epistemology based purely on Grace and right there you have fundamental divergences between West and East. I mean just look at how something akin to the Gettier Problem is seen in various Indian darsanas versus Christian theology.
In fact free will is freely allowed in Indian tradition. That is what explains the chaos and "lack of respect for law" in India

Shiv ji: The ossification of castes in India did create some free will issues for our society. This aspect cannot be ignored. It is true that "lack of respect for law" has been a major issue because most civil and criminal issues were dealt with within the framework of the family, community and local panchayat/gram levels. The opportunities afforded to the local state / enforcer of laws was limited and compounding the fact was this authority's capability to enforce laws within the territories he controlled/ruled. This is the reason why as soon as British power made any impact at the district levels, people did start to approach these courts, if they were not happy with the traditional settlements routes. This is what happens even now.

So, although our issue of free will has not been like the west's struggle with the monarch and the church, it nevertheless has and have had its struggles rooted in the ossification of castes.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 27 Jul 2014 18:07

ShauryaT wrote:The ossification of castes in India did create some free will issues for our society. This aspect cannot be ignored. It is true that "lack of respect for law" has been a major issue because most civil and criminal issues were dealt with within the framework of the family, community and local panchayat/gram levels. The opportunities afforded to the local state / enforcer of laws was limited and compounding the fact was this authority's capability to enforce laws within the territories he controlled/ruled. This is the reason why as soon as British power made any impact at the district levels, people did start to approach these courts, if they were not happy with the traditional settlements routes. This is what happens even now.

So, although our issue of free will has not been like the west's struggle with the monarch and the church, it nevertheless has and have had its struggles rooted in the ossification of castes.

Interesting - I have not thought about this much and when I do it appears like there is a whole lot here that would merit discussion - but any thoughts I have would be OT for this thread - so let me leave it at that for now.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 27 Jul 2014 18:09

A challenge (from 1985):

Unlike the earlier generations of Asian intelligentsia, we are not confronted by what they had to cope with viz., a dynamic western society. We know only too well today, what choices they had and what they made of them yesterday: either they retreated into obscurantist revivalism touting the indigenous culture as the only or the best form of life, or took to an aggressive hawking in the street bazaars of Asia those goods and products bought at bargain-basement prizes from giant warehouses elsewhere. The first went into bankruptcy in its country of origin while some entrepreneurial elements amongst them shifted their shops from the banks of the Ganges and the Kaveri to that of a Thames and a Hudson. The second has made fortunes by selling remainders at retail prices. Either way, the Asian culture stagnated: our intellectuals had lost a world they never had and grew up in one they never knew. And we, their heirs and legatees, have to struggle to make an alien world our own whilst our own becomes alien.

All of this was yesterday. Today? Today, Europe has turned in on itself. Its culture has developed agoraphobia. Its leaders are parochial and provincial, its intellectuals amnesic, its body-politic anaemic and its citizenry cynical. It is a world grown old beyond its age, its vision myopic and bi-dimensional, and its perspective short and shallow. This enables us to study some of its values and presuppositions without being overawed by its dynamism; the static nature of European society today throws these values up in sharp relief.
......

.....Without the least bit of exaggeration it could be held that the study of societies and cultures is a project initiated by the Western world. Over the centuries, Western intellectuals have studied both themselves and other cultures and, in the process of doing so, they have developed a set of theories and methodologies to understand the human world. What we call ‘social sciences’ are the result of the gigantic labour performed by brilliant and not-so-brilliant men and women from all over the world over a long period of time.

Let us formulate a hypothetical question in order to express our intuition: would the results have been the same or even approximately similar if, say, the Asians had undertaken such a task instead of the Europeans? Suppose that, in the imaginary world we are talking about, it was the effort of the Asian intellectuals reflecting about the European culture and that of their own, as they saw both, which eventuated in social sciences. Would it have looked like contemporary social sciences?

...and an Answer

I put to you that the most natural answer to the question is this: “We do not know”. It is worthwhile reflecting on this answer.

When we confess to being unable to answer the question, it does not arise from an impossibility to answer questions about hypothetical situations: all our scientific laws describe hypothetical situations and we can say what would happen in such situations. (E.g., ‘what would happen if I drop a stone from the top of a building? It would fall downwards...etc.’)

Our claim to ignorance has to do with the specific kind of hypothetical situation which the question picks out, and with the feeling that there is no way to check the veracity of the answers one may give.

That is, because we have no model of such an attempt, we have no way of deciding how to go about answering such a question. Worse still, because we have no models where the answers can come out either true or false, we feel that all answers to this question are meaningless and, therefore, that the question itself is meaningless. The question has not violated any syntactic or semantic rule; it has not committed any category mistake and yet we do not know how to make sense of this question.

There is a peculiar air about this state of affairs. We are not able to make sense of a question which asks us, literally, how we appear to ourselves and how the West appears to us. And yet, we have been studying both ourselves and the West for quite sometime now!

We know the West as the West looks at itself. We study the East the way West studies the East. We look at the world the way West looks at it. We do not even know whether the world would look different, if we looked at it our way. Today, we are not in a position even to make sense of the above statement. When Asian anthropologists or sociologists or culturologists do their anthropology, sociology or culturology – the West is really talking to itself.

Western culture, with background assumptions peculiar to it, ‘problematized’ some phenomenon which has taken the status of a fact to us: we prattle on endlessly about the problem of ‘the Indian caste system’, the amorphous nature of ‘Hinduism’, the problem of ‘underdevelopment’, the ‘question of human rights in Asia’ ...etc. Idem for our perspectives on the West.

Surely, but surely, there is a problem here? If our culture differs from that of the West and if, per- force, our background theories and assumptions are other than those of the West, we could not pos- sibly either formulate questions or assign weights to them, both about us and the West, in exactly the same way the West does. Yet, we do – invariably and as a matter of fact. How can we make sense out of questions routinely copied from western social research, and then go on to answer them by means of empirical studies? But we do – we act as though these questions do make sense to us.

Be it as that may, this situation prevents us from either defending or attacking the Western social sci- ences: we cannot say that they are ‘true’ because we do not know any other. We cannot say they are ‘false’ because there are not any theories to compare them with. And that is why you will not find criticisms of Western social sciences in this paper.

Consequently, our task at this stage cannot be one of assessing Western social sciences. Therefore, we cannot ‘decolonize’ them either. But, what we can do is to try and say how the world appears to us. What are the things we take to exist in this world? What are the experiences important to us? If we try to do this by constantly contrasting our answers to the ones formulated by Western social sciences, then perhaps a stage will come when we could begin to talk about assessing Western social sciences. {emphasis added}. In this process, we shall have begun to construct an alternative (where possible) to Western social sciences.

What does it mean though to say or suggest that we try and describe the world as it looks to us? How can this be both rewarding and serious? It is the aim of this paper to answer these questions. For the moment, all we ought to remember from the foregoing is the following: even though we have been looking at the world, the social world that is, for centuries, we do not know how it appears to us!

This from 1985, who else but Balu

https://www.academia.edu/4214176/We_Sha ... xploration

Further reading:
https://sites.google.com/site/colonialc ... enaissance

chanakyaa · Post by **chanakyaa** » 27 Jul 2014 23:14

This dhaga has some great material to read and digest. While I'm chewing and ruminating on most of the information posted here, I was wondering how does killings of millions of human beings, WWII, Holucau$t, Vietman, Eastern Oerope, East India Co, Afg, Eyerak, Palae$tine etc. etc. fit into the Western Universalism pr0paganda? Or is it conveniently ignored? thanks

member_22733 · Post by **member_22733** » 27 Jul 2014 23:50

udaym wrote:This dhaga has some great material to read and digest. While I'm chewing and ruminating on most of the information posted here, I was wondering how does killings of millions of human beings, WWII, Holucau$t, Vietman, Eastern Oerope, East India Co, Afg, Eyerak, Palae$tine etc. etc. fit into the Western Universalism pr0paganda? Or is it conveniently ignored? thanks

Western Universalism is very peculiar that it is a form of exclusivist philosophy. It is peculiar because if you put together these words you get an oxymoron: Universalist-Exclusivist, but what it means is: They believe that their laws/culture/practice/learning applies universally, i.e. every human being. Those who do not follow them are "the other" and non-human or they exclude the non-followers from being considered human. In this respect they are very similar to Islam and Christianity, they can commit crimes of genocidal proportions and have no remorse, and this is exactly what they have done in all your examples.

The difference between the Abrahamic exclusivist and the modern "western universalist"-exclusivist is that the "western-universalist"-exclusivist philosophy evolves at a much faster rate that the Abrahamic exclusivist one. While the Abrahamic uses an archaic regressive book to justify mass murder of the non-followering "others", the western univesalist uses "mordern culture/liberalism" as a book to justify mass murder of the non-followig others.

So earlier colonialism and racism were "modern", and so was the white man. Non whites were the non-human others. After Hitler and the civil rights movements racism became a no-no, but gays were still despised. Now LGBT-phobia is a big no-no. Putin, Ahmadinejad etc get beaten up because of that.

The other point to note is that the followers of Christian/Jewish (and Boooooodhist) books are not considered to be non-human others by the western universalist. They are considered to be brutes, but humans. They are like a stoopid younger brother who is a bit retarded. The followers of non-Abrahamic philosophies and the Islamics are non-human. Islamics are non-human because they attack the crux of "modernity", they are evil. Whereas the Hindooooos are not evil, but are fair game for murder when it is necessary.

As an aside: You can see the cognitive dissonance in a western-universalist when they try to learn Yoga. They cannot bring themselves to believe that a sub-human backward culture like the Hindooooos could have come up with something like Yoga.

member_22733 · Post by **member_22733** » 28 Jul 2014 05:37

Here is an example of west must be right because west is "so advanced" thinking from a rather macaulayized libertarian:

https://twitter.com/dhume/status/493411210608771072

Dear Students: In 5000 BCE was it better to travel between Delhi and Mumbai on Air Pushpaka or to drive down in your Anashva Rath? [5 marks]

and followed by unquestionable pledge of allegiance to democracy

https://twitter.com/dhume/status/493508784124215298

The average Chinese is four times richer than the average Indian, but only the latter gets to call the PM an idiot. http://online.wsj.com/articles/book-rev ... reno64-wsj....

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 28 Jul 2014 06:38

A_Gupta wrote:
We know the West as the West looks at itself. We study the East the way West studies the East. We look at the world the way West looks at it. We do not even know whether the world would look different, if we looked at it our way. Today, we are not in a position even to make sense of the above statement. When Asian anthropologists or sociologists or culturologists do their anthropology, sociology or culturology – the West is really talking to itself.

What does it mean though to say or suggest that we try and describe the world as it looks to us? How can this be both rewarding and serious? It is the aim of this paper to answer these questions. For the moment, all we ought to remember from the foregoing is the following: even though we have been looking at the world, the social world that is, for centuries, we do not know how it appears to us!

This from 1985, who else but Balu
https://www.academia.edu/4214176/We_Sha ... xploration

Further reading:
https://sites.google.com/site/colonialc ... enaissance

Mind numbingly brilliant. I did not have the intellect to raise the questions - so Balu has once again turned a light on in my mind. But I see the germ of a set of answers in my mind and will post thoughts later when I have sorted them out in my mind.

Actually "we" do know how the world appears to us - but our descriptions of the world are better in native languages. We have always failed when it comes to describing our thoughts of western culture in English - because we fail in translation. Words in one Indian language do not always have and exact translation in another (English). Many explanations that Indians give of their views of the west end up being criticized as "medieval" or "racist". Sitting in India among Indians the same ideas do not sound either medieval or racist.

I have found that Indians who try to explain Indian concepts in English rarely have the grasp of English to do it adequately and end up spluttering and sounding stupid in English. There are a large number of exceptions and many Indians have bridged the divide with elan - even if some of them ended up being bitter critics of Indian-ness. I cannot claim to be a great scholar of serious non fiction Indian writings in English - but prominent names that come up in my mind include Balu himself, Aurobindo, Naipaul, possibly Deepak Chopra. I have not yet read much of Ram Swarup - so I can't comment , but among detractors of Indian culture there are still keen observers like Nirad Chaudhuri.

I think many of us on BRF can qualify as people whose command of English is adequate for the purpose. I believe we can apply our minds to translating an Indian view into English without apology or judgement. In discussions on private mailing lists I have found that portraying of an Indian viewpoint usually invites instant "pat comes the reply" criticism, often from Indians to swat down the Indian viewpoint as being different from universalism, and therefoe archaic and worthy of condemnation. One of the problems I have found about my own Macaulayite mindset is that I think of something Indian and my mind instantly applies western criticism to it exactly, exactly as Balu says: (paraphrsing his words)

I know the West as the West looks at itself. I study the East the way West studies the East. I look at the world the way West looks at it.

I have to clear out the western criticism that instantly crops up in my own mind first to think without a pre-established bias. And this is not just about the west, My own mind has a healthy dose of pseudo-secularism in which anything Hindu is filtered in my mind to see if it will hurt Muslim/Christian sentiment and even the truth is censored if the test fails. This is clearly the fault of my own education and only I can change it. But I know it affects a very large number of educated Indians. As for uneducated Indians - they don't know English and they don't count as they cannot defend Indian concepts in English

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 28 Jul 2014 07:06

Shiv ji: I will also recommend the works of T.N. Madan. He is an Indian academic and his works are well respected even amongst the defenders of Indian Secularism - but strictly in the academic domain and not political. Most of his works are off line and in old fashioned books. Attached are some that I have read and have liked. For a counter part to him defending the secularist narrative, recommend Rajeev Bhargava.

http://www.flipkart.com/religion-india- ... fb4c163851

http://www.flipkart.com/modern-myths-lo ... 74a7148890

Still going through this one...

http://www.flipkart.com/family-kinship- ... e8cbf40e9f

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 28 Jul 2014 07:15

WU is essentially Christian Universalism. therefore, it's primarily about "othering" the "others" that they see as alien.

ironically, Putin's Orthodox Russia today is the most cogent opposition to WU. Putin is steering Russia in a certain direction which appears to be the exact opposite of WU: the recent Russian state policies on gay marriage and homosexuality being the prime example.

but primarily these moves are a defensive measure to stem the Russian demographic bleeding. so, ultimately, the Russians might still have to retreat and accept their temporal weakness. but on a social/cultural level, the very fact that Russia with its powerful military and size has both the capabilities and intent to steer itself in a different direction is a very powerful signal for the coming generations.

Since Peter, Russia's direction has been West-focused with periodic interludes in the East.

modern Russia wants to stabilize its West, and adopt either East-focused, or at the very least, a neutral stance between the East/West game.

This is a significant change. we're talking about a paradigm-shift: the existing paradigm being one which is at least 300 years old. Russian memory counts some of its most famous and iconic figures in that period. and yet, they are shifting gears and changing the direction of their gaze.

P.S. I realize that this post brings a certain amount of geopolitical tilt in the debate, but let's stop discussing WU as if it's some abstract theoretical entity. I think we'll find that if we engage the political/power-equations of this Universalism with more zeal, we are likely to uncover the direction of humanity (yes, a lofty goal

), and also how to counter-evolve from a defensive paradigm that we are currently locked in, vis-a-vis WU.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 28 Jul 2014 07:44

devesh wrote:WU is essentially Christian Universalism. therefore, it's primarily about "othering" the "others" that they see as alien.

A good description. But what troubles me is Indian education that manages to make Indians "other" each other. This seems to be a problem that has to be recognized before we can even begin to counter WU.

KrishnaK · Post by **KrishnaK** » 28 Jul 2014 07:46

A_Gupta wrote:
WRONG. Democracy is the natural state. It will survive and prosper everywhere, irrespective of culture, because all humans everywhere, whatever the culture are the same. They have the same urges and drives.

In humanity's approx 5000 years of post-invention-of-writing history, democracy has been the exception rather than the rule. How did it become "the natural state", inquiring minds want to know.[/quote] I believe the good doctor stated on this very thread that in humanity's approx 5000 years of post-invention-of-writing history, life expectancy has only been around 30-40 years. It is only modern medical practice that has changed that. Should modern medicine and all that it offers be considered "the natural state" *today* or not ?

Exactly, humans everywhere, whatever the culture, have a propensity not to exercise their intelligence. As a result, even in the single global superpower, supposedly the bastion of world science, 44+% of its citizens think that the Theory of Evolution is probably or definitely false.

Moreover, even if a majority of one generation get it into their stupid heads that democracy is the only sustainable form of government, a few generations down, people will have to learn it all over again.

Humans seem to be able to exercise their intelligence just fine. From a macro level, humanity has managed to come to make and sustain 7 billion other
humans. This isn't just due to science, but also due to the fact that humans have learned to live with each other better. Not all do it well enough, but overall the trend is solely in one direction. 44+% not believing in the Theory of Evolution has nothing to do with this argument.

Anyway, M.A. Jinnah and his adherents in the Muslim League were insistent that given India's deep divide between Muslims and Hindus, democracy could not work.

Jinnah, 1942:
The British statesmen know that the so-called democracy and the parliamentary system of government is nothing but a farce in the country. It is not, as some people mix it up, a question of Muslims objecting to a government based on the brotherhood of man, as it is often alleged by people who really do not understand what they are talking about when they talk of either democracy or Islam. Democracy means, to begin with, majority rule. Majority rule in a single nation, in a single society, is understandable, although even there it has failed. Representative government in a single nation, harmonious, homogenous and one is understandable. But you have only got to apply your mind for a few minutes to see the truth.

Can such a system ever work or succeed when you have two different nations-indeed more than two different societies, the Muslim society and the Hindu society?
Likewise it was British wisdom that given India's multiplicity of languages, religions and ethnicities, India could not work and democracy could not work. Somehow a century or two of scholarship and policy did not chance upon this sublime idea of yours that "democracy is the natural state".

http://www.democracy-asia.org/qa/india/ ... shikar.pdf

The introduction of English education in India created a class of upper class/caste graduates who aspired for positions of honour and influence under the colonial regime. They found to their dismay that the employment opportunities were limited and that the British were unwilling to accept them as their equals. The more articulate among them demanded, during the 1870s and 80s, a greater share of power – more jobs in the bureaucracy, especially at the higher level, and more seats in the legislative councils. The reaction from the British side asserted the superiority of the rulers. The earlier liberal idea that it was the colonial mission to prepare Indians for self-rule and that limited amount of representation introduced at the local and provincial levels “would be a school of self-government for the whole India” lost ground. More and more officials started taking the James Mill and John Stuart Mill line that representative government was ‘totally unsuited’ to India. Indians were allegedly unfit to rule themselves and introducing British political institutions to India was ‘a fantastic dream’. The irremediable problem, according to this perspective, was that the Indians did not have the character required for governing, however well educated they might become. Hence the British rule had to continue indefinitely.
The Spectator, 1963:
http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/ ... -democracy
THE persistence of parliamentary democracy in India, when in so many of the new States of Asia and Africa it has either never had the opportunity of birth or has, after a short life, yielded to military or civilian oligarchy, is one Of the most remarkable phenomena of this century. None the less, it does not have an easy time in India, where many serious men believe that it is unsuited to Indian conditions and Indian traditions. Among Western students of the subject, there is a belief that the inherited traditions and social structure of India will, in the end, be too much for an imported system of government.

What does Jinnah or British opinion got to do with anything ?

Sure what they thought then was nonsense. And then what does your argument try to prove ?

Do note, the "new States of Asia and Africa" quickly lapsed from "democracy,the natural state".

And a lot of them, including democratic India, has high rates of maternal mortality.df

Most of this "west is forcing their ideas on us" comes solely from the already well off middle class. You might be content. But a lot of people do want more.

Right -- about wanting more -- most countries, for instance, are very, very happy, and keen to embrace whatever it is the International Monetary Fund (IMF) tells them to do -- in some alternate universe. Are not IMF prescriptions "the west forcing their ideas" on these countries?[/quote] In humanity's approx 5000 years of post-invention-of-writing history, IMF hasn't been around. Don't deal with it. Live like most countries used to in the 1700.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 28 Jul 2014 07:46

ShauryaT wrote:Shiv ji: I will also recommend the works of T.N. Madan. He is an Indian academic and his works are well respected even amongst the defenders of Indian Secularism - but strictly in the academic domain and not political. Most of his works are off line and in old fashioned books. Attached are some that I have read and have liked. For a counter part to him defending the secularist narrative, recommend Rajeev Bhargava.

http://www.flipkart.com/religion-india- ... fb4c163851

http://www.flipkart.com/modern-myths-lo ... 74a7148890

Still going through this one...

http://www.flipkart.com/family-kinship- ... e8cbf40e9f

I already have a huge list of books available with me physically or electronically to read and you are adding to that list!

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 28 Jul 2014 08:35

shiv wrote: I already have a huge list of books available with me physically or electronically to read and you are adding to that list!

I will link this paper of TN. Madan, you can read them as a preview. Eventually this debate has to discuss the "effects" of western ideas that still rule the roost in the current Indian milieu. For IMO, that is what the big deal is about - in how the western narrative has had an impact on us, changed us. Enjoy.

Secularism in its place

PS: Prof. Balagangadhara refers to some of Madan's older works. The reason I bring in Madan to the equation here is very few in Indian academia who are willing to step out of the comfortable narratives and the few that do, we should publicize their works.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 28 Jul 2014 09:07

It is not difficult to post a litany of complaints against aspects of western universalism, but it usually results in arguments with Indians stoutly defending western universalism. In fact there are occasions when some Indian group objects to some habit or feature as a western imposition, we have a number of people who otherwise think of themselves as Indian patriots jumping up to point out the flaws in the Indian viewpoint.

There are three possibilities
1. Indians objecting to WU are wrong
2. Indians objecting to WU are right
3. The picture is a mixed bag.

We need to look at issues in this way. There are a thousand and one Indian traits and characteristics that come into conflict with western universalism. Unless we weigh them one by one we cannot be honest. Of course we need not be honest - honesty is not a trait that is prominently displayed by all promoters of WU. But as a matter of academic principles, it seems like a good idea to start off both honest and unbiased.

Of course I have already made (on this and other threads) comments that will be considered offensive to even the so called "good" features of universalism. I will keep doing that by and by because I write what I feel and think, and try not to constrain myself to reasoning by someone else if I disagree.

For example. What is the ideal rate of infant mortality? Where is the medical proof that all babies who are born simply must be kept alive even if they have some of the most difficult to treat and not completely curable congenital disorders. It is a Christian imposition that all human life must be preserved. But that must be tempered with the situation of a villager in India who has a third child born with a congenital abnormality in the heart that requires major surgery and months in hospital for a person who cannot afford the treatment or the time. But if the child dies - it is one more "infant mortality".

We want healthcare for all, and we want wealth for all. Last time I checked - all top soccer teams and all top cricket teams in the world had people under the age of 35, barring the odd exception. Humans enjoy good health (generally) up to that age. After that things start falling apart. People of my age are often getting to be decrepit old wrecks who would look cute in a mortuary.

You can spend your entire life paying health insurance, but the entire insurance money will be exceeded when you are a half dead person aged 85 being kept alive in an ICU somewhere, waiting for something to kill you by chance. Surely society needs to accept ill health and death. Families were the social security net. In India they still are. A significant percentage of elderly urban patients in India have several children abroad - but one remains in India, looking after his/her parents. They would go broke if their parents were not allowed to die in dignity at home instead of dying after 6 weeks in hospital with tubes shoved up godknowswhere.

But "being wealthy" means having fewer children and discarding children earlier and living away from parents. Being "healthy" is a great ideal, but what the fuk does "health" mean at age 95?

By creating societies which concentrate on wealth and sensual pleasures to be enjoyed in this one, single life being valued at a premium, death and old age are treated as undesirable features. Western society has gone up that route and they are welcome to do what they want. But what are Indians doing? We have a wealth of information about what is valuable and what is not. Yet, we drop everything and follow western ideals without so much as a thought. Sorry - this is getting philosophical - but in the end it really is philosophy.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 28 Jul 2014 09:39

Check his book from Sanjay Seth (in addition to the works of Balu, Madan and Malhotra)

Subject Lessons: The Western Education of Colonial India

Subject Lessons offers a fascinating account of how western knowledge “traveled” to India, changed that which it encountered, and was itself transformed in the process. Beginning in 1835, India’s British rulers funded schools and universities to disseminate modern, western knowledge in the expectation that it would gradually replace indigenous ways of knowing. From the start, western education was endowed with great significance in India, not only by the colonizers but also by the colonized, to the extent that today almost all “serious” knowledge about India—even within India—is based on western epistemologies. In Subject Lessons, Sanjay Seth’s investigation into how western knowledge was received by Indians under colonial rule becomes a broader inquiry into how modern, western epistemology came to be seen not merely as one way of knowing among others but as knowledge itself.

Drawing on history, political science, anthropology, and philosophy, Seth interprets the debates and controversies that came to surround western education. Central among these were concerns that Indian students were acquiring western education by rote memorization—and were therefore not acquiring “true knowledge”—and that western education had plunged Indian students into a moral crisis, leaving them torn between modern, western knowledge and traditional Indian beliefs. Seth argues that these concerns, voiced by the British as well as by nationalists, reflected the anxiety that western education was failing to produce the modern subjects it presupposed. This failure suggested that western knowledge was not the universal epistemology it was thought to be. Turning to the production of collective identities, Seth illuminates the nationalists’ position vis-à-vis western education—which they both sought and criticized—through analyses of discussions about the education of Muslims and women.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 28 Jul 2014 22:09

shiv wrote: By creating societies which concentrate on wealth and sensual pleasures to be enjoyed in this one, single life being valued at a premium, death and old age are treated as undesirable features. Western society has gone up that route and they are welcome to do what they want. But what are Indians doing? We have a wealth of information about what is valuable and what is not. Yet, we drop everything and follow western ideals without so much as a thought. Sorry - this is getting philosophical - but in the end it really is philosophy.

No, no, this is not philosophical. It is part of our experience and from these experiences we have come up with the Ashramas. Where the first two are focused on acquisition of knowledge, wealth and power and the last two are more focused on selfless service and partly on acquisition of fame and eventually renunciation. It is these contradictory but balancing forces that are taught (but the elite do not follow) that allows us to accept reduced demands as we age, failing health and death. Sanyasam in SD is an "obligation" to be fulfilled in which your works are free of personal obligations, if able. All such works are devoted to Brahman in any of its manifestations.

Translation, SD's systems have a vested design that seeks to balance acquisitions with reunciation.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 28 Jul 2014 23:19

I already have a huge list of books available with me physically or electronically to read and you are adding to that list!

A familiar problem: how to extract the max benefit from all these books.
1. Get a big (46-liter) backpack
2. Put n of these books at a time into this, n being increased until the mass reaches 10kg, whichever comes later.
3. Carry this backpack properly centered on ur back (the ritual is everything: if u get it wrong u are at risk of getting backache) and walk 3.2 kilometers every day.

The non-verbal Wisdom Transfer is a clear bonus, besides the stress of watching the books gather dust on a bookshelf. The Ancients recognized this in the Vedas.

Pulikeshi · Post by **Pulikeshi** » 29 Jul 2014 07:49

shiv wrote:
Pulikeshi wrote:we can each have our beliefs, your actions is all that matter!
Are there any guidelines for action in SD. For example what should be one's attitude towards one's neighbour's wife?

Shiv, at this time (at least for me) there is no satisfactory answer to your question.
Like you I post what I feel without fear or coercive purpose... here is my humble opinion...

The Smriti (Mitaksara or Dayabhaga or derivatives) would be binding on all actions, however clearly the very idea of personal law
comes from the fact that different Ashrama/Varna are judged differently for criminal and civil purposes. With the adoption of this into
Hindu Personal Law, what has happened is that Criminal law was made uniformly applicable (over all citizens), and the difference
in the Varna based application was made uniform... of course, ironically, the very idea of allowing personal law based on religious
persuasion is a misapplication of the Varna based differentiation.

It is too early to tell if this Uniformity even works for India... the Khap and other 'panchayats' still operate in India within several jatis and
they localize the universal so to speak, but they have been deemed illegal, that is, the contract of citizen and state, is being enforced
with a sledge hammer without any credence to the actual contract as it exists on the ground.
Don't get me wrong, these panchayats have thrown up some whoppers in recent times as dictats - I am not supporting them...
but to claim they are illegal is laughable, especially since most of the economic activity in India occurs due to them -
to make it more clear, the cost of capital for folks subscribed to these jati based orgs are unbelievable, making them super competitive!

The babies are being thrown out with the bathwater... even historically, the Rajan intervened in these
panchayats on exception... Now the western edumacated folks would want no discussion and India is going through a similar self-
analysis and intellectual civil war that Japan went through early part of last century... only on some days I feel its worse...

OT - but the entire kujlee of the Hindu on UCC is indeed from the application of uniformity on her, but not on the other.
Perhaps not entirely, but it is the courts in India have really moved covertly to provide uniformity without a lot of fuss...
Kind of like many more Tamils know Hindi today then they did several decades ago, but don't say it out loud...

On WU and religions of the book, I tend to agree with ShauryaT that the Smriti is the correct way to engage them.
This is especially true since, for years I have been the first to argue that Smriti can be rewritten for our current age...

Those interested in taking the cudgels to proselytizers best realize that conversion occurs on emotion and economics -
rarely on intellectual perfection or superiority...

Just my two ₹ and they come free!

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 29 Jul 2014 19:18

When I attempt to get my mind around the problem that WU presents it occurs to me that there is much that does not offend individual Indian sensibilities.

Where western Universalism really chafes is in the places where individualism offends group/societal values in India.

At this point it is worth revisiting a great quote posted by Arun Gupta

It has long been reported that Westerners have a more independent and autonomous concept of the self than do East Asians. For example, when asked to write twenty statements, beginning with the words, "I am....," Americans are likely to list their own internal psychological characteristics (happy, outgoing, interested in jazz), whereas East Asians are more likely to list their roles and relationships (a son, a husband, an employee of Fujitsu).

Family and society play a primary role in India. If you put an Indian and a "typical westerner" side by side they will likely hang out and do things together. But where differences tend to occur is not in what they enjoy or do but in how they relate to family. It is likely that the Indian lives (or used to live) with his parents until the end of his education. If he is working and earning, he is probably sending money to his parents, unless they are already wealthy. Helping a brother or sister financially is common. Marriage choices are made with family consent. Parents in law are to be given respect, and not treated as outsiders.

Marriage is one area where "modern", "western" tendencies have come into conflict with traditional Indian values. In India family has an overbearing influence on marriage choices and "individualism" or "freedom of choice" of a partner is considered a "bad" influence. But again this is not always the case. As long as Indian family values are maintained and the match does not bring dishonour, a self arranged match is increasingly seen as acceptable. A compromise has been reached between the family/collective demands of India and the Western "Universalism" value of the individual picking one's own partner.

Democracy in India is the classic family versus individualism fudge. In theory democracy is one man one vote. The "individual" chooses. But over vast areas of India it is one family/one extended family/community/sub-caste - one bloc vote. In Karnataka, Vokkaligas, Gowdas, Idigas and other communities demand their representation/pound of flesh. they have candidates from the community who received en bloc votes. That is why democracy appears to work. The individual is important, but the individual is voting as part of a bloc - so the demands of society are not upset. Everyone curses Indian democracy as "faulty" and "not real democracy" because it is vote bank politics. but it is simply the family and society making a collective decision. The individual in India subsumes his ego in favour of the group. Individual choice in some cases is believed to be inferior/lower in status to the choice of the collective.

Morality and women's rights create a rub between Indian values and Western Universalism. Indian morality demands female chastity. Western universalism purports to present freedom for the woman and free choice of what she should do with her body. Let alone men, even women in India do not seem in total agreement with western mores despite the promised freedom. It is my personal impression that premarital and teenage sex in India have become far more prevalent now than they were 30 years ago. These are indicators of the individual freedoms of western Universalism being absorbed in India. But the statistics are unclear. The prevalence may not be as high as it is in the west. Sexual organs are protected like jewellery in India by the way male-female interaction is regulated, and by the fact that families are still the core unit with mother and father agreeing on moral values while the children live in the same home and are supported. Not sure which way this is going - but clearly we Indians have set down their own (our own) moral red lines. This may seem out of place here - but common experience suggests that it is easier to get laid in the west. If that is one of the charms of universalism, India has a way to go.

The west has periodically moved its goalposts, because the "west" has stood somewhere on the border between a blind assumption of western superiority (which is fine if that is what they like to think) and an imposition of western values as the best for the world and the need to impose those values as white man's burden. Colour discrimination is not far below the surface in the west and has not been legislated away for very long - but clearly this cannot be spread around the world as "universalism" - as it was in the late 1800s and early 1900s. However free sex and even more sex - like gay sex is suddenly being spread around as universalism. Like I said it really is easier to get laid in the west. This makes a big change in western morality in the last 5 decades. Maybe there will be more change.

When I was a student, "paediatrics" meant people under the age of 13. Nowadays paediatricians treat people up to 16 or 18. But then again, when I was a student, the age of consent was 16 or 18. Now it is down to 13 in some countries. So what has happened under everyone's noses is that paedophilia has been legalized to an extent, using the rationalization that a girl of 13 has the required mental maturity to consent to sex. But she is not physically mature and pregnancy can be dangerous. But now they say that she can avoid pregnancy and any problems can be solved. The social problems of child sex and exposure of children to pjornography is well known. But freedom of information and freedom of choice "universal values " are being pushed. I see this as snake oil. But that is another topic.

member_23692 · Post by **member_23692** » 30 Jul 2014 18:29

When discussing and comparing different streams of "thought", do practical results among the thoughts in questions' practitioners or supposed practitioners, come into play at all, in determining or judging the universal or near universal applicability of that particular thought ? Or empirical evidence or data or facts are just components of "Western Universalism" and have no place in any other thought such as SD, nor should they have ? And a "thought", which ONLY deals with the "other world" or the "after life" or the "inner core" of an individual, then relevant exclusively as itself, without the assistance of "other thoughts" to serve practical needs in a society in "this life"? Or are the practical needs of a society in "this life" as opposed to "after life" highly overrated as a concept ? More specifically, are the needs of the physical body and physical brain, so overrated that they can be completely ignored in any judgement of competing "thoughts", in favor of exclusively the needs of the "inner core" or the "soul" of an individual ?

And lastly, in the absence of an overt and externally visible benchmark or a yardstick, such as facts and empirical evidence, how do we determine, if a "thought" is practiced honestly and appropriately and even if the goal of the "thought" in question is merely "the salvation of an individual's inner soul" and for the sake of argument, it is accepted that this "salvation of the inner soul" is all that matters and no other practicality really matters, then how do we judge or determine, if the even honest practice of that "thought" is yielding the advertised or desired results ?

Bottom line is, in plain Hindi, how do we determine if practicing any "thought", even if it is practiced honestly, is yielding the desired results or not ? Or it is not important to determine that, it is only important to demonstrate that a particular "thought" is not uniformly applicable ?

If all we have to demonstrate is that a particular thought is not "universally applicable", we need simply give the illustration of the "lost tribes of Amazon". There are countless other illustrations. And if we are merely complaining that the "promoters" of a particular thought are falsely advertising it as "universal", then I think it is really beating a dead horse, no serious person thinks today that "Western" thought as a whole has universal applicability any more than any other thought. The best the proponent of Western thought can argue is that it results in better fulfillment of the practical physical needs of a society, which itself may be arguable.

Therefore, the interesting question is not whether Western thought is universal, not even its proponents seriously argue it, but how relevant our own SD or Dharmic thought is, how successful it has been in fulfilling the needs of OUR society, is it practiced honestly or has it ever been practiced honestly in our societies and is practicality a function of our "thought" and if so, how do we measure its success and by those measures, how successful it has been at different times in our history. Does a "thought" evolve ? Should it "evolve" or stay static ? If it does have to evolve, how does it evolve ? What mechanism of evolution of a thought are relevant and desirable ? Does importation of ideas from "outside" automatically "pollute" that thought ? Does "evolution" of the thought itself pollute that thought ? If a thought requires no "evolution", then it logically follows that it is not only Universal, but that it is universal for all times, as it is, with no change or evolution required. Is Dharmic or "SD" thought such a thought ?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 30 Jul 2014 20:49

Western Universalism is Secularism with another name.

And Secularism is Christianity without Church.

Using this you can deconstruct the WU maya.

chanakyaa · Post by **chanakyaa** » 31 Jul 2014 07:12

Wondering if anyone heard about or read a book "Human Action" by Ludwig von Mises. The book is freely available on the Mises Institute's website. I think the book is somewhat relevant with respect to WU, but the primary subject of the book is Economics and similar to "Wealth of Nation". It is a wordy book with lot of social sciences jargon, which I'm not personally fond of as it makes it less fun to read, but interesting read nevertheless. If you do not wish to read the whole book, please search for words like "Hindu" and "Asiatics" and read a couple of page before or after to make sure you have the context. Interested to hear thoughts if any.

Human Action from Mises Institute

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 31 Jul 2014 07:50

Yesterday I had an "aha" moment when I was treated to a Macaulayite "Western Universalism" version of "You are restricting my individual freedom"

But some background first. "Freedom" in India allows a small number of people to apologetically creep the wrong way up one way streets. It also allows people to park or halt in marked no parking areas while they wait for someone to make a phone call. What is interesting about this is that this behaviour used to make me angry for years after I came back from the UK where I had been taught that rule breakers are law breakers and must be punished.

Gradually over the years I realized that my own car would get into impossible situations in crowds and the simplest way of keeping traffic moving was to do unconventional things. Everybody else was doing that cheerfully and not getting angry. And the traffic kept moving, slowly but continuously down an impossibly narrow road, with street vendors, pushcarts, bullock carts, parked vehicles, autos, lorries, mini-vans, piles of garbage and puddles.

Long ago, before the internet (for me) and before BRF I used to belong to a Bangalore electronic bulletin board (CiX) n which I had complained angrily that bullock carts would move in the middle of narrow country roads as if they owned them, A wiser man had told me that all I had to do was honk and the cart would move aside the cart driver is not trying to screw my freedom.In India people adjust for each other. No space is so sacrosanct that a little movement to one side or other is not allowed.

Anyhow - yesterday I did an Indian thing. I parked (waiting for someone) at the exact corner of a road intersection. Loads of traffic simply moved around my car although my car was obviously obstructing movement partially. I was enjoying doing what a lot of people do - ie. partake of some extra freedoms and savor the indulgence of others who were allowing me to do that as long as they were not inconvenienced greatly. All sorts of people were on the footpath, steeping in front of and behind my car to cross the road.

Suddenly a woman - short haired, westernized, wearing trousers and blouse, who had been standing there for five minutes talking to another similarly dressed woman tapped on my window. I looked up to see her face contorted with rage. She was gesticulating wildly. I opened the window and she angrily told me (in English, not Kannada or Hindi like others do) "Why don't you move? Can't you see that I can't cross the road?". That was obviously rubbish - dozens of people were crossing in front of and behind my car. Her friend's face too looked so angry - it was comical. They had been fine just a minute earlier when they were chatting. I just smiled at them and moved my car. I think they got even more upset because I did that.

But it illustrated to me my own mindset and maladjustment to the Indian way twenty years ago. My right to step exactly where I wanted on the footpath was sacred. I had to show righteous anger as the law-breaking twits "these Indians" who simply ignored the law. How good it had been in the UK. We deal with people, crowds and space differently in India. We have a different system. And it works. It works in situations in India that do not even exist in the west - situations that rules laid down in the west could never cope with. Indians calmly move around obstacles and do not ask "Why is that obstacle in my path?". The obstacle often has a reason for being in my path - only my selfishness makes my path more important than the obstacle's reason. Obstacles can be removed with politeness and patience. Anger is unnecessary.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 31 Jul 2014 07:54

One was discussing what Shiv has said only yesterday with a US returned Indian,who lived in the US for decades.The virtues and disappearing of the "joint family" in India,coupled with the problems of the elderly,old folks care,etc.,with similar issues in the west.
Our culture indoctrinates us to basically care for our family,our parents,elders,siblings,etc.There must be some sacrifice for the sake of others. However,the pre-eminence of the individual and individual choice in the west has resulted in greater selfishness and the expectation that the state-in welfare states like the UK,have to look after the "old folks".Even in families abroad which were brought up in India,the weakening of Indian family traditions can be seen.As a v.rich friend from an old political family said to me many years ago about the UK where the individual was resident,"its great if you're rich,but hell if you're poor".

In the west in particular,one astonishing fact that hits you in the face ,especially in the UK,is the almost total collapse of the Protestant church and disillusionment with the Catholic Church to a lesser extent.Every city,town,village,hamlet has beautiful churches built by the faithful which for centuries were the centre of everyday life sustaining the community's spiritual needs and in many cases was an economic factor as well.Today they lie empty.Many have been turned into alternative use buildings.What happened? Mammon in the form of eco progress and the fleshpots of the West,the manifold attractions of the market as in Roman times has corrupted society. The community spirit has been watered down and the desire to make the quick buck even quicker and far greater has driven populations to fight viciously for the the fruits of the market.As individuals refine their selfishness and use means fair and foul to achieve their ambitions,so too do their nations,which do not think twice of lusting after their neighbour's wealth and even grabbing it by force as we've seen day after day.
BC in the media today has a fine piece on "Intervention,evasion and destabilisation",posted in another td.

A one-culture ,one lifestyle -a universal way of life is the global aim of the West.We have to grow GM crops,eat fast food,in truth,surrender ourselves and our culture ,agriculture,religion,etc.,to western MNCs who will hold us in economic thrall in perpetuity.Our stand on the WTO food issue and GM Crop testing at home is alarming the US in particular.

Pulikeshi · Post by **Pulikeshi** » 31 Jul 2014 09:56

udaym wrote:Wondering if anyone heard about or read a book "Human Action" by Ludwig von Mises.

Thanks for bringing this up!
This and may other books should become required reading for all students. Praxeology anyone?

Mises is right about a lot of things, but on all things Indian and especially SD he is mostly wrong.
Ironically, more recently (than his book), when I initially tried to discuss political-economics with some Chicago-vicago profs.
I got the same set of arguments made by Mises -

this is consistent with most recent Pew research - Hindu awareness is insignificant in the US (well no 50% for +- feeling I guess)...
I guess it did not help that Mises is not an American

It goes Caste, Superstition, Socialism, Lack of Western values and English edumacation or some such list...

Here is a quick example from Mises:

With the progress of the semantic confusion which has converted the meaning of political terms into their very opposite,
the epithet "democratic" is now lavishly spent. The Moslem peoples, which never knew any form of governmcnt other than unlimited
absolutism, are called democratic. Indian nationalists take pleasure in speaking of traditional Hindu democracy!

Economists and historians are indifferent with regard to all such emotional effusions. In describing the civilizations of the Asiatics as
inferior civilizations they do not express any value judgments. They merely establish the fact that these peoples did not bring forth those ideological and institutional conditions which in the West produced that capitalist civilization the superiority of which the Asiatics today implicitly accept in clamoring at least for its technological and therapeutical implements and paraphernalia. It is precisely when one recognizes the fact that in the past the culture of many Asiatic peoples was far ahead of that of thcir Western contemporaries, that the question is raised as to what causes stopped progress in the East. In the case of the Hindu civilization the answer is obvious. Here the iron grip of the inflexible caste system stunted individual initiative and nipped in the bud every attempt to deviate from traditional standards. But China and the Mohammedan countries were, apart from the slavery of a comparatively small number of people, free from caste rigidity. They were ruled by autocrats. But the individual subjects were equal under the autocrat. Even slaves and eunuchs were not barred from access to the highest dignities. It is this equality before the ruler to which people refer today in speaking of the supposed democratic customs of these Orientals.

Mises' work is very important step in human understanding of actions (Karma).
However, he suffered from the very same prejudices of his age and did not understand India and SD -
In 'Vegetative Man' for example he shows no awareness of varna/ashrama and assumes that renunciation and inaction as 'vegetative' etc. He seems also unware of the Gita's ideas on the subject including inaction.

A more important conclusion - that human beings freedom to action are constrained by -
1. Nature (physical laws)
2. Innate Nature of the individual
3. Praxeological laws(?) - interconnectedness which we call economics...

However, any student of Mises needs to read the Smritis for its economic ideas and only then it all starts to make sense...
While the presentation in the Smriti is more dictums given it is a 'law book' the underlying essence is evident.
The ideas on taxation, principal/agent issues, company formation, partnerships, etc. in the Smriti comes from a deep understanding of Paraxeological ideas, but more deeply rooted in the understanding of the very nature of the universe and a normative ideal for humans and the actions they perform.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 31 Jul 2014 16:44

https://www.academia.edu/4228198/Orient ... f_Religion
Orientalism, Postcolonialism and the Construction of Religion.
by Balu.

The problem is not whether a religion is true in the same way my belief about Brussels being the capital city of Belgium is true. The latter’s truth depends on other beliefs being true as well. This is not the case for religion at all. If we use the predicate ‘true’ to describe religion, it looks as though we cannot use it for anything else: what makes religion true cannot make anything else true. Religion is the truth in the specific sense of not being dependent on the truth of any other belief we hold about the world.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 31 Jul 2014 17:04

As long as self-declared Indian intellectuals quote western authors or sepoy authors to understand and describe Hinduism, India will remain a slave nation separated from Bharat.

member_23692 · Post by **member_23692** » 31 Jul 2014 17:43

shiv wrote:Yesterday I had an "aha" moment when I was treated to a Macaulayite "Western Universalism" version of "You are restricting my individual freedom"

But some background first. "Freedom" in India allows a small number of people to apologetically creep the wrong way up one way streets. It also allows people to park or halt in marked no parking areas while they wait for someone to make a phone call. What is interesting about this is that this behaviour used to make me angry for years after I came back from the UK where I had been taught that rule breakers are law breakers and must be punished.

Gradually over the years I realized that my own car would get into impossible situations in crowds and the simplest way of keeping traffic moving was to do unconventional things. Everybody else was doing that cheerfully and not getting angry. And the traffic kept moving, slowly but continuously down an impossibly narrow road, with street vendors, pushcarts, bullock carts, parked vehicles, autos, lorries, mini-vans, piles of garbage and puddles.

Long ago, before the internet (for me) and before BRF I used to belong to a Bangalore electronic bulletin board (CiX) n which I had complained angrily that bullock carts would move in the middle of narrow country roads as if they owned them, A wiser man had told me that all I had to do was honk and the cart would move aside the cart driver is not trying to screw my freedom.In India people adjust for each other. No space is so sacrosanct that a little movement to one side or other is not allowed.

Anyhow - yesterday I did an Indian thing. I parked (waiting for someone) at the exact corner of a road intersection. Loads of traffic simply moved around my car although my car was obviously obstructing movement partially. I was enjoying doing what a lot of people do - ie. partake of some extra freedoms and savor the indulgence of others who were allowing me to do that as long as they were not inconvenienced greatly. All sorts of people were on the footpath, steeping in front of and behind my car to cross the road.

Suddenly a woman - short haired, westernized, wearing trousers and blouse, who had been standing there for five minutes talking to another similarly dressed woman tapped on my window. I looked up to see her face contorted with rage. She was gesticulating wildly. I opened the window and she angrily told me (in English, not Kannada or Hindi like others do) "Why don't you move? Can't you see that I can't cross the road?". That was obviously rubbish - dozens of people were crossing in front of and behind my car. Her friend's face too looked so angry - it was comical. They had been fine just a minute earlier when they were chatting. I just smiled at them and moved my car. I think they got even more upset because I did that.

But it illustrated to me my own mindset and maladjustment to the Indian way twenty years ago. My right to step exactly where I wanted on the footpath was sacred. I had to show righteous anger as the law-breaking twits "these Indians" who simply ignored the law. How good it had been in the UK. We deal with people, crowds and space differently in India. We have a different system. And it works. It works in situations in India that do not even exist in the west - situations that rules laid down in the west could never cope with. Indians calmly move around obstacles and do not ask "Why is that obstacle in my path?". The obstacle often has a reason for being in my path - only my selfishness makes my path more important than the obstacle's reason. Obstacles can be removed with politeness and patience. Anger is unnecessary.

This is so true and I had my own epiphany a few years ago. Having spent some time in the US, when I returned back to my home town in India, I was terribly bothered by trash outside my house and other people's houses in the neighborhood. Some days when I would come home, I would be upset to the point of irrationality, when I saw all the trash on the corner of the street against the hedges of people's homes and particularly mine. I took extra care to find a municipal trash deposit container, which was about half a kilometer away and I would load up the trash in my jeep everyday at 6.00 AM and deposit my trash in the container. Along the way I would see people just dispensing their trash across the street from their homes or in rare cases, even outside their own homes. "Such uncivilized twits", I used to say to myself and seeth inside.

Then after a few days, my wife informed me that now I would not have to go to deposit trash at 6.00 every morning. She had a visit from a couple with a hand trolley who offered to carry our trash away for a charge and we thought that it is worth it to pay someone to take away our trash. So, we hired them. A few days later, I was coming back from the walking track in the morning and I saw the same couple we had hired dumping trash on the side of the street and they were strategically spreading it evenly to distribute it outside several houses, so it would not look like a pile. I confronted them and they said with a great deal of sarcasm, "saheb, where will we throw this, otherwise ? Do you want your trash taken away by us or not? You can find someone else or do it yourself, but dont stop here and lecture us. Go do your job".

I came back home and thought about it. When I logically broke it down and dispensed with all the overhang of cobwebs of western thinking in my brain, I realized that this is a uniquely Indian solution to the trash problem. My trash gets taken away, does it not ? I dont have to wake up at 6.00 AM every day and travel a half a kilometer everyday in my jeep to dispense the trash. I dont have to then come back and clean my jeep. All I had to get used to, or re-get used to, trash on the streets outside my house. A couple of years in India and now I dont even notice it. My house stays clean, I dont have a trash disposal problem any more and the couple who we have hired are still hauling our trash away happily, after so many years, and are now extremely happy with us, because my wife takes good care of them during festivals and Diwali etc.

The lesson learned is that all that aggravation and anger was just inside me. It was bothering no one else. The neighbors were always cheerful. This trash on the street bothered no one but myself. When I realized that I could just solve this problem by not letting it bother me on the inside, and that no external intervention is required to solve it, I did.

There are several anecdotes like this, that I can relate, where when confronted with issues in India, I learnt to not let them bother me and accepted the way things were done in India, in the uniquely Indian way of solving the problem, and I was fine. The trick is to do it cheerfully and in good humor.

Pulikeshi · Post by **Pulikeshi** » 31 Jul 2014 18:00

RamaY wrote:As long as self-declared Indian intellectuals quote western authors or sepoy authors to understand and describe Hinduism, India will remain a slave nation separated from Bharat.

There is the Western/Southern Art critic and then there is the Western/Southern Artist...
Borrowing from the (ant) Western/Southern Artist is perhaps wise and useful, getting depressed or impressed or suffering the critic is foolish! (unless well deserved)

my very bad way to explain, but replace Art Citic with Indologist, etc. and Artist with genuine Scholars of the human condition...
One form of slavery is to think it is slavery to learn from others...

Hinduism (SD) first needs understanding, but then more importantly needs updating...
It is Sanathana and Dharma only if you improve and defend it! There are no Holy Cows!

JMHT

Pulikeshi · Post by **Pulikeshi** » 31 Jul 2014 18:25

Shiv, Rsangram - at the risk of stirring up a hornets nest

Again to use a bad example -
I guess Chankaya should never had disagreed with the blade of grass, etc. He should have left it alone and worked around the obstacle - how many of us do that each day and compromise using this rationalization?

What has freedom and rights or Western or Eastern got to do with lazy rationalization?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 31 Jul 2014 18:57

Anand K wrote:AFAIK the concept of will and "free will" is not a big deal in Indian philosophy as it is in the West. That is, in the way it is defined and dwelled upon over there. Add to it epistemology based purely on Grace and right there you have fundamental divergences between West and East. I mean just look at how something akin to the Gettier Problem is seen in various Indian darsanas versus Christian theology.

AnandK, Vyasa Bhagwan talks about the myth of free will in the MB in relation to humans in the Shakuntala Dushyanta samavad.

I think you will enjoy that discourse. Try to hear in Malayalam or original.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 31 Jul 2014 19:05

Pulikeshi wrote: What has freedom and rights or Western or Eastern got to do with lazy rationalization?

Sorry. I don't understand your question.

member_23692 · Post by **member_23692** » 31 Jul 2014 21:23

Pulikeshi wrote:Shiv, Rsangram - at the risk of stirring up a hornets nest

Again to use a bad example -
I guess Chankaya should never had disagreed with the blade of grass, etc. He should have left it alone and worked around the obstacle - how many of us do that each day and compromise using this rationalization?

What has freedom and rights or Western or Eastern got to do with lazy rationalization?

Why would you call it crazy rationalization ? I had the option of living in the West, at least for a few years. No one in India invited me to come back. If I did decide to come back, then I have to accept that the world in India does not revolve around me. I was not lazy. It took a lot of effort initially to get used to things, to not "see" the trash, for example, which was there. But eventually, when I looked inside of me, I realized that the problem was inside of me and therefore the solution was inside of me too. Like I said, it only bothered me, not my neighbors to the right or left or across the street. And no, my neighbors were not illiterate people. They all are part of the elite, some are bureaucrats, retired high ranking police officers, businessmen, college professors etc. If they all can deal with it and be cheerful about things, why would I want to waste my life just being miserable.

It is all inside of us. We can choose to find the solution inside of us, which by the way is not laziness, it takes quite a bit of work, or we can just be unhappy. Why would you or I want to be unhappy ?

chanakyaa · Post by **chanakyaa** » 01 Aug 2014 06:13

Rsangram -- thanks for sharing yr experience, but I'm bit puzzled by the challenge you have presented at the beginning, conclusion drawn, and WU. So, please apologize if I fell short in understanding. How is the challenge of finding a solution to trash pickup related to you feeling content about end solution, you getting used to that solution, and WU? From what you are saying, it looks like for a small sum the trash stopping being your problem and it became someone else's problem (whether they recognize it or not). How did it make your community better? If the trash rots in hot & humid climate and leads to dangerous deceases, are those deceases going to stop spreading in your neighborhood, because it is no longer your trash? And, when did the pursuit of finding better solutions to improve life become authority of the west?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 01 Aug 2014 07:24

Now this is real Western Universalism

All through the 1980s - India had its backside ripped wide open by terrorism and we whined and complained, only to be told that this is not a universal problem, but a local freedom fight.

But after 9-11 - all those freedom fighters became global terrorists.

So now we have the Times of India picking up the cue:
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NEWS/news ... wsid=21171

In the backdrop of global terrorism knocking on India's doors, the government is working on a proposal to set up...