Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

[ShauryaT]

I assumed that Carla had not made the flute herself. The statement read "She (Carla) had toiled to make one" Did she make that partciular flute? I assumed a flute was available and she claimed to be able to make flutes. If Carla had made that flute I guess she has rights over it. But here the example suggests that each of these people would keep the flute for themselves - a fundamentally selfish act. Anne could borrow it perhaps and Bob could play with it while Carla claimed ownership.

I assumed it was Carla, who made the flute in question. IMO: The concept of ownership, is where SD would diverge from western precepts. In an SD community one would produce not only for oneself but for the group. In this limited group of friends, from an SD perspective, even if one is the "creator" of the object, the rightful user would be the one, who can best wield it, hence Anne. Justice from an SD prism, would be best served if the person, who can best use the object, holds and uses the same. SD would by and large hold a bias against individual ownership. A real world reference of a similar paradigm is the British were simply confounded to know that no "individual" really "owned" a defined piece of land, when they made their first forays in Bengal.

[UlanBatori]

I assumed that Carla had not made the flute herself. The statement read "She (Carla) had toiled to make one" Did she make that partciular flute? I assumed a flute was available and she claimed to be able to make flutes. If Carla had made that flute I guess she has rights over it. But here the example suggests that each of these people would keep the flute for themselves - a fundamentally selfish act. Anne could borrow it perhaps and Bob could play with it while Carla claimed ownership.

I assumed it was Carla, who made the flute in question. IMO: The concept of ownership, is where SD would diverge from western precepts. In an SD community one would produce not only for oneself but for the group. In this limited group of friends, from an SD perspective, even if one is the "creator" of the object, the rightful user would be the one, who can best wield it, hence Anne. Justice from an SD prism, would be best served if the person, who can best use the object, holds and uses the same. SD would by and large hold a bias against individual ownership. A real world reference of a similar paradigm is the British were simply confounded to know that no "individual" really "owned" a defined piece of land, when they made their first forays in Bengal.

This is why SD has not taken over the world, despite promises that The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth etc.

The solution is obvious: Carla, who knows how to handle and operate a flute but has no talent to play it, should grab it and blow on it as loud as she can. This will drive both of the others away: Anne out of horror at the misuse of a beautiful instrument, and Bob realizing how worthless the da*n thing is.

Now Carla should go and sell it to Bob, giving him the equivalent of an IMF loan - he promises his knickers as collateral, and undertakes Austerity Measures since he has to pay the interest. Now he holds the instrument and gets over his desire for THAT toy, Anne wants it, Carla is waiting for payment. Obviously Anne buys it off Bob at a handsome profit, Bob buys Carla (since she has no money and no flute) and sells her to Abdul, and now Bob has money, Anne can play the flute, and Carla, well.. never mind - that's the fate of all creative ppl.

[UlanBatori]

As for the altruism of SDs, ancient or modern, didn't we read in the Vedas about someone donating 64,000 sheep, 1,700,000 goats etc in the expectation of getting orders of magnitude MORE of those? Doesn't sound like altruism was very prevalent except maybe among the goats.

[A_Gupta]

If the context is a school, I'd put a little flute sanitizer and the flute in the "library" and children can take turns at playing it.

[ShauryaT]

This is why SD has not taken over the world, despite promises that The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth etc.

UB: I had a good laugh, so thanks for that. But here is the key point. SD has never sought to take over the world, it only seeks to co-exist. It does not believe in taking over, for by definition that would be violence physical or mental. Civilizations that have vested themselves in wont acquisitions have also been the most violent in their expansions.

Yes, the expansionists view this co-existence approach to be one of weakness and seek to attack and against them, she should defend. The debate between the west and SD, really does come down to this single question. What is the true nature of man? Is Man just another animal, smarter and greedier or is there a spiritual man, that acts through the animal body.

[Johann]

Because that is the period when the Enlightenment values were trickling down and the slow process of challenging and transforming older attitudes.

The *particular* humanist values you're talking about in the modern context are drawn from the Enlightenment, so its only fair to look at the periods that follow it.

Fair to whom? It is certainly not fair to the people who were colonized and looted and enslaved before "enlightenment" made a dent in the laws of the looter countries. Every single looter/colonizer nation consisted of different interest groups and the interest in looting colonies and subjugating people certainly had a greater following than the enlightenment movement because it meant more wealth to the colonizer nation. Once European nations reached the summit they were able to sit back and philosophize about good and bad and made up some rules - of which a few are called "Universalism". That is an egregiously fake name because much of it cannot be applied universally without much wealth.

Shiv, Spain and Portugal had incredibly profitable empires, but their contribution to, and openness towards the enlightenment was far less than European countries that did not have extensive overseas empires.

How big was the French empire when the 'rights of man' were declared? They didn't even have Quebec any more. How wealthy were they on the global scale?

What sort of vastly profitable overseas colonial empire did the Swiss or the Scandinavians have? Why was Holland able to do more for its citizens in the 'home country' than the Spanish or Portuguese? Could it be the very concept of citizenship, and the rights they entailed?

The US was no more short of labour in 1964 than it was in 1954 or 1884. Nor was India recognised as a potential source of highly skilled manpower at the time.

Johann I believe you are talking through your hat. YOU just don't know and you are bluffing your way through this. Every one of us - starting from a set of people a decade older than me to a decade or two younger than me, right through the 1960s to the 90s (and perhaps even now) typically applied for skilled jobs (eg doctors) in god-forsaken areas where American doctors could not be induced to go. There areas were all clearly described as manpower shortage areas because locals did not give a damn about going there.Hence immigrants were taken in. Immigrants were informed that they had much better chances of getting in an settling if they chose manpower shortage areas. A whole lot of Indian immigrants are in the US because they agreed to live in god forsaken US towns.

Yes of course Shiv. I must be talking through my hat. The Americans never had a baby boom before 1945. There's no possible way they could have met their skilled labour needs the way they always had before.

And of course you're right, the civil rights act of 1964 had *nothing* to do with the immigration and nationality act of 1965, and yes, the debate was all about economic necessity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigratio ... ct_of_1965

Very nice Johann. You are spraying country names at me faster than I can say anything. You were the one who asked for a comparison of Brazil and the USA. I pointed out that the US was a much better area for immigrants to settle. I was talking about "arable area", not overall area.

The Norway and Japan examples are specious. Both nations depended on sea fishing and did not have landlocked regions thousands of Km inland like the US and Brazil do. It is such countries that do better if they have arable land. Brazil was and is less livable and less cultivable than the USA.

All those slaves who went to Brazil, whom you claim kept Brazil down were brought in by colonizers. Fewer people colonized Brazil for reasons that include simple geographical facts. Sailing west from almost any part of northern Europe - especially Britain, the US is 1500 to 2000 km closer than Brazil.

Shiv, I'm pointing out that poverty, wealth and inequality have nothing to do with arable land, which seemed to be the basis of your comparison.

Brazil's colonial economy was much like the Caribbean and the American south - plantation driven. Commodities like sugar were the first enterprises. The vast majority of slaves brought to the Americas were to work on plantations.

Today Brazil is one of the world's largest exporters of coffee and soybeans. Cattle ranching has been a huge part of Brazilian culture, and Brazil exports beef.

It is by any definition an agriculturally rich state. But again its the pattern of land ownership that matters more, and thats where the US, especially in north was very different. Feudal landholding patterns were antithetical to Enlightenment values.

America's European immigration in the 19th century was driven by its demand for labour from industrialisation which went hand in hand with the embrace of modernity and the rejection not only of the old feudal economy, but the values it represented.

I know that you will not deliberately make a racist comment - but you have stated that the presence of much larger numbers of slaves in Brazil kept Brazil down compared to the US. It follows that either the slaves were inferior people or they were simply not allowed to develop by their European masters. They came as slaves and lived as inferior laborers with lesser education and rights, unlike European migrants. No wonder the countries with more slaves have not done so well. The reason you quote is, unfortunately, fundamentally racist. The countries that had more non-slave immigrants from European colonizer nations have done better than countries with more slaves. You say so yourself, and you claim that it was because of enlightened values that the Europeans had. Do you mean the slaves did not have the enlightenment that the European settlers had? Would you be able to expand on this?

Yes, Shiv, lets suggest this a subconsciously racial comment. Lets ignore the problem of inequality and rights, which I have suggested is the key issue.

The late medieval/early modern form of slavery practiced in the Americas took absolutely *everything* away from a person - property, education, community and family, and fundamental rights.

Freeing a slave and restoring the rights of citizenship still leaves him fundamentally disadvantaged - especially in the absence of a welfare state that can give people the leg up they need to compete. Its a recipe for poverty, which is what most freed slaves found themselves in.

In short it takes an enormous amount of resources and care to turn a slave into a citizen who can produce and contribute like someone who hadn't been enslaved in the first place. Slavery might have been an economic asset at one point but the bigger your slave population, the bigger the pool of poverty you have to confront.

Russia had the same problem when it freed its slaves, the serfs, in the 19th century (another result of the penetration of Enlightenment values).

Brazil was both the oldest and the largest single destination for slaves in the Americas. The US only received 10% of the total number of slaves transported. Brazil under Lula has only recently begun to address the need for a welfare state that could help lift people out of that poverty. But this magnitude of poverty and inequality has a profound effect on competitiveness.

http://blogs.utexas.edu/15minutehistory ... -americas/

[Vayutuvan]

b) Uttara Kumara was a straight man as far as I understand.

Exactly my point that he was straight but cowardly. (faggot -> cowardly) is false due to shikhandin because he/she is a counterexample to the contrapositive (not a coward -> not a faggot). uttara kumAra is an example of cowardly but also not a faggot, i.e. faggot -> not cowardly is also false. There is no casual link between being a faggot and being cowardly.

[UlanBatori]

Shauraji: Of course, that is the reality. The more thoughtful and advanced a civilization becomes, the more it tends to look inwards towards philosophical questions and barriers that are inside the human brain, not on someone else's property. The insatiable greed of the predator is seen to be a completely useless, savage holdover from times when hunting as an individual animal was the only way to survive.

And the more a society succeeds, the more the savages on the outside look on in greed and growing hate, and spend all their resources plotting to destroy, rape and pillage and steal, in the belief that this will make them more "civilized" and "cultured" and strut their stuff as "Universal".

The Sun never does (dare to turn its back on and) set on the British Empaiah!

etc. The reality of their "culture" and "civilization" is represented by the "***king Pr***" Anderson and his fellow liar-savages.

[shiv]

Shiv, Spain and Portugal had incredibly profitable empires, but their contribution to, and openness towards the enlightenment was far less than European countries that did not have extensive overseas empires.

How big was the French empire when the 'rights of man' were declared? They didn't even have Quebec any more. How wealthy were they on the global scale?

What sort of vastly profitable overseas colonial empire did the Swiss or the Scandinavians have? Why was Holland able to do more for its citizens in the 'home country' than the Spanish or Portuguese? Could it be the very concept of citizenship, and the rights they entailed?

The connection between all these European countries is Christianity that led to dominance of the church, followed by the thirty years war and the peace of Westphalia, followed by the renaissance and the reformation, and the early revolution in "technology" - particularly shipbuilding, the magnetic compass and guns. European Christian nations learned from the Arabs and the Chinese, developed some kick ass technology and went out and essentially conquered the world. That conquest was made morally acceptable by various Churches, and the massacres, slaves and subjugation were all made morally acceptable by different European Churches. And after a degree of wealth was achieved in Europe the wheels of civilization turned and people started getting enlightened. But by then the damage had been done

The Americans never had a baby boom before 1945. There's no possible way they could have met their skilled labour needs the way they always had before.

Indeed. But how does this square up with what you said earlier, and I quote. You have contradicted yourself

The US was no more short of labour in 1964 than it was in 1954 or 1884. Nor was India recognised as a potential source of highly skilled manpower at the time.

Shiv, I'm pointing out that poverty, wealth and inequality have nothing to do with arable land, which seemed to be the basis of your comparison.

Two points Johann
1. You are moving the goalpost. You asked me why Brazil and the US developed differently and I quoted my reasons for that and not the reason for poverty wealth and inequality
2. As for poverty wealth and inequality there is overwhelming evidence that there is a clear link between the availability of arable land creating poor but self sufficient people versus deprivation and destitution (not just poverty) from those without land. What the colonizers did was grab the land.

Brazil's colonial economy was much like the Caribbean and the American south - plantation driven. Commodities like sugar were the first enterprises. The vast majority of slaves brought to the Americas were to work on plantations.

The land was grabbed from the natives who were self sufficient and then slaves were brought in by the colonizers

Feudal landholding patterns were antithetical to Enlightenment values.

Indeed they "were". That is what I am talking about. The damage that was done was before all this enlightenment came

[shiv]

Aha! Here i agree with Johann 100%. He has said exactly what I have been trying to say:

The late medieval/early modern form of slavery practiced in the Americas took absolutely *everything* away from a person - property, education, community and family, and fundamental rights.

Freeing a slave and restoring the rights of citizenship still leaves him fundamentally disadvantaged - especially in the absence of a welfare state that can give people the leg up they need to compete. Its a recipe for poverty, which is what most freed slaves found themselves in.

In short it takes an enormous amount of resources and care to turn a slave into a citizen who can produce and contribute like someone who hadn't been enslaved in the first place. Slavery might have been an economic asset at one point but the bigger your slave population, the bigger the pool of poverty you have to confront.

First you create slaves and poverty by colonization.

Then you start feeling guilty and get "enlightened"

Then you create a set of universal values that work well for wealthy societies and ask that all those poor ex-slave, ex-colonies adopt those universal values

Finally point out academically that it costs a lot to being slaves out of poverty.

Duh. If my aunt had a dik she would have been my uncle. if those people had not been rendered poor and separated from their lands in the first place they would not have been in the state they are in now and no one would have to complain about how expensive it is to make them meet western "universal" standards.

[Shreeman]

I hunbly submit to this thread that this "enlightenment" bijness is even more sham than the thread is slowly coming around to.

In slavery, there were still rights of a sort of extended family borne out of religion (thou shall not do x with a slave woman, only have other slaves do y to create more slaves). Now no such compulsion exists, in fact, the hypocricy not just emboldens those in "power" , it practically demands that you outdo the Joneses (yes, all persons Jones) in mistreating the downtrodden and feeling good abour it.

Next, the "law" that is supposed to enforce this "enlightened freedom" exists only in the fantasies of supporters of the status quo. Let me tell you with authority that judges practocally DEMAND settlements to hide wrongdoing. In the US in particular, it is the sharia blood money system. They will actively hurt you if you force a trial. Take my word for this one, I havent seen anyone here with broad experience of going through it, let alone across the country.

Oh, and that registering a crime difficulty issue? With firm authority I can provide data and statistics that its easier to become a millionaire than convince your local police station to register a non-trivial criminal complaint. Merit does not matter. Trivial complaints (house burgled) are registered, but nothing comes of thrm. Insurance pays the blood money and than charges you back in higher premiums.

Only the name slavery has become pejorative like n**ger. The rest is all firmly in place, as it was.

[Arjun]

An interesting new book: Sciences of the Ancient Hindus

Oswego, N.Y. — In his new book, Dr. Alok Kumar, an Indian American professor of physics at the State University of New York Oswego, describes and documents the development of scientific and mathematical concepts in South Asia centuries—and in some cases millennia — before they were rediscovered or adopted in Europe.

"Sciences of the Ancient Hindus" describes many discoveries and advances of the ancient inhabitants of the country now known as India.

Maintaining that these people have been widely known as Indians primarily in the 250 years since the British colonized the region, Kumar prefers the name Hindus for the inhabitants of the Indus-Sarasvati region, which has variously been called Hind, Hindustan, Bharat and India.

What is now known as the Arabic number system did arrive in Europe from the Middle East, he notes, but it came to the Arabs from the Hindus. The concepts of zero, the atom, and Earth as a planet that moves through the universe all appear in Hindu science long before they were proposed in Europe, he explains, and the ancient Hindus developed detailed knowledge of human anatomy, devising cataract surgery and skin grafting, for example.

"Modern science and medicine would be unrecognizable, and far more primitive, without the immense contribution of the ancient Hindus," he writes.

With this new book, Kumar aims to encourage appreciation of the multicultural nature of science and to make the modern world aware of the intellectual contributions of Hindu culture as earlier scholars have done for the contributions of the Chinese and Islamic cultures.

"The science of ancient India is a subject of great richness, far too often overlooked, that deserves a central place in the history of pre-modern science, a role now advanced by this excellent work," said Scott L. Montgomery, an affiliate faculty member at the University of Washington in Seattle and the author of many books, essays and scholarly papers on the history of science.

"Alok Kumar has provided an enormous service to the scholarly and teaching communities with this well-researched, wide-ranging, yet simply written volume."

Kumar uses original documents translated from Sanskrit and cites accounts of contemporaneous Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Persian, Arab, Roman and other sources crediting the scientific contributions of the Hindu people.

Kumar's colleague, Dr. Ronald A. Brown, emeritus professor of physics at SUNY Oswego, said, "The demonstrated accuracy of the factual documentation given by Kumar is undeniable. The book fills a gap in the history of science that preceded the work of the ancient Greeks, to form a more detailed and complete picture of the earliest beginnings of science and mathematics."

In May, Kumar's article "Transmission of Indian Science and Philosophy" appeared in "The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and Technology in Islam," published by Oxford University Press.

The article deals with the transmission of knowledge in mathematics, astronomy, medicine and philosophy from India to the Islamic world in the Middle East.

Kumar's many other scholarly publications include the reference book "Science in the Medieval World," which he translated with Sema'an I. Salem and which the University of Texas Press published in 1996.

His next book, written with Montgomery, is "A History of Science in World Cultures: Voices of Knowledge," to be published in 2015 by Routledge.

He has received fellowships from Germany's Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the USA's NASA. Born and educated in India, Kumar has been teaching in American higher education for more than three decades.

He has received the State University of New York Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and the SUNY Oswego President's Award for Scholarly and Creative Activity and Research.

Published earlier this year by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, "Sciences of the Ancient Hindus" is available online from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

[shiv]

Shiv

At the moment I can think of only one universal right with which people are born but laws are made to take away that right. Right to freely migrate from one geographical location to another. But this has been prevented by national borders and immigration laws. Sorry if this has been discussed already.

No it has not been discussed. Thanks for attempting my questions. What used to be a free right has now been made costly.

That apart, anything that is pushed as a universally applicable value only adds a financial burden on the state that is expected to live up to standards set somewhere else by some already wealthy nation whihc became wealthy before those standards were achieved. And then you have "free media" - again from the same countries whose standards the poorer country is supposed to reach mocking the poorer country saying "Tsk tsk. Look how much they spend on weapons. if only they spent all that on education, hospitals etc". But guess where the weapons come from?

My view on this are fairly radical. Of course we must make things good for our population and reduce misery - but we need to fight tooth and nail against the hypocritical system that demands that you implement targets and values exactly the way they think is right from their experiences. maternal and Child mortality statistics are a case in point. Basic improvements in the rate are achievable at low cost, but the rate of achievement will always be slow with a huge nation and ahuge population of "free" people who cannot be compelled to make lifestyle changes. So on the one hand we have freedom and democracy - so you cannot coerce people to come for antenatal check ups or take suppplements. You cannot coerce them to space their children. you need a huge education set up to teach them so that young girls today will learn and implement those practices 10 years from now when they bear children.

So the process is necessarily slow - especially when those changes have to be made for a billion people. But year after year after year after year you hear the same countries who looted and enslaved giving lectures. And to top this you have modern medical systems for neonatal that are totally unaffordable for 80% of the target population in India - so that level of care will not come for many decades.

A few days ago a young boy 4-6 years old fell into a 300 foot borewell in Karnataka. As usual the rescue efforts can be followed on TV. A video camera and oxygen have been lowered down to the level of the motionless form of the child over a 100 feet down. Machines are digging up th father's sugarcane field, ripping up the ripening crop to reach the boy.

After 4 days of this the boys father dejectedly says, "Ministers and officials are giving me hope, but I am certain my boy is dead. He is gone. Please stop digging up my field. I have two daughters to look after and I have taken a 12 lakh loan and the rescue teams tell me that after they finish digging it will be my responsibility to level the hundreds of tons of earth dug up."

But bureaucrats who know the law say that there is no provision in the law to stop rescue work until the boy is retrieved dead or alive.

is there no right to death in dignity?

Have you read this heart rending story?

[svenkat]

Ronyji has posted this in another thread.
http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/4715/politics-by-other-means

the nations of the world, claimed the soon-to-be prime minister Lord Salisbury in a speech to the Primrose League at the Albert Hall in 1898, were divided into the “living” and the “dying”. The “living” were the “white” nations – the European powers, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The “dying” comprised the rest of the world. “The living nations,” Salisbury claimed, “will gradually encroach on the territory of the dying” and from this “the seeds and causes of conflict among civilised nations will speedily appear.” The partition of the globe “may introduce causes of fatal difference between the great nations whose mighty armies stand opposed threatening each other.”

Yet in the midst of the often fractious claim and counter-claim, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the issue raised by Salisbury – how the encroachment of the “living nations” upon “the territory of the dying” created “the seeds and causes of conflict”. There has been, particularly this year, much discussion about the role of German militarism. Many who want to make a case for the First World War as a good, or at least as a necessary, conflict, have argued for the importance of Britain having stood up to German aggression. Germany’s expansionist tendencies and virulent racism only make sense, however, against the background of late-19th-century imperialism, of the carving up of the globe between the Great Powers, as the “living nations” encroached unremittingly upon “the territory of the dying”. Imperialist expansion and Great Power rivalry were, as Salisbury understood, intimately linked. Rivalries helped promote imperialist expansion, while imperialist expansion helped foster rivalries.

At the heart of the global imperialist network stood not Germany but Britain. By the middle of the 19th century, Britain had become the dominant world power, already with an unmatched empire, a powerhouse of an economy, unparalleled naval power and unsurpassed political influence. Britain’s pre-eminence in all these areas was, however, also being challenged in an unprecedented fashion by the old powers, such as France,
Belgium and Russia, by the new power of the USA and, most ominously, by the newest power of all in Germany.

The rivalries first manifested themselves outside Europe, as the newer powers tried to create their own empires and Britain sought to maintain its supremacy. There was, in the second half of the 19th century, from Africa to the Pacific, a frenzy of land-grabbing. “Towards the end of the nineteenth century,” the historian Ronald Hyam observes in his book Britain’s Imperial Century 1815-1914, “European politicians felt themselves living in an era of world delimitation, ‘a partition of the world’ as Rosebery called it, from which, as Elgin (when viceroy of India) agreed, Britain could not stand aside because of her ‘mission as pioneers of civilisation’.”

Between 1874 and 1902, Britain alone added 4,750,000 square miles and 90 million people to her Empire, ranging from numerous little Pacific Islands to Baluchistan, from Upper Burma to vast swathes of Africa. Britain, the Times declared, must continue expanding her empire because she could not afford “to allow any section even of the
Dark Continent to believe that our imperial prestige is on the wane”.

Behind imperialist expansion lay venomous racism. “What signify these dark races to us?” asked Robert Knox, Britain’s leading racial scientist, in his 1850 book The Races of Men. “Destined by the nature of their race to run, like all other animals, a certain limited course of existence, it matters little how their extinction is brought about.” Half a century later, the future American president Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his four-volume tome The Winning of the West that all must appreciate the “race importance” of the struggle between whites and the “scattered savage tribes, whose life was but a few degrees less meaningless, squalid and ferocious than that of wild beasts”. The elimination of the inferior races would, he insisted, be “for the benefit of civilisation and in the interests of mankind”, adding that it was “idle to apply to savages the rules of international morality that apply between stable and cultured communities”. Here was the grim, genocidal reality of Salisbury’s distinction between “living” and “dead” nations and the true meaning of the “encroachment” of the one upon the other.

If racial ideology justified imperialist expansion, the very fact of empire seemed to confirm the reality of race. “What is Empire but the preponderance of race,” as the Liberal imperialist and Prime Minister Lord Rosebery asked. Even the anti-imperialist Gilbert Murray accepted that “There is in this world a hierarchy of races”, those that will “direct and rule the world” and the “lower breeds of men” who will have to perform “the lower work of the world”.

“The brown, black and yellow races of the world,” the Times insisted in 1910, had to accept that “inequality is inevitable” because of “the facts of race”.

Many politicians and intellectuals feared that the very existence of the “dead” nations created the conditions for conflict between the “living”. “Experience has already shown,” the distinguished Victorian historian WEH Lecky worried in his 1899 book Democracy and Liberty, “how easily these vague and ill-defined boundaries may become a new cause of European quarrels, and how often, in remote African jungles or forests, negroes armed with European guns may inflict defeats on European soldiers which will become the cause of costly and difficult wars.” Unless the world was carved up and parcelled out by the “white” nations, then the very weakness of the rest of the world would create a power vacuum that could, many feared, lead to conflicts between Great Powers.

.....In reality, however, Britain was no less militaristic or aggressive. Indeed, there was widespread concern within the political elite around the turn of the century that Britain was insufficiently militaristic to meet the new challenges. War, declared General Worsley, commander in chief of the army, in 1897, was a necessary remedy for social decadence; it was “the greatest purifier to the race or nation that has reached the verge of over-refinement”, an “invigorating antidote against that luxury and effeminacy which destroys nations as well as individuals.”

....
Today the Opium Wars are barely remembered in Britain. And when they are, they are seen only as an embarrassment, an exception to the true nature of Pax Britannica. In fact it was the kind of gunboat diplomacy that underpinned British imperialism throughout the 19th century.

....Britain, however, was not much different. We can only rewrite the conflict as a just war against German militarism by airbrushing out the reality of 19th- and early-20th-century imperialism.

[Yayavar]

The 'Enlightenment' was against the then European societies inequities and authorities, and the 'rights' were for the 'citizens' as defined in that society. It did not stop Jefferson from enslaving or his followers from driving the Native americans to near extinction, did not stop the Dutch to clutch at Vietnam until Dien Bein phu, or the English from massacring millions of Indians and others. It did not stop the greed to loot and conquer till the enlightened stepped on each others toes culminating in the World Wars.

The concepts in abstract of rights of men, the concept of religious authority, rational thinking and logic, 'nature' of God, separatation of an overbearing Church from society have all been present in the world but were just suppressed in Europe and were 'rediscovered' and are presented as new thought.

Case in point:
....
If a clod be washed away by the sea
Europe is the less
....
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls
It tolls for thee.


Fantastic poem, but the 'universal' focus is on Europe. It is in European context that the thoughts emerged and there are european assumptions inherent in them. It is good to read and understand and appreciate I'm sure as I am not a student of the 'englightenment movement'; but one must also critically examine its biases as is being done in this thread.

[member_22733]

shiv,

There is another devil that is in the details. The 'universal model' of Western Economy, science and commerce, at the root of which is the phenomenon of Inflation fueled by consumption (aka: demand pull inflation). The motto is: Freedom is universal and fundamental right of man. A Human's freedoms includes the freedom to consume. The christist root of that being: Free will.

This idea is very beneficial to finance industry, as they will give you credit so that you can borrow to consume! The finance and industry leaders want western people mistaking their rights to consume with their duty to consume. They constantly blur the lines between the two. Having a right does not mean you have to exercise it, but that subtlety is lost on many.

The cost of that inflation is payed by colonized/poor countries, where the inflation is caused by supply scarcity, which is caused by mercantile structures set up by the old colonial guard and their neo-colonial enforcers (UN, WB, WTO etc). There are also victims of this within Western population itself, and I was surprised to discover it. Although now it seems obvious to me.

Example is Ombaba bitching about how Indians are 'traveling more' and 'eating more' causing food and fuel costs to rise. The costs were high in the first place due to western consumption. Another example is Quinoa, a Brazillian grain that has a lot of good fat/protien/carb content in it which can get one very close to a balanced diet. Once the Americans started consuming Quinoa and it became a "fad" in America, it shot up the cost of Quinoa in Brazil. Quinoa used to poor people food in Brazil since it was cheap. Not anymore.

The story is long and I one of these days I will get to it (short of time at this moment).

[member_22733]

An OT nitpick about a term:
The term colonizing is used by many Europeans and Westerners as a Eulogy to invasion and plunder. I think it should be the other way around: invasion and plunder are more of a eulogy to the term colonization.

Lets assume there is an Island somewhere that is still undiscovered. For someone to colonize it, it HAS to have no humans living on it. If it has humans living on it, then the term colonization can only mean that one considers the humans living on that Island as non-humans who can be eliminated whole sale. Keeping that in mind most of European colonization of the world can be termed as history's greatest genocide and land grab packed into one.

Colonialism is genocide, we have to learn to see it that way.

[SBajwa]

Please read this story of Mr. Vijay Kumar

http://www.godrealized.com/vijay_kumar.html

[shiv]

Example is Ombaba bitching about how Indians are 'traveling more' and 'eating more' causing food and fuel costs to rise. The costs were high in the first place due to western consumption. Another example is Quinoa, a Brazillian grain that has a lot of good fat/protien/carb content in it which can get one very close to a balanced diet. Once the Americans started consuming Quinoa and it became a "fad" in America, it shot up the cost of Quinoa in Brazil. Quinoa used to poor people food in Brazil since it was cheap. Not anymore.

The story is long and I one of these days I will get to it (short of time at this moment).

It is only because we as a nation lack self confidence to hit back with the same specious rhetoric even as we even sit back and listen to such crap. Fact is 300 million Americans have flush toilets that are used at least 4 times a day by every American. At 2.5 gallons a flush Americans are simply wasting a colossal 300 million gallons of water a day. That is enough to fill one lake Erie every 400 days. Imagine building flush toilets for 1.2 billion Indians - that would drain a lake the size of Lake Superior in 5 years. Indians crapping in wide open spaces dedicated to crapping are simply fertilizing the field - the feces dries up and loses its bacterial content under the hot Indian sun. Not a drop of water is wasted. In fact birds, small mammals and dead insects leave a far larger load of feces and rotting matter all over the USA which is simply ignored as non existent.

Oh it is another matter that developed countries have spent the money to tap water resources in a most wasteful, inefficient and environmentally degrading way and that has been done when looting of colonized nations was still going on. Recommending or demanding that all nations follow that model based on a universal right that everyone should have water is not a way of forcing poor nations to go down a route that is both costly and environmentally degrading.

[shiv]

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy ... 288188.ece
Massive groundwater depletion in U.S.

Over a 14-year period, the Colorado River basin in the U.S. has lost nearly 65 cubic km of freshwater, almost double the volume of the nation's largest reservoir, Nevada's Lake Mead.

More than three-quarters of the total — about 50 cubic km was from groundwater. The basin region has been experiencing severe drought for the past 14 years.

"Development" is fundamentally overreaching and overexploitation of resources. The examples of universal values purporting to define or lead to development in developed nations who have already over exploited resources is not the way forward.

For those who may not have known this here is a piece of history
http://britishfoodhistory.wordpress.com ... 4/11/salt/

Sea salt has been extracted from brackish waters in Britain and Ireland by evaporation for many centuries. Water was simply heated in large shallow salt pans over wood fires. This simple method was used over most of Europe wherever there were salt marshes and estuaries. This was by far the main method of salt production until the Middle Ages where salt had to be imported from Europe to meet demands, it was one of the main contributors to deforestation in parts of Europe too, such was the demand ‘whole forests were burned to make this boiled salt’, says the historian Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat.

In case anyone thinks that this salt was for the poor people to eat and survive - it was not. I was to preserve fish for export. Unfortunately there is a fundamental inverse link between low development and high environment friendliness. It is easy to interpret this statement as an argument that calls for lack of development. That is bullshit. It only calls for figuring out ways of sustainable development without rushing headlong into definitions of development pushed from Western economies based on their snake oil universalism with scant regard for the environment and absolute greed for humans to get more than the environment can provide. Guess who puts human life at the apex of the pyramid and who believes that all life is sacred?

[shiv]

After 4 days of this the boys father dejectedly says, "Ministers and officials are giving me hope, but I am certain my boy is dead. He is gone. Please stop digging up my field. I have two daughters to look after and I have taken a 12 lakh loan and the rescue teams tell me that after they finish digging it will be my responsibility to level the hundreds of tons of earth dug up."

The deep trench in the sugarcane field where rescue efforts are under way to save six-year-old Timmanna Hatti, at Sulikeri village in Badami talukon Wednesday.— Photo: KPN

Ethically, how long should one continue efforts to try and reach humans who can reasonably be assumed to be dead?

How long before one can reasonably assume that a human is dead, assuming he does not have access to food and water, and in some cases air? How much effort must go in and under what circumstances?

These questions have a bearing on the right to life. How much effort and expense needs to be put in to save one life? If you put in a huge effort to save one life, is it morally acceptable to put in less effort to save another life that is in danger under similar circumstances? If you cannot do that are you morally right or wrong? is it practically feasible to keep on at life saving efforts in cases where lives can reasonable be assumed to be beyond saving?

India has already developed certain views on these questions. Do we need a western input on these questions and be told that the latter is universalism?

[SwamyG]

Sorry saar, you are 400% wrong. Chinese have been challenging WU far more systematically and successfully than India. In fact, Rajiv Malhotra holds up their techniques and apparatus as an example for India to emulate in this regard. Many references attest to this in Breaking India, Being Different and his video lectures.

RM looks up to China, because he 'perceives' them to be strong and standing up to West. That does not mean they are standing up to the West based on their own rich ancient past heritage. Standing up is the necessity of their politics and conditions of people. Rony's observations are more in line with China's behavior. It is like some of the Hindus standing up to Western Monotheism by claiming Hinduism is monotheistic, they think in the Western (or Abrhamic ) School's framework.

[member_22733]

I was on vanvaas, but had to come out to respond to this . This maybe more of a ramble (as most of my other posts are, so pardon the loose grammar and unconventional wordings.

Unfortunately there is a fundamental inverse link between low development and high environment friendliness. It is easy to interpret this statement as an argument that calls for lack of development.

This is the biggest argument I have heard against anyone saying that western philosophical framework may not be all that great as its made out to be. The questions come: "But.... But..... they are sooooo advanced noooooo, everyone has food, water, electricity and even the beggars speak English there....... noo?"

Human societies in their most primitive forms never had more than 20 individuals. 100,000 years ago when humanity moved out of Africa that was the average size of a group. There may have been less than a million humans on the entire planet at that point. These early "pioneers" , the true colonizers of the world, had to maintain a certain harmony with nature (since agriculture was not present). The "energy" and the resources that are produced in a particular area that this early society inhabited had to be self sustaining. Since mammals have high metabolism, the energy and resource demand of a mammal on nature is huge. Thus most herbivore and omnivore mammals are good at storing fat for times when the environment is unable to meet its energy/resource demand. Since humans also follow this one can say that we had a delicate balance with our surroundings and starvation was common.

From the above one can safely infer that an urban living condition with an "unnatural density" 100s of individual since the energy/resource demand on nature has to be enormous. One has to innovate and channel energy/resources in a very systematic way to sustain such a density and unsurprisingly most science is developed in such urban settlements for three reasons: (1) More people can see your innovation and can adapt it. (2) Pressure on people to adapt to new innovation is high (3) There are people who come from diverse background resulting in cross pollination of knowledge.

When an innovation makes a resource more common and more accessible, it increases urbanization by more people moving into the "big city" in search of a better life. This is a positive feedback loop and will cause explosive urbanization, demand explosion, technology explosion.

The west achieved this loop earlier than any other culture did. If west was not present, it would have been someone else at some point or the other :- Chinese, Indians, Middle Eastern folks etc. Of course the west just did not "figure our everything" in one shot. They were standing on the shoulders of the cultures that they integrated their knowledge from the well known example of the number system and al-gebra. Thus they were, lucky for them, on the cusp of an exponential curve with the right amount of knowledge that could push them to where they are in science. The cost of that was worldwide slavery and worldwide plunder of resources.

Advanced Human society and nature have no co-evolved to reach a stable equilibrium, and unless we find an equilibrium there is going to be lash back from Nature. The solution can lie in technology (like mining asteroids for example) , or it can lie in reducing consumption (in an inward looking Indic way). But we HAVE to find a solution. Oddly, when I read some of the stuff in our history, it seems our ancients had found the solution to this problem in not needing to urbanize (by circumstance or choice I dont know).

We reduced consumption and reduced demand. India had near zero inflation and a very stable population for a good millenia and even so had one of the largest economies in the world, without having to urbanize like the west did, and that to me is an amazing fact. As Gandhi mentioned: India is her villages. Our villages were small and self-sustaining. That maybe the solution to a famous paradox called Fermi Paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox). I had posted about it in Nukkad, will post it here when I find it.

Compared to that society that existed in India before the Abrahamics destroyed it for us, we now live in a distorted jigsaw puzzle. Our cities are huge, but they dont have the technological and physical resources to support that population. However, necessity is the mother of invention, we in India might be in the cusp of our exponential growth into something else, who knows. Natures timescales are huge that it is difficult to get a true perspective: If you assume that an average pre-historic nomadic tribe that moved out of Africa moved about 10 - 20 miles a year on an average, they would have crossed the globe 100 times over in the last 100,000 years. We only know of history in the last 5000 - 6000 years.

[member_22733]

Tooting my own horn.
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... i#p1638967

The Great Filter and Fermi Paradox make an important economic assumption: 'Intelligent life is inflationary'. Specifically that Intelligent life causes demand-pull inflation.

I dont necessarily agree with it because for a millenia, Indian civilization was exactly the opposite. Demand-pull Inflation or rather the supply chasing demand along with falling unemployment and increasing population causes an exponential increase in utilization of natural resources. This is why the moment Industrial revolution hit oirope, they went on an overdrive to colonize any place on earth that had the natural resources they needed.

The model I am talking about here is a positive feedback loop, people have money, they demand more, producers supply more causing production to go up. Producers employ people so now people have more money to spend. This model is predatory and also an unstable equillibrium. If this is the model that is followed every intelligent life in the universe, then the Great Filter and Fermi Paradox apply. Also note that in this model, it assumes that intelligent life is somehow composed of smaller units (human-like) that compete with each other for the resources.

What if an intelligent life went the the co-operative way instead of competetive way. Like the Borg from star-trek? What if these units (aka civilians of an intelligent civilization) were 'satisfied' by what they had and never bothered to push demand upwards thereby reducing the need to colonize?

Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter and consequences of thinking in a western paradigm, one in which the inflation and advancement go hand in hand. It does not have to be that way.

This was in answer to: http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... i#p1638473

[ramana]

{quote="shiv"}I assumed that Carla had not made the flute herself. The statement read "She (Carla) had toiled to make one" Did she make that partciular flute? I assumed a flute was available and she claimed to be able to make flutes. If Carla had made that flute I guess she has rights over it. But here the example suggests that each of these people would keep the flute for themselves - a fundamentally selfish act. Anne could borrow it perhaps and Bob could play with it while Carla claimed ownership.{/quote}I assumed it was Carla, who made the flute in question. IMO: The concept of ownership, is where SD would diverge from western precepts. In an SD community one would produce not only for oneself but for the group. In this limited group of friends, from an SD perspective, even if one is the "creator" of the object, the rightful user would be the one, who can best wield it, hence Anne. Justice from an SD prism, would be best served if the person, who can best use the object, holds and uses the same. SD would by and large hold a bias against individual ownership. A real world reference of a similar paradigm is the British were simply confounded to know that no "individual" really "owned" a defined piece of land, when they made their first forays in Bengal.

This is why SD has not taken over the world, despite promises that The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth etc.

The solution is obvious: Carla, who knows how to handle and operate a flute but has no talent to play it, should grab it and blow on it as loud as she can. This will drive both of the others away: Anne out of horror at the misuse of a beautiful instrument, and Bob realizing how worthless the da*n thing is.

Now Carla should go and sell it to Bob, giving him the equivalent of an IMF loan - he promises his knickers as collateral, and undertakes Austerity Measures since he has to pay the interest. Now he holds the instrument and gets over his desire for THAT toy, Anne wants it, Carla is waiting for payment. Obviously Anne buys it off Bob at a handsome profit, Bob buys Carla (since she has no money and no flute) and sells her to Abdul, and now Bob has money, Anne can play the flute, and Carla, well.. never mind - that's the fate of all creative ppl.

The prize goes to you for you understand Western Universalism to a tee.

[shiv]

Advanced Human society and nature have no co-evolved to reach a stable equilibrium, and unless we find an equilibrium there is going to be lash back from Nature. The solution can lie in technology (like mining asteroids for example) , or it can lie in reducing consumption (in an inward looking Indic way). But we HAVE to find a solution. Oddly, when I read some of the stuff in our history, it seems our ancients had found the solution to this problem in not needing to urbanize (by circumstance or choice I dont know).

We reduced consumption and reduced demand. India had near zero inflation and a very stable population for a good millenia and even so had one of the largest economies in the world, without having to urbanize like the west did, and that to me is an amazing fact.

I have had parallel thoughts on the issue and it is disquieting.

Given that Indian society had 5000 years or more to experiment with various answers to what life ought to be like, one of the possibilities is that they were right.

Of course the other possibility is that they were wrong. This second argument is an important one in this day and age. How and why were they wrong? Let me list out all the reasons I have heard. The material wealth and comforts we have today were not reached in those 5000 wasted years. Instant communication anywhere, fast, safe travel, the earth producing food more abundantly than ever before, humans healthier and more likely to survive far longer than ever before.

What, from a Sanatana Dharma point of view is wrong with all this? What is wrong with instant communication, more food, better health, longevity etc?

The point is that there is nothing wrong with all these benefits other than an excess attention to human material benefits and endless personal sensual gratification with little thought for the degradation for plant and animal life in the pursuit of these benefits, and no spiritual ideas about existence and nature. Sanatana Dhrama calls for avoiding excess desire for material things and a preservation of harmony in nature by preserving plant and animal life. Of course the obvious criticism here is that Sanatana Dharma is incompatible with modern development and needs to be discarded, and indeed it has been all but discarded, except in bits and pieces by most Indians.

One could ask, what sort of degradation has a "greed" for human development alone caused? The honest answer is "every sort of degradation". And the degradation has become an unstoppable vicious cycle where ever "improvement" in human condition is accompanied by a further degradation of living conditions for plants and animals. More food for humans means deforestation. An increasing population because of abundance of food causes further deforestation and loss of biodiversity. Technology to improve health leads to more people surviving childhood illnesses and fewer people dying early, again adding to the population growth and putting more pressure for space, even more deforestation and pressure on water resources. Finally technology is very energy intensive and the extraction of energy sources like firewood adds to environmental degradation, made worse by mining and now carbon emissions.

So yes. Humans are having a great time, but we have lost things that we cannot recover. Such losses would not have been allowable from the SD viewpoint. So let me get back to the point, "Universalism". Every ideal that is promoted as universalism is an ideal that demands human development and everything about excessive and forced human development damages the world we live in.

It is actually too late to go back to an earlier era. But what we can do is ask if the human development standards we are asked to meet via definitions of universalism are good in terms of our traditions. If they are not we really ought to modify them or discard them. We must not be fooled by the word "universalism" and imagine that there is some magic formula being provided that is always good. Basically humankind does not know where it is heading. Scientists - who took over the role of guiding humanity - a role that was earlier played by philosophers, do not have a fukken clue about where the world is going. Only hope and crossed fingers. There is no plan. The only plan is to try and make all humans into clones of Americans. That ain't working. Money for nothin' and chicken for everyone can't last forever. Some thing will give - and it is better for us to recognize this and remove the snake oil from ideas of growth and development driven by "universal" ideals.

[ramana]

An X-post to understand the development and rise of Western Universalism and potential fall.....

That graph doesn't tell what happened before 1820. This one does:

We were in decline long before the British came in. The Mughals were by no means helpful. The Chinese saw a major drop between the Ming and Qing dynasties, before recovering until the Qing themselves started stagnating. Comparing time horizons, they pretty much fell off a cliff as the Qing Empire unraveled. To their credit, they're recovering with equal vigor.

The graph shows how WU developed and rose with increasing properity of so called West. And with the re-emergence of China and India it could be reconfined to Europe and North America unless both are WUized!!!


WU goes hand in hand with economics.

[RoyG]

India will be joining the SCO soon. China seems to have given the go-ahead. Japan will be moving away from the US and towards Russia especially if they work out an energy agreement. We are moving very fast. All three powers will now be coordinating their actions to slowly collapse the dollar and charting a new economic and cultural path for the world. Western "universalism" had a good run for 300-400 years.

[Manish_Sharma]

Firstly, Lord explains to Arjuna that he should not worry too much about death(of people in general) because that which dies is impermanent and that which is permanent will not die. This entity which is the soul of all beings is: Aathma. Aathma is a sanskruth word for 'soul' or 'self'. It is the real being. It is the body which dies. The soul or self does not die. Since, it does not die, it cannot be killed. So, there is no need to worry about that which is not going die.

The Mind of J. Krishnamurti
By Luis S.R. Vas

Chapter 9
With E. A. WODEHOUSE

During the recent Winter Gathering at Adyar I was fortunate enough to have several long talks with Krishnamurti. We went for two or three walks together to the seashore; once or twice we sat on the verandah of the upper floor of the new Star Office, which had been lent to me as my quarters during my stay. I found Krishnamurti, as always, only too ready to discuss anything that had to do with his teachings. More than that, I think he thoroughly enjoys the process of what he calls "having buckets let down into his well", and the deeper the bucket goes the more likes it. At any rate we had some really good talks, and I have felt that it would be a pity not to jot down one or two points, close questioning elicited from him certain rather important extensions of his teaching. which I feel would interest many readers.
***

For present purposes I shall confine myself to one conversation which took place two or three days ago. It was on a rather interesting topic:-namely, What is liberation? Are we to think of the individual liberated as still active in some way or another? or does liberation mean annihilation?

Many people, I said, listening to Krishnamurti's teachings, think of liberation as annihilation. They take it as putting a full stop to life. This is partly because he himself has often spoken of it as a "goal", partly because traditionally (in Buddhism and elsewhere) it is treated as though it meant the end of all things; partly, again, because many people find it difficult to imagine what kind of further activity there can be, when the individual life has become merged in the universal.

Krishnamurti's answer to this difficulty was a singularly full one-not, of course, given as a discourse, but broken up by question and answer and so gradually opening out one point after another. It is wrong he said to regard liberation as annihilation. It is more truly a beginning, And yet, in one sense, it is not a beginning at all, since pure life is altogether out of Time. Still, for the purpose of answering this particular question, we may speak of it as a beginning, for it is the commencement of True or Natural Life. Up till the point of liberation we are leading a sham life. we are in the realm of illusion. Only after that do we enter upon life, as it is really meant to be. From this point of view, he admitted, it is certainly misleading to speak of liberation as a "goal". A goal it is, for those who are striving to reach it; but in itself it is more truly a starting point.

There is nothing in liberation, as such, he went on, to preclude further activity in the phenomenal worlds. There can, of course, be no compulsion, since freedom from compulsion is implicit in the idea of liberation. But if the liberated life so wills, it can manifest itself in the worlds of matter; and, in so far as it enters into these worlds, it will come under the alw of those worlds, which is evolution.

But even if it does so, the growth which will then ensue will be of a different kind from that which preceded liberation. for it will be a growth informed by absolute, or pure life. Formerly there was (or seemed to be) an Ego, and growth appeared as the unfolding of this. Now there is not longer an Ego; it has disappeared for ever at liberation. what we have therefore to grasp, if we can-and it is no easy matter-is the idea of a universal life building up fresh instruments for its self-expression; those instuments being in the world of form and so having, in that world the out ward appearance of individuality. The chief mark of post-liberation activity will be that it is absolutely natural, effortless, spontaneous, unselfconscious. The life thus manifested in the material worlds will have its roots in the Eternal. It will have realised its own universality, And, because there is no longer any sense of separate "I-ness" to obstruct things, its activity will be as simple and as natural as that of a flower.

Will such a life, I asked him, have anything corresponding to that sense of "I-ness" which we now have? That is to say, will its experience be referred, as ours is, to an appreceiving centre? Will it preserve any kind of conscious self-identity, or will it, by reason of its universality, lose this completelyin its identification of itself with the life of others?

It does, anwered Krishmaurti, preserve what may be called a sense of self-identity. It still , so to speak, looks out on the world through its own eyes and refers all its experience to itself. But this "self" is not an Ego. It is that far more subtle thing-individual uniqueness. and here we come to another thing which must almost elude our powers of thought. Individual uniqueness is not a differentiation on the form side, as the ego is. It is a differntiation inherent in the life itself, and it only comes into full action, if one may put it so, when Ego has ceased to exist. Such uniqueness is what makes every individual life different from every other and gives it its own centre of consciousness; and even when the universal life has been realised, this uniqueness remains. One may speak of it as that pure abstract "form" of individuality, which remains when all the egoism has been drained from it. It is individual, and at the same time it is universal. there nearest we can go to it in concret language, is to describe it as the focus through which the universal life is released, and 'through which it manifests freely after liberation. For a human being there can be no complete merging in the Absolute, in the sense of evaporation into the Totality of Life. The differentiation, however, abstract and tenuous, involved in this individual uniquenss is everlasting; and it is this that makes possible any subsequent evolutionary growth, which the liberated life may still experience in the world of form, if it so will.

So far indeed, Krishnamurti continued, from such uniqueness disappearing or "evaporating", it is really the supreme gift which each one of us makes to life. For, when once it has been purified of all egoism, become, one may say, a new window through which the universal life can realise itself. Every individual life, in this way, multiplies the universe, for it gives to the Absolute a fresh world in which it can discover and recreate its own Being. And the point at which this gift is handed over to the universal life is what we call liberation. For it is then that Ego relinquishes that which it has helped to build up; and a greater life takes this over. to put it another way, the Ego dies in order that Life may live.

And here, Krishnamurti pointed out, we can see that to talk of so-and so "obtaining liberation" is a misuse of terms. that which is liberated is always life, not the individual. Indeed it is at the expense of the individual that such liberation is achieved. Life alone benefits by the transaction. It is true that the individual uniqueness, which persists on both sides of the liberating process, finds that, instead of belonging to the Ego, it has really all alsong belonged to the life universal, But that discovery is made at, or after, liberation. The process towards liberation must always seem like the killing out of individuality-hence its painfulness. the old saying, "Thou must die in order to live", still remains true. Liberation then, is the liberating of the life by the destruction of separateness, so that this life can thenceforward function in its fullness throught he pure form of individual uniqueness. And this is the Natural Life, referred to before, which is established, and which first comes into possesion of itself, at liberation.

Is there any mark, I asked him by which this "Natural Life" can be easily distinguished from the life which is manifested while egoism still persists? - anything which can give us a concrete idea of what it is like,without necessitating an appeal to metaphysics?

His answer was than there is one simple mark, which holds good of every manifestation of pure, or universal life. It is that it acts but never reacts. Until we have got rid of the Ego, most of our conscious life is made up of reactions. Take love, for example. This is, in most cases, a reaction set up within us by some person who happens to attract us. A person who does not happen to set up this reaction, we do not love. But after liberation, when pure life is at work, what occurs is quite the reverse. Then love becomes a life-force going out from ourselves. It may be compared to a searchlight, which renders loveable all on who its beam may happen to fall. It is thus independent of its objects, since the light can be turned just as easily upon one as another. And the same thing is true of everything else in the liberated life. Wisdom, for instance is not knowledge derived from anything outside. It is a light which, going forth from ourselves, illuminates everything which it may touch. It is pure life manifesting as cognition. And here, incidentally, we can see the meaning of the statement, so often made by Krishnamurti, that the liberated life means the poise of love and reason. The explanation is that, after the characteristics of pure life, they become positive, acting outward from an inner centre, and are never driven back upon themselves by reactions. The impossibility of thus being driven back is the "poise". No impact fom outside can disturb its equilibrium; on the contrary, it is ever ready to leap forth in any direction, as soon as the impulse comes from within.

The great thing that we have all to do, therefore, said Krishnamurti, is gradually to change our reactions into actions. Every movement of the life within us must become self-originating. We must cease to be stirred either by attraction or repulsion from without, and must set up an outward-going life which will bestow its own qualities upon the world about it. Such substitution of pure action for reaction is the true detachment; for it is, of its own nature, indifferent to objects. It is also liberation; for the sole life of the Eto-which itself is the sole obstacle to freedom- consists in reactions. Abolish the reaction and substitute pure actions and the Ego automatically disappears. Here then is one way of working for liberation. As regards the question from which we started (that of post-liberation activity) this formula of "action without reaction" may help us to understand a little of what the life after liberation must be like. It will be a life of pure action. devoid of reactions; and we can fit this in, in thought, with any kind of activity on the form side.

One further point, he added, can be linked on to all this; and that is the point which started the whole discussion-namely, the statement that liberation can be reached at any stage in evolution.
Liberation, said Krishnamurti, is independent of evolutionary growth in this sense-that, of two persons at different stages of evolutionary growth the less evolved may well win liberation before the other, if he is more prepared to do the essential thin; that is, to destroy utterly the sense of the separate "I". This and not the development of vehicles, is the real pre-condition of liberation. On the other hand, it may be true- probably it is- that a certain amount of evolutionary growth will be necessary before anybody will have the real wish in him to make this ego-annihilating effort. The statement, therefore, that liberation can be reached at any stage should be modified. What is true in it is its assertion that liberation is a matter of the life and not of forms; that, given the capacity to make the effort, attainment need not wait upon any long processes of evolutionary growth; and lastly, that the first movement towards liberation can be made at quite an early stage, and that every step along this Path is in itself a liberation. In accomplishing even a small part of the task we, in one way, accomplish the whole.

Krishnamurti explained what he meant by this last remark. Pure life, he said cannot be subdivided. It knows nothing of more or less. It is an absolute. Therefore, if, in relation to anything whatsoever, you release life by the breaking down of an attachment, you release within that sphere (no matter how small it be) the whole of life. To turn any reaction into pure action is thus, in itself, a liberation just as full in its way as the all embracing liberation later on. From this point of view the whole journey towards liberation (if one can put it so) is one long liberation. The great thing is to be facing in the right direction. After that, the length of time which the journey may take does not matter. To have "Begun Liberating" is what counts. For it means that a man has definitely sided with life in the task that has to be done.

The idea that liberation can be won "in moments", and that each such moment has the essential quality of full liberation, is one on which Krishnamurti laid much stress. That is why he speaks sometimes of the necessity of aiming at perfection in all the little things of life. For "perfection" is that quality which automatically supervenes when absolute life is touched. It is the natural and spontaneous expression of pure life. Consequently to aim at perfection in small details is to aim, indirectly, at the release of pure life; and any perfect action, no matter how small, is thus a liberation. By doing this, Krishnamurti said, we can, so to speak, set up a "habit of liberation", long before the final freedom is achieved.

~

[A_Gupta]

Definitions don't give you knowledge, they only tell you a convention for how a word is to be used. A definition cannot tell you that whales and dolphins are not fish; the definition only helps you identify out of all the things swimming in the ocean, which ones are dolphins, whales, sharks, etc., etc.

We could make dolphins distinct from fish by definitional fiat. But to really know that dolphins are indeed not some category of fish, you need a theory; e.g., theory of evolution. The theory helps explain the common features (e.g., streamlined shape) and different features (e.g., air breathing versus gills) of dolphins and fish.

Likewise with religion - it is a definitional thing that "any belief in superhuman powers is a religion". Then, by definitional fiat, we prune out Marvel Comics which has superhumans like Superman, Batman, Spiderman, etc., because we don't want to term them as religions, etc., etc.

But this is a pointless mental exercise. It doesn't give you anything but classificatory knowledge, and it doesn't tell you why your classification has any meaning. Why is "belief in superhuman powers" a useful way of dividing up human thought and practices into the categories of "religion" and "non-religion"? What is a superhuman power, btw? Is the strength of an elephant superhuman -- it certainly is much greater than that of any human. Or must "superhuman power" be wielded only by a sentient, intelligent being? Does "belief in superhuman powers" lead you to understand why some systems of human thought proselytize and others don't? Are Allah's and God's powers conceived as as being "superhuman" in Islam and Christianity respectively, or not? If a human can attain powers that normal humans don't, does that become "superhuman" or is that conceived of as being within the realm of normal human possibilities?

I'm not asking about the veracity of these powers, but on how the system of thought considers them. E.g., Rishi Vishwamitra by the virtue of his tapasya, was able to create the southern skies, so those powers are considered to be within the reach of a human, even if very difficult to obtain. They are not superhuman. On the other hand, there is no way **ever** that Moses could part the sea on his own, he needs God to do it. The power of parting the sea is forever out of the reach of humans and is therefore truly extra-human if not superhuman. It is a miracle from God. It doesn't matter that Vishwamitra didn't actually create the southern skies and Moses never parted the seas -- how do the systems of thought that put these ideas together consider them?

You might say, no, no, there is some scientifically objective way of describing whether something is superhuman. I say, sorry, let me give you an example of "supernatural". Newtonian physics has instantaneous action at a distance, and everyone accepted that for a long time; today it is considered impossible -- so would Newtonian physics count as supernatural? Within the system of Newtonian physics instantaneous action at a distance is natural; outside of that framework, it is not found and is supernatural or extra-natural. So even science does not tell you definitively whether something is natural or supernatural. Same goes for "superhuman".

[member_23692]

Is the consensus thus emerging that there is no universality in this world, not in laws that can apply to all human beings, not in rights of humans, not in responsibilities of all humans, and of course not in solutions to all problems ?

It is all, then a matter, of everything is equal-equal. Your thought is as good as mine, as it is of anybody else's. Your solution to a particular problem is as good as mine, as is anybody else's. Actually, I take it back. It is more like, my solution is better than anyone else's just because it is mine. And who is anyone else to challenge that ? And if pressed further for a more logical answer, I can always say that my way of looking at the problem is different than anyone else's, therefore, my problem in a sense becomes unique to me, and therefore, the solution of my problem is also unique, which only I, facing this problem exclusively, am uniquely most qualified to solve, with my own solution, and no one else can criticize either the way I look at the problem or how I decide to solve it or not solve it.

Just so I understand, is that what we are saying in this thread ?

And no, I am not asking this from the point of view of defending Western Universalism, by any means. As far as I am concerned, it is an open and shut case. Most of what people portray as universal western thoughts such as democracy and secularism are not universal at all and cannot be universally applied. I have been crying hoarse saying that in many different posts across various threads here. So, no, no love lost between me and the West at all. I will have you all know that I have been personally denied visa by two different Western countries in my life, so I don't take a back seat to anyone in West baiting.

[member_22733]

Is the consensus thus emerging that there is no universality in this world, not in laws that can apply to all human beings, not in rights of humans, not in responsibilities of all humans, and of course not in solutions to all problems ?

No

Just so I understand, is that what we are saying in this thread ?

No one has said that 'we' or our SD traditions and philosophies are beyond criticism, this thread is not about that. All we are saying is that the fundamental basis western philosophies that drove western science and commerce are ALSO not beyond criticism. Part of this thread is an attempt to do that.

No one is rejecting the product of Western science or Indic science or Indic math. Instead the other part of this thread and my own personal quest to understand : "What would it have looked like had the Indian civilization allowed to continue on its path without interruption?", "Would we still have developed the science AND applied it the same way as the west did?".

[member_23692]

Is the consensus thus emerging that there is no universality in this world, not in laws that can apply to all human beings, not in rights of humans, not in responsibilities of all humans, and of course not in solutions to all problems ?

No

Just so I understand, is that what we are saying in this thread ?

No one has said that 'we' or our SD traditions and philosophies are beyond criticism, this thread is not about that. All we are saying is that the fundamental basis western philosophies that drove western science and commerce are ALSO not beyond criticism. Part of this thread is an attempt to do that.

No one is rejecting the product of Western science or Indic science or Indic math. Instead the other part of this thread and my own personal quest to understand : "What would it have looked like had the Indian civilization allowed to continue on its path without interruption?", "Would we still have developed the science AND applied it the same way as the west did?".

So what are some of the precepts that are universal, in our view, then ? Can we start with the top 5 or 6 ?

If we say it is "moderation", meaning a rejection of "consumerism", runaway consumption, unlimited growth etc, where among the so called followers of SD, do you find a rejection of those things today ? Our rivers, our oceans, our lakes and our ground water, all are the most polluted in the world, dirty, no, filthy to the extreme, all a result of runaway greed, among the SDers. Maybe it is because we don't have the money to create bathrooms for our water bodies, so we found a uniquely "indic" solution to pollute them.

If the universal precept is to reject runaway consumerism and respect for all living things, then of course, we as followers of SD, have completely done away with our forest cover and killed off all our wildlife, including the magnificent big cats. After all, we need wood to burn and wood to make things out of, so our uniquely "indic" solution is to just "get rid of it". We are not open to any criticism, because the others do worst and we actually were not "allowed" to keep our waters clean and protect our forest cover. The Macaulyte headmaster told us to get dirty up our water and cut off all our trees. What choice do we have ? Of course, free choice and resistance, fighting the polluters and the poachers, sacrificing to fight against them, is out of the questions for us SDers, because, those ideas are not "universal".

And of course, if the precept is to reject runaway consumerism, then polluting our own souls by doing exactly the opposite of that by more than 99% of us SDers today, is also because we "indics", have not been allowed a clear path to pursue our SD. Had we been "allowed" to do so, we would have had all "bliss" and "nirvana" today, with clean public areas, everyone having bathrooms, pristine rivers, oceans and forests, people only taking from nature what they need plus 5% maybe (we allow ourselves some modest luxuries), and all of us "indics" would celebrate all our SD festivals and have a perpetual love fest. No outside influence to corrupt us or "disallow" us from being these impeccable human beings that we SDers by our very nature are.

[A_Gupta]

So what are some of the precepts that are universal, in our view, then ? Can we start with the top 5 or 6 ?

If we say it is "moderation", meaning a rejection of "consumerism", runaway consumption, unlimited growth etc, where among the so called followers of SD, do you find a rejection of those things today ?

Aren't you confusing universal as in "universally valid" and universal as in "universally adopted"?

[member_22733]

So what are some of the precepts that are universal, in our view, then ? Can we start with the top 5 or 6 ?

I wish it was that easy. I honestly dont know. The only thing I can think of even remotely universal is to maintain harmony with nature and be human at the same time. I have put some thought into its scientific basis. Humans or any living thing on this planet increases the thermodynamic entropy of the surrounding that they live in. Nature has a certain thermodynamic equilibrium that it maintains most of the time. When that balance goes out of whack due to internal or external forces, it can cause a mass extinction event. It upsets thermodynamic cycles (known or unknown) that govern the climate of the planet which resets once that stressor is gone.

The last two were caused by a super volcano the size of Siberia (trilobite mass extinction IIRC) and an asteroid 10 miles long (KT boundary:- end of dinosaurs). Since there is evidence that these things can cause all of us to go extinct and put the earth in danger. I humbly submit that this idea of "maintaining harmony with nature" may be universal.

Human energy consumption is getting us closer into upsetting these thermodynamic cycles, and there needs to be radical change in thoughts and attitude in the next few generations. The western way to deal with it is obvious with the climate-change movement. It probably started with a noble intention but ended up getting hijacked by the neo-imperialist and is now another weapon in the western side to beat poor people with. The tangle b/w India and US with respect to solar electric systems is one example. GreenPeace is another.

If we say it is "moderation", meaning a rejection of "consumerism", runaway consumption, unlimited growth etc, where among the so called followers of SD, do you find a rejection of those things today ?

If you are discussing the issues with "SD followers" today, then this is not a thread for that. Maybe some other thread is a place for it. In that thread one should define who or what constitutes an SD follower.

I have explained why Indians "today" are the way they are in my previous posts. Indians today are not the Indians in the SD times. The culture we have has morphed into a shell of what it was. Again, this is going OT so i will leave it at that.

Our rivers, our oceans, our lakes and our ground water, all are the most polluted in the world, dirty, no, filthy to the extreme, all a result of runaway greed, among the SDers. Maybe it is because we don't have the money to create bathrooms for our water bodies, so we found a uniquely "indic" solution to pollute them.

If the universal precept is to reject runaway consumerism and respect for all living things, then of course, we as followers of SD, have completely done away with our forest cover and killed off all our wildlife, including the magnificent big cats. After all, we need wood to burn and wood to make things out of, so our uniquely "indic" solution is to just "get rid of it". We are not open to any criticism, because the others do worst and we actually were not "allowed" to keep our waters clean and protect our forest cover. The Macaulyte headmaster told us to get dirty up our water and cut off all our trees. What choice do we have ? Of course, free choice and resistance, fighting the polluters and the poachers, sacrificing to fight against them, is out of the questions for us SDers, because, those ideas are not "universal".

We are now going OT, but let me indulge you:
I feel your pain when you write this. I know you are angry and frustrated because I was there myself. Like you I used to loath and hate the filth, the loss of greenery and the ecosystems in our cities. I hated the people who caused it to be this way.

I have since changed that attitude. Like you I now loath and hate the filth and the state we are in. However, I dont hate the people who are living in that filth and maybe even perpetrating the filth. I look at them like a traumatized, but gifted, child. It was in this filth that my parents grew up and gave me whatever they could, in the best way they could. An average Indian, unlike us, has no time to philosophize. They are struggling against a run down, decrepit infrastructure and a broken administration which is purposefully kept that way by the neo-elites. It was purposefully kept that way for ages by the invaders. You are looking at a distorted India. Where one has to use the most primitive of human nature to survive. I think with that much adversity an Indian managing to keep whatever semblance of humanity is a great thing. Even in our famines and droughts, we were peaceful. In our place, many other cultures would have descended into absolute chaos by now.

So what you see as a sorry state of affairs with Indians deserving it since they are doing it wrong, I see it as a testament to the amazing strength of our culture and in human capability in general.

And of course, if the precept is to reject runaway consumerism, then polluting our own souls by doing exactly the opposite of that by more than 99% of us SDers today, is also because we "indics", have not been allowed a clear path to pursue our SD. Had we been "allowed" to do so, we would have had all "bliss" and "nirvana" today, with clean public areas, everyone having bathrooms, pristine rivers, oceans and forests, people only taking from nature what they need plus 5% maybe (we allow ourselves some modest luxuries), and all of us "indics" would celebrate all our SD festivals and have a perpetual love fest. No outside influence to corrupt us or "disallow" us from being these impeccable human beings that we SDers by our very nature are.

Misdirected sarcasm that misses the point, again coming from an angry, frustrated place. Yes, things are bad, things have to change. But try to come from a place of empathy and understanding and most of all: calm down.

[member_23692]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That is the most honest post, LokeshC that I have read on this forum. "I dont know", you said. You are one of the handful of Indians that I know and I am one, so I know thousands and know of millions, if not a billion, but you are one of the few, a handful that I know or even know of, who "does not know", or at least "does not know everything". And you will pay for saying it. We "indics" know everything. Our solutions are the best and if we were simply "allowed" to follow our own path, we would have been the most dominant super power on earth, by far. I mean, if we were just "allowed", we would not only be # 1, there would have been no number 2, no number 3.........number 13, maybe. And that would have been Nepal.

But since you have been so honest, let me drop the sarcasm, which was not directed at you to begin with, it was as directed towards me as it was towards any other indic, as I am an indic myself. It was directed at all of us, to the collective us. And you were also very perceptive, probably the first person on this forum, who was able to glean the "pain", the extreme "pain" that I felt in uttering those words. No one likes to punch themselves in the eye, and I was doing just that. But truth has to be faced. We cannot keep living in denial and blame everybody else for our problems. This thread really, has one and only one purpose. To demonize someone else. It is like a drug, that we constantly need, so that we can continue to live in denial, like an addict, without having to face up to the innumerable problems we face of enormous proportions. This does not mean that in fact, the others are not demons. But with all the problems we are facing ourselves, which we can solve on our own, despite the external demons, we mock others. What we fail to grasp is that it is not about others. Why are we so obsessed about others. It is about us. Yes, we have to be aware, that no one is our friend in the world. We have to be aware that all are out to get us. That is all we need to think about others. The rest is all upto us. We have to improve our lot ourselves. No one else will do it. And yes, everyone, any chance they get, will screw us. Just take it for granted and work up our strategy accordingly. It is the nature of man, to screw others as much as they can get away with. It is incumbent on us to create appropriate defenses for ourselves. That is what is "Dharma" and that is what our "Karma" is and has to be.

Once we understand that others will screw us to the maximum, if they ever get a chance, we then have to stop thinking about them, their motivations and stop crying and complaining. If we have to blame anyone, let us blame our forefathers, who did not understand the true nature of evil and did not adequately defend us. They indulged in all kinds of non-dharmic things, fought amongst each other, divided ourselves based on every idiotic pretense, caste, creed, region, language, culture, divided brother against brother, so that they allowed our enemies to screw us. Now we are doing the same. Instead of trying to innovate and come up with ways of coming together as dharmics, bridging the gaps between us indics, studying ways to unite, setting up think tanks for the sole purpose of uniting ourselves, we still insist on spending most of our time blaming who.......the massa.........the West......everyone else, to the point that we are willing to defend every dirty thing we do, every evil we perpetrate on ourselves, all in the name of bashing the West. What kind of psychopathy is this ? What kind of psychosis is this ? What kind of sickness is this ?

Let us behave like healthy beings, work positively to come together, stop being argumentative Indians, develop common bonds, work out ways of how we will sacrifice for the larger good and preservation of dharma, how we will actuate and bring into practice the idea of moderation and non-consumerism and this blind exploitation of everything for that 10th car or the 6th house or the 20th piece of land or the 50th designer gold watch. How we do these and bring them into practice is far more interesting than bashing others. Besides, we dont have the power right now to do other than just talk, and bash, we cant even actually bash our enemies, we are so weak. We talk like Don Quixote and act like Sancho Panza. If we have to bash others, let us at least bash them physically, not by words.

[shiv]

Our rivers, our oceans, our lakes and our ground water, all are the most polluted in the world, dirty, no, filthy to the extreme,

Indians have all worked together calmly and collectively, without bashing anyone else to achieve this unparalleled feat of pollution. We are already working together, and I wonder if it is time some rabble rousing Indians started working against the cooperation we have shown in polluting everything.

Indians are secular, democratic, equal opportunity polluters. Universal rights to life and health care for all have increased the population of villages on riverbanks by 300% in 30 years, but since none of them had toilets to start with - we have never built enough. But we are a free democratic nation. We cannot force people to use toilets. We can't stop them crapping either. You see universal values at work everywhere in India and we ought to be oh so proud:
1. Democracy - A free people who choose their rights to continue crapping by the river
2. Freedom - to crap and throw garbage where convenient
3. Right to food - no one goes hungry and we are healthier, crap more and support larger families with more kids
4. Right to health care for all: Babies don't die of disease and in 15 years our girls have given us grandsons
5. Equality for all so that no one needs to be employed for the dirty task of cleaning up and everyone can become a doctor or engineer
6. Right to education: Thousands of colleges so everyone becomes a doctor or engineer

With all these universal values that have improved our lives and our society so much - maybe pollution is something we can put up with. I will buy an RO water filter with imported technology from free trade and a diesel generator to have the power I need and keep myself healthy. Someone downstream has the freedom to puke into the river.

Overall the universal values we have adopted have given us much to make the lives of ordinary Indians mimic that of Americans. Freedom, democracy, the right to life, food for all, health care for all, large families to help us as we grow old. Why do we have to complain about a little pollution? We are free to insulate ourselves from pollution.

Those who worry about these things are now free to innovate and produce cheap magic toilets that use almost no water and convert feces into dry sterile powder and energy. Or else we can simply build flush toilets , tap groundwater to flush the toilets, and let out the effluent downstream.

[member_22733]

We "indics" know everything. Our solutions are the best and if we were simply "allowed" to follow our own path, we would have been the most dominant super power on earth, by far.

Being Indic has nothing to do with power projection (aiming for superpower-dom) or knowledge of everything. The fact that indic philosophy claims that there could be multiple paths to the truth means it allows for ignorance, it allows for someone to be "not knowing", not following and not believing in a path is not a sin. Not knowing a path is not a sin. Not attempting to search for a path maybe a sin

But truth has to be faced. We cannot keep living in denial and blame everybody else for our problems. This thread really, has one and only one purpose. To demonize someone else. It is like a drug, that we constantly need, so that we can continue to live in denial, like an addict, without having to face up to the innumerable problems we face of enormous proportions. This does not mean that in fact, the others are not demons. But with all the problems we are facing ourselves, which we can solve on our own, despite the external demons, we mock others. What we fail to grasp is that it is not about others. Why are we so obsessed about others. It is about us. Yes, we have to be aware, that no one is our friend in the world. We have to be aware that all are out to get us. That is all we need to think about others. The rest is all upto us. We have to improve our lot ourselves. No one else will do it. And yes, everyone, any chance they get, will screw us. Just take it for granted and work up our strategy accordingly. It is the nature of man, to screw others as much as they can get away with. It is incumbent on us to create appropriate defenses for ourselves. That is what is "Dharma" and that is what our "Karma" is and has to be.

AFAIK No Indic who posts on this thread has disagreed with the bolded part above. We are in complete agreement. So now let us look at your judgement on the reason for why this thread exists:
This thread is not to demonize "the other". This thread is to comprehend a phenomenon that is causing many Indians to look at issues they face with a distorted lens, and often use the wrong tools to solve those issues. Even if they use the right tool, they end up applying it wrong.

An analogy can be drawn in medical terms: India is like a bed ridden patient with worm infested bedsores, with a mystery disease. You are a doctor set out to cure her and you want to do everything you can to make her better. However there is a problem: She cannot understand your language. She cannot understand your instructions and your advice. She does not even know about the basic things you learned in your physician training! You cannot even diagnose her condition without asking her about how she feels. You do not know how she got to where she is from where she was. All you have is the horrible sight of her almost soul-less, abused body and that deeply troubles you.

How are you going to cure her without a proper diagnosis and a proper way to communicate with her? Many people try it anyway. Some people try to cure her bedsores by asking her to run a mile every morning, and that too in a language she does not understand. Some people say eat proper food and it will all be good, again in the same alien language. She will not understand it, and even if she does she may not be able to respond to your request.

Once we are done yelling and shouting at her, the realization sets in that little is going to change, we start the blame game, which is largely the state of affairs today: Some people blame her for allowing to be abused. Some say she deserved it. Some people are ashamed they are her children. Some will blame her for the sores and the smell. It is a strange anger that takes over from that point, anger and frustration with a deep pain and shame attached to it.

However once you understand her language (as I think I did), learn to speak it. Talk to her and know what ails her, how she got there and what you can do to help. The anger, shame and pain goes away. You view her with empathy. You tolerate the stench and the sores, as you know the history behind that wound. And if you are smart and not an armchair general (like I am), you figure out a way to help her out in a way that she understands. And unlike the previous time, you approach with patience. She has had a long prosperous life before we were around, she will likely have a prosperous life after we depart.

This "demonizing of the other" was a humble attempt to make people understand in their language and in their thought framework on why our cities are like bedsores. Once you know that the sores were not her fault to begin with, it *may* change your attitude to the problem and you *may* approach it from a more empathetic perspective, without anger and frustration which is a healthy place to be.

When you have the right diagnosis of the issue, you can attempt to form solutions. Those solutions again have to take into account the history of the country, the nature of the people. I believe Modi has done something very similar in Gujarat and the results are for everyone to see.

Once we understand that others will screw us to the maximum, if they ever get a chance, we then have to stop thinking about them, their motivations and stop crying and complaining. If we have to blame anyone, let us blame our forefathers, who did not understand the true nature of evil and did not adequately defend us. They indulged in all kinds of non-dharmic things, fought amongst each other, divided ourselves based on every idiotic pretense, caste, creed, region, language, culture, divided brother against brother, so that they allowed our enemies to screw us. Now we are doing the same. Instead of trying to innovate and come up with ways of coming together as dharmics, bridging the gaps between us indics, studying ways to unite, setting up think tanks for the sole purpose of uniting ourselves, we still insist on spending most of our time blaming who.......the massa.........the West......everyone else, to the point that we are willing to defend every dirty thing we do, every evil we perpetrate on ourselves, all in the name of bashing the West. What kind of psychopathy is this ? What kind of psychosis is this ? What kind of sickness is this ?

No one is saying our forefathers were angels who could do no wrong. They made mistakes. I believe that making knowledge of Vedas and Sanskrit somewhat secretive was a mistake (from my limited understanding of Indian History). There was a large Buddhist and Jain reform movement that swept India much before any mass murderer set foot in India. Then there was another reform by Adi Shankaracharya which turned most of India into Hindu. All this in almost complete peace. People in India were not stupid for such changes to happen. Give them some credit for it.

Again no one is blaming the other here for the sake of doing it. Root cause analysis of why things are the way things are helps you to design a more effective solution. That is the bottom line that any trouble shooter will give you. Its not psychopathic, but a rather essential step to do clearly understand the issues we are facing.

[shiv]

Since Wikipedia is my aunt, I asked her the main causes of pollution of the Ganga


Here is what she told me

Human waste
The Ganges river basin is one of the most fertile and densely populated regions in the world and covers an area of 1,080,000 km2 (400,000 square miles). The river flows through 29 cities with population over 100,000; 23 cities with population between 50,000 and 100,000, and about 48 towns. A large proportion of the waste in the Ganges is from this population through domestic usage like bathing, laundry and public defecation.

Industrial waste
Countless tanneries,s chemical plants, textile mills, distilleries, slaughterhouses, and hospitals contribute to the pollution of the Ganges by dumping untreated waste into it. Industrial effluents are about 12% of the total volume of effluent reaching the Ganges. Although a relatively low proportion, they are a cause for major concern because they are often toxic and non-biodegradable.

Religious events
During festival seasons, over 70 million people bathe in the Ganges over a few weeks[10] to cleanse themselves from their sins. Some materials like food, waste or leaves are left in the Ganges for ritualistic reasons.[11] They also put ashes of family and illigitimate babies into the river.

Note that while cleaning up the Ganga, we cannot abjure and ignore universal values. The universal values that must be preserved while we clean up the Ganga are
1. Freedom and Democracy
2. Right to life
3. Right to food and water sources
4. Right to justice according to the law
5. Right to equality
6. Right to employment
7. Religious freedom


I would be happy to see solutions that meet all the requirements of all these universalisms.

[Arjun]

The thread seemed to be on firm ground as long as it stuck to the relative lack of social, religious and moral 'enlightenment' in the West compared to Dharmic societies.

Taking on modern Science and Commerce...hmm, now that's a different story. That starts to feel more like a "Losers of the world, Unite" message being put out. Bottomline is, India HAS to focus on success in Science, education and commerce. There are no two ways about it. Pretty much what China is doing right now. Get your GDP back to where it was in a relative scale, lead the world in research output, keep increasing education and skill levels of the population. WU, as somebody mentioned earlier, is all about economics. The winner gets the right to preach.

The Mantra of focus on success is something that Indians as individuals and communities excel in - time for the country to adopt the same principle.