Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

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symontk
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by symontk »

shiv wrote:
symontk wrote: Human life is not easily replaceable as it is with other animals. If you havent learned that by now, I am not sure when you will learn that.
Utter unadulterated rubbish. If humans are so difficult to produce why is it that your beloved Kerala has cut down on the number of humans being produced.

We have more humans today than ever before, fatter and greedier than ever before and plant and animal species are disappearing rapidly and you are pooping on this thread by making this utterly idiotic statement. Shameful. You are saying things simply because you want to type something - not because it has any meaning.
I didn't say "difficult to reproduce". I used the word replaceable. Whatever I typed is true with respect to Kerala, and you know that
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by symontk »

A_Gupta wrote:I think the desire to see their children well-nourished is almost universal among mothers; that it can be done only with certain brands of food, etc., is commercialism and the food industry's self-interest.
Wouldn't that clash with having less children? WU against WU? Is it possible? Can you please clarify?
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by symontk »

RajeshA wrote:As ever so often you miss the message altogether. I am saying that your "Dreams" have come true only after a huge program was started to translate your "dream" into reality. It did not become reality by dreaming only. So why do you think that others cannot start a similarly huge program? Why should it just remain a dream?
Yes other states should start the population control program, that is what which I mentioned. I thought you were thinking that that is part of the WU and not possible to be done in India
shiv
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

A_Gupta wrote:I think the desire to see their children well-nourished is almost universal among mothers; that it can be done only with certain brands of food, etc., is commercialism and the food industry's self-interest.
Arun, Universalism is one jaw of the pincer that was described by Macaulay in his speech. He spoke of the need to create a class of people with English tastes and sensibilities so that they would appreciate goods that were being produced in English factories - in those days mills. The industries and businesses constitute the other jaw.

You are dead right in saying that all mothers want their child healthy (most mothers anyway). When you declare that an entire population suffers from a certain type of deficiency and mandate that this deficiency is wrong, then you are creating the need for correcting that deficiency by using some corrective measures. If that corrective act happens to require the sale of some goods that you are producing, then there is a strong business need to define deficiencies according to what you are producing.

Initially the west did this to their own populations - but with western populations being saturated there is a need to spread the distribution of some western produced goods among other populations. So we have sociologists, anthropologists and public health specialists "studying" foreign populations. Very few of these studies are purely academic in trying to understand these populations. They are only studies that define the difference between the western norm and the "other" norm where the western norm is right and the other is wrong. Once papers are published saying how wrong the other is, corrective measures are suggested according to what is produced in the west.

This has become a huge business on its own and companies that, for example, sell satellite technology might promote studies that claim that say solar energy can be tapped from space to provide energy for "energy deficient populations" in hot, sunny countries. If some government buys this story, then that government will pay for satellites that will shore up that company's stock value and make its directors and shareholders extremely rich. This will be in direct competition with other companies - say nuclear power or wind power. In the meantime each of these competing interests will set aside money to be invested in universities abroad where foreign students are admitted to be trained to be sympathetic to the particular technologies that they receive training for. And as long as it is a great honor to get a subsidized or all expenses paid seat in a western university there will be a steady stream of compromised natives who become part of the "Universal" freight train.

It is in the middle of all this that we have to find our own way, decide what is good for us and where we are being hoodwinked.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

symontk wrote: Yes other states should start the population control program, that is what which I mentioned. I thought you were thinking that that is part of the WU and not possible to be done in India
Symontk you are talking down to others as if Kerala is right and other states are wrong. If you are a Kerala supporter it is your right to do that, but you are not revealing any knowledge skills other than boasting about Kerala. If you look at a a map of India you will find that there are other states as well. Telling every one "Become like Kerala" is exactly the way the west says "Become like us".

True knowledge would be to reveal that you have some understanding of why Bihar or UP have found it difficult to become like Kerala. One possibility is that Kerala people are intrinsically superior. But that attitude is called racism. If you want to take a racist attitude - you would not be unique - the west has done it to Indians. But if you ask yourself why it has been difficult to impose Kerala norms on other landlocked states you might find yourself saying things that actually inform and educate others rather than simply beating the "Kerala is great" drum.

If you spend a few minutes explaining what made Kerala so great, and why other states are so dumb compared to Kerala, perhaps others can learn something from you. You have not bothered to understand anything about WU, but you are continuously beating the Kerala drum on this thread.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by symontk »

Kerala didn't do anything differently from other states, only did it efficiently. Any way you are right, we shouldn't be discussing Kerala, this is Western Universalism thread
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

symontk wrote:Kerala didn't do anything differently from other states, only did it efficiently. Any way you are right, we shouldn't be discussing Kerala, this is Western Universalism thread
Precisely. Thank you.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

Look at this 1956 article
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ ... -surpluses
AMONG many pressing contemporary problems are two which receive much attention but without adequate recognition of the possibility that they may be related. These problems are, one, the insufficient economic growth of the underdeveloped countries of the free world, and, two, the agricultural surpluses of the free world, primarily those in the United States. Approached separately, they have remained insoluble; but a new coördinated approach might help to solve both. Aid to underdeveloped countries in the form of agricultural surpluses might enable them to progress economically at an even faster rate than would be possible under the forced-draft methods of the Russians and Chinese; and at the same time the crisis of agricultural surpluses in America and other countries of the free world would be alleviated.
When you have this situation, how do you make people buy agricultural produce from abroad?

The way to do it is to make them feel that it is required by them. That is done by creating indices that fall short on every count, proving that there should be a net movement of produce from surplus nation to a nations whose deficiency has been defined by the surplus nation.

An India that used to have a variety of grains like jowar, bajra and ragi is now a rice and wheat addicted nation.

And this from 2011
http://www.dw.de/the-global-food-surplus/a-15452289
It's a vicious circle: Imports of cheap surplus food from the West have destroyed local markets in Asia and Africa, removing financial incentives to plant food, and taking away the income of the poor.

Post says World Bank intervention in one country can tip the balance in other countries: "Vietnam has turned itself into one of the world's largest coffee producers, following the advice of the World Bank. That has, of course, caused global coffee prices to drop, hurting Latin American coffee farmers."

Experts now agree that large plantations and industrial agriculture do not help to stop hunger, but instead create new problems. Monoculture and fertilizers, for instance, have damaged natural diversity, while leaching the soil of its nutrients.

...

These days, a large amount of the world's arable land is being farmed to produce not just food, but fuel. Corn and sugar cane raised in underdeveloped countries are destined to become low-carbon-emission biofuel at the behest of the global North.


Experts say there must be real change as the world population continues to boom

"A real competition has come about between food and fuel [production]," according to Swiss development expert Hans Herren.

With only four years to go, Herren does not believe the world can reach the UN's Millennium Development Goals without fundamental change. "We cannot solve the problems with today's industrial line of thought," he says.
RajeshA
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by RajeshA »

symontk wrote:
RajeshA wrote:As ever so often you miss the message altogether. I am saying that your "Dreams" have come true only after a huge program was started to translate your "dream" into reality. It did not become reality by dreaming only. So why do you think that others cannot start a similarly huge program? Why should it just remain a dream?
Yes other states should start the population control program, that is what which I mentioned. I thought you were thinking that that is part of the WU and not possible to be done in India
Population Control in India is part of the Western Universalism Agenda.

I don't want other Indian states to emulate the stupidity of Kerala's population policy of reducing its birth rate. Thus gullible Keralites (non-Muslims) have handed Kerala to Islam on a silver platter.

I think Hindus should stick to the traditional Hindu family order -
  • extended family support,
  • many children (4-11),
  • individual freedoms subservient to family interests
  • more time for the mother to nurture children
  • early marriages (say at 18-23)
  • monogamy
  • no extra-marital affairs
  • no divorces
  • good Kamasutra sex
  • early apprenticeship of the children in family trade (say after 12 yrs of age), in case a family has a family trade
  • children ensure retirement benefits for parents, if parents have no savings or monthly pensions
  • extensive mutual sibling support
  • intensive inter-family discussions and consultations
The Hindu Family Order has been a very effective machine over the ages and has not curtailed Indian ingenuity or productivity, and we should keep it and nourish it!

However this does not mean that children should not get the best education, or that women shouldn't work, or that young people should not have love marriages, or that a man or woman cannot pursue his/her hobbies, or that individuals cannot choose their profession!

What Western Universalism tries to do is to paint traditional Indian thinking as "conservative", which is supposed to be some bad word against which the young people need to rebel. In fact "conservative" and "traditional" are simply used as if these words mean "backward", without really resorting to the word "backward", as that would invite too much debate and protest. On the other hand WU paints their prescribed and promoted life-style and thinking as "modern", as "progressive", which ought to be emulated by all "right-minded people".

What Western Universalism does is that it distorts the nature of the Hindu Family and Social Order painting it with broad brushes of extremes, and portrays it as suffocating for the individual, stopping the individual from developing and expressing himself freely. WU needs to do so because it makes it much easier for Westerners to understand India if things are painted in black and white. More importantly, Indians can be persuaded to embrace Western Universalism, only if the Hindu Family and Social Order is shown to be "backward" and "undesirable".

On the contrary the Hindu Family and Social Order is a means to find a balance between one's desires and responsibility to one's family, and often through family support to even facilitate the pursuit of one's calling. It even allows the individual to pass up on starting his own family, in case the person finds a higher calling, say for Rashtra or for Dharma, or for Gyan!

In order to promote Western Universalism-advocated thinking and thereby to destroy the traditional Hindu Family and Social Order, WU advocates have introduced a world wide organization and infrastructure which includes setting up a large number of HDI indexes, Government programs by GoI, NGOs, Media propaganda, Bollywood, etc.

"Hum Do Hamare Do" is one such program, and it should be thrown into the dustbin!
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by svenkat »

X posted from burkha forums.

Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems
In June 2011, Julian Assange received an unusual visitor: the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, arrived from America at Ellingham Hall, the country house in Norfolk, England where Assange was living under house arrest.

For several hours the besieged leader of the world’s most famous insurgent publishing organization and the billionaire head of the world’s largest information empire locked horns. The two men debated the political problems faced by society, and the technological solutions engendered by the global network—from the Arab Spring to Bitcoin.
I was intrigued that the mountain would come to Muhammad. But it was not until well after Schmidt and his companions had been and gone that I came to understand who had really visited me.

The stated reason for the visit was a book. Schmidt was penning a treatise with Jared Cohen, the director of Google Ideas, an outfit that describes itself as Google’s in-house “think/do tank.”
I knew little else about Cohen at the time. In fact, Cohen had moved to Google from the U.S. State Department in 2010. He had been a fast-talking “Generation Y” ideas man at State under two U.S. administrations, a courtier from the world of policy think tanks and institutes, poached in his early twenties.

He became a senior advisor for Secretaries of State Rice and Clinton. At State, on the Policy Planning Staff, Cohen was soon christened “Condi’s party-starter,” channeling buzzwords from Silicon Valley into U.S. policy circles and producing delightful rhetorical concoctions such as “Public Diplomacy 2.0.” On his Council on Foreign Relations adjunct staff page he listed his expertise as “terrorism; radicalization; impact of connection technologies on 21st century statecraft; Iran.”

It was Cohen who, while he was still at the Department of State, was said to have emailed Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to delay scheduled maintenance in order to assist the aborted 2009 uprising in Iran. His documented love affair with Google began the same year when he befriended Eric Schmidt as they together surveyed the post-occupation wreckage of Baghdad. Just months later, Schmidt re-created Cohen’s natural habitat within Google itself by engineering a “think/do tank” based in New York and appointing Cohen as its head. Google Ideas was born.

Later that year two co-wrote a policy piece for the Council on Foreign Relations’ journal Foreign Affairs, praising the reformative potential of Silicon Valley technologies as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy. Describing what they called “coalitions of the connected,” Schmidt and Cohen claimed that:
Schmidt arrived first, accompanied by his then partner, Lisa Shields. When he introduced her as a vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations—a U.S. foreign-policy think tank with close ties to the State Department—I thought little more of it. Shields herself was straight out of Camelot, having been spotted by John Kennedy Jr.’s side back in the early 1990s.
Some time later Jared Cohen arrived. With him was Scott Malcomson, introduced as the book’s editor. Three months after the meeting Malcomson would enter the State Department as the lead speechwriter and principal advisor to Susan Rice (then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, now national security advisor).

At this point, the delegation was one part Google, three parts U.S. foreign-policy establishment, but I was still none the wiser. Handshakes out of the way, we got down to business.
It was at this point that I realized Eric Schmidt might not have been an emissary of Google alone. Whether officially or not, he had been keeping some company that placed him very close to Washington, D.C., including a well-documented relationship with President Obama. Not only had Hillary Clinton’s people known that Eric Schmidt’s partner had visited me, but they had also elected to use her as a back channel.
Cohen’s directorate appeared to cross over from public relations and “corporate responsibility” work into active corporate intervention in foreign affairs at a level that is normally reserved for states. Jared Cohen could be wryly named Google’s “director of regime change.”
Cohen’s world seems to be one event like this after another: endless soirees for the cross-fertilization of influence between elites and their vassals, under the pious rubric of “civil society.” The received wisdom in advanced capitalist societies is that there still exists an organic “civil society sector” in which institutions form autonomously and come together to manifest the interests and will of citizens. The fable has it that the boundaries of this sector are respected by actors from government and the “private sector,” leaving a safe space for NGOs and nonprofits to advocate for things like human rights, free speech and accountable government.

This sounds like a great idea. But if it was ever true, it has not been for decades. Since at least the 1970s, authentic actors like unions and churches have folded under a sustained assault by free-market statism, transforming “civil society” into a buyer’s market for political factions and corporate interests looking to exert influence at arm’s length. The last forty years have seen a huge proliferation of think tanks and political NGOs whose purpose, beneath all the verbiage, is to execute political agendas by proxy
It also includes fatuous Western NGOs like Freedom House, where naïve but well-meaning career nonprofit workers are twisted in knots by political funding streams, denouncing non-Western human rights violations while keeping local abuses firmly in their blind spots.

The civil society conference circuit—which flies developing-world activists across the globe hundreds of times a year to bless the unholy union between “government and private stakeholders” at geopoliticized events like the “Stockholm Internet Forum”—simply could not exist if it were not blasted with millions of dollars in political funding annually
Raja Bose wrote:Whoever controls the information, controls the world. And US controls all the major information platforms today - FaceBook, Twitter, Google. But they have a flaw - these are all primarily English language based. That is why both China and Russia have been smart enough to have their own robust native language information platforms (social networks, search engines etc.). We SDREs love to proudly proclaim that we speak excellent English and that is why we have an edge over the Chinese when it comes to hi-tech jobs. But what we forget is that this same dependence of ours on a foreign language also makes us vulnerable to information warfare by the likes of US who control the English language information platforms since unlike China we don't have any native language versions of FaceBook or Twitter or Google search. Its like entrusting the guidance of our missiles to the US owned and operated GPS system.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by A_Gupta »

In India, the movie heros and heroines get star status only/mostly because of what the aam aadmi thinks, not because of the Anglosphere and its extensions in India. Yes, Indians get excited when an Indian movie is nominated for an Oscar or such, but "critically acclaimed films" that the western literary/intellectual establishment approves of sink or swim on their own merits in India, as far as I know.

Where the West still seems to have outsize influence (and maybe we English speakers are overestimating it) is in the literary, social sciences and humanities, academic spheres. They still write influential histories and economics and influential descriptions of Hinduism (again, maybe their influence is overstated).

This has to change. The New York Times and such publications promote a Pankaj Mishra (or Arundhati Roy or other such) because these writers tell stories of India that are compatible with the dominant American or European world-views and because these writers become more influential and noticed in India. This is perhaps in part because the Indian literary and intellectual activities have yet to stand fully on their own feet.

(If the New York Times really wanted for its readers to understand India, then it would commission articles by writers whose career is writing for Indian, not western, audiences. An easy example would be to ask M.J. Akbar why he decided to support Modi.)

The Nobel, Booker and other literary prize racket are attempts not to have universal recognition of good writing, but rather to promote particular worldviews.

I am not a total rejectionist, there is much good stuff out there, nobody has a monopoly on it. I just want Indians to deal with it on their own terms, as equals. The western writers and Indian anglophiles are welcome to try to describe India as they see it; but these are particular descriptions, not definitional of India. They should sink or swim on their own merits, not because the author is some grand poohbah at Harvard or the University of Chicago with a long list of degrees and such credentials.

This is why I support writers, but not uncrtically, to take an example, Rajiv Malhotra and his Infinity Foundation, who valiantly are striving to change this paradigm of kowtow to the west. Having said that, I should say that I don't agree always with Malhotra. Among other things, I see some vintage desi paranoia. It doesn't matter, the required samudra manthan of the sea of Indian thought will of necessity retrieve both Halahal/Kaalkoot and Amrita, and Lakshmi.

I firmly subscribe to this metaphor. The Indian intellectual churning needed to restore Indian self-confidence and intellectual prowess will also throw up a lot of hate literature, nonsense conspiracy theories, idiotic or dangerous ideologies and simply wrong ideas. This is no reason to oppose or fear the churning of the ocean. In the absence of Shiva to hold the Halahal in check, it becomes the task of each of us individuals to do our little bit to the extent we can to critically examine and oppose and discard the bad stuff. Do take the threat of Halahal seriously.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by chandrasekhar.m »

A relevant video about the effect of WU on Indian mind. Not sure if its been posted on this thread before.



shiv, LokeshC, ShauryaT, RajeshA saars, I think you will like it, though based on your posts, I think you might be familiar with most of what is said.
He talks about value conflicts, buddhi loss, effect of "education and development", blindly accepting what we learn during our "education" and many other things. He says towards the very end that the "current education system" will need an overhaul to stop WU spread. I will need to watch it again to understand better.

At the end, he quotes Bhartrhari "What does he know who knows only his own tradition? Mind acquires critical acumen by interacting with other traditions.". And says that was a confident India and we are today at a state of "What does he know who does not know his own tradition?"
shiv
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

One of the constant points bashing India is "poverty". Look at any medium of information an "poverty in India" is a big theme. You find TV, the internet and magazines documenting poverty in India and using pictures of that poverty (which is open for anyone to document) to give moral lectures to Indian or make Indians go on the defensive.

We are an inferior people because
1. Indians are poor.
2. Many are poor because of the Hindu castes system that keeps them poor
3. Therefore India is fcued up in general

Of course in the age of the internet it is easy to Google for stats that show that poverty USA is about 18% and UK about 20%

So what does poverty mean in the US. Plenty of information available. In fact poverty in the USA means exactly the same thing as in India except that Rs 200,000 (2 lakhs) per month is "poverty" in USA, whereas that figure would be "top 2% wealthy" in India. It is important to remember that because the differential is so high, simple definitions like $1 a day is utter nonsense, but those are the metrics used - even on here by one BRFite to bash the opinions of another BRFite

Poverty is about the following factors:

The top three are "timeless". They have always been associated with poverty. The solutions are similar in all nations, subject to some pressures from business interests - but I will not go into that here.
They are:
1. Shelter
2. Food
3. Utilities (water, energy - cooking and lighting)

The last five, listed below, are relatively "modern". I say relatively modern because one of the factors on the list is "health", which should go in the "timeless" list above - but I have pushed it into the lower list because healthcare has undergone modernization and is not subject to the conditions of modernity and western universalism. I would say that the five factors listed below are being deeply influenced by WU.

Let me state my thoughts and reasons, but first the list:

4. Transport to and from work
5. Child care
6. School/college fees
7. Health care
8. Unexpected illness affecting the ability to earn

My thoughts:

4. Transport to and from work: This is a uniquely modern issue affecting poverty. In the US - the absence of public transport often requires that the poor own a car. In India slums develop so that the service sector live close to their urban place of work. In our drive to clear slums and build concrete jungles, we may be scoring a hufe self goal by making services costlier and making the service providers poorer and depriving them of jobs. We must rationalize and improve slums, not eliminate them

5. Child care: Child care is primarily the job of the family. If the state intervenes a great deal in child care, the state is, in effect removing the responsibility of parents and family. This is a negative side effect of western universalism - where the state assumes that it is better equipped to take care of children. This is a premise that requires very close examination.

6. School, college fees: Education is a sector where I believe that the state should involve itself to subsidize it perhaps in cooperation with philanthropic parties, temples and private business. By putting a huge burden on parents for increasingly expensive education there are two negative side effects. First, there can be a reduction in educational achievement because of cost. Second, people may have fewer children simply because education costs are high. This is happening in the west. We must always aim to keep our population renewed by encouraging at least 2 children per couple

7. Health care: Expensive health care is a problem that adds to poverty. The allopathic medicine model, of which I am a practitioner is too expensive and still does not effectively cover all aspects of illness across the spectrum. I think there is a role for integrating Ayurveda and other indigenous systems of medicine to cover a larger area and to bring drug and appliance costs down. The other thing is doctors (the apex of the healthcare pyramid). If you don't pay doctors well and make them poor, they have the power to screw everyone's happiness and are guaranteed to become unethical. But if you make them vulgarly wealthy, then they will spend much effort of maintaining wealthy lifestyles and the profession will attract people who are in it for the money. A good balance has to be reached. I think there was a time when doctors were overpaid in America and doctors are still underpaid in India. Neither country is a model of healthcare ethics. Both countries have evolved great systems to screw the rest of you guys.

8. Unexpected illness affecting the ability to earn: This is a point that is deeply intertwined with WU. In human societies there have always been roles played by different people. Pregnant women and women with small children have tended to stay away from earning a living, devoting time to child care. Grandparents and extended family too have ofter kept away from earning a living full time in order to help at home. In a society where people do not spend all their time working to earn a living, there is some poverty, but there is also social support. If you take such a society and say that everyone should work and then there is poverty despite every adult doing some job or other, then an unexpected illness has no social support because there is no free family person to help. If you think insurance or the state can help, think again. It is not happening. Families need to be encouraged to create a social support system which the state can foster.

JMT
panduranghari
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by panduranghari »

RajeshA wrote:One of the reasons, I think, the West makes such a fuss about child labor is that West wants Indian families to have less children, as they start thinking that children are a burden...........

[*] Child Labor is really really wicked, and if you allow it, you are the most horrible parent
Did anyone say child labour?
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csaurabh
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by csaurabh »

RajeshA wrote:
Population Control in India is part of the Western Universalism Agenda.

I don't want other Indian states to emulate the stupidity of Kerala's population policy of reducing its birth rate. Thus gullible Keralites (non-Muslims) have handed Kerala to Islam on a silver platter.

I think Hindus should stick to the traditional Hindu family order -
  • extended family support,
  • many children (4-11),
  • individual freedoms subservient to family interests
  • more time for the mother to nurture children
  • early marriages (say at 18-23)
  • monogamy
  • no extra-marital affairs
  • no divorces
  • good Kamasutra sex
  • early apprenticeship of the children in family trade (say after 12 yrs of age), in case a family has a family trade
  • children ensure retirement benefits for parents, if parents have no savings or monthly pensions
  • extensive mutual sibling support
  • intensive inter-family discussions and consultations
The Hindu Family Order has been a very effective machine over the ages and has not curtailed Indian ingenuity or productivity, and we should keep it and nourish it!

However this does not mean that children should not get the best education, or that women shouldn't work, or that young people should not have love marriages, or that a man or woman cannot pursue his/her hobbies, or that individuals cannot choose their profession!

What Western Universalism tries to do is to paint traditional Indian thinking as "conservative", which is supposed to be some bad word against which the young people need to rebel. In fact "conservative" and "traditional" are simply used as if these words mean "backward", without really resorting to the word "backward", as that would invite too much debate and protest. On the other hand WU paints their prescribed and promoted life-style and thinking as "modern", as "progressive", which ought to be emulated by all "right-minded people".

What Western Universalism does is that it distorts the nature of the Hindu Family and Social Order painting it with broad brushes of extremes, and portrays it as suffocating for the individual, stopping the individual from developing and expressing himself freely. WU needs to do so because it makes it much easier for Westerners to understand India if things are painted in black and white. More importantly, Indians can be persuaded to embrace Western Universalism, only if the Hindu Family and Social Order is shown to be "backward" and "undesirable".

On the contrary the Hindu Family and Social Order is a means to find a balance between one's desires and responsibility to one's family, and often through family support to even facilitate the pursuit of one's calling. It even allows the individual to pass up on starting his own family, in case the person finds a higher calling, say for Rashtra or for Dharma, or for Gyan!

In order to promote Western Universalism-advocated thinking and thereby to destroy the traditional Hindu Family and Social Order, WU advocates have introduced a world wide organization and infrastructure which includes setting up a large number of HDI indexes, Government programs by GoI, NGOs, Media propaganda, Bollywood, etc.

"Hum Do Hamare Do" is one such program, and it should be thrown into the dustbin!
Hmm lets see. Do you follow this approach personally or just recommend it for other people? How about putting your foot where your mouth is and see if you can feed, house and educate family of 10-15.

Next problem: Where are all these people going to go, exactly? Our environment is already hugely stretched and burdened by overpopulation. Additional people are going to need additional X amount of water, land, housing, coal, steel and so on. Do we have the luxury of genoiciding a bunch of other people and taking their lands like the Europeans did during their population boom period?

Muslims not following population control is a problem I agree. But it is solvable, otherwise how does Iran have such a low fertility rate? And same for most Arab countries. Bangladesh fertility rate is 2.2
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by csaurabh »

I have been reading up a lot of Swami Vivekananda's works. His thoughts are really eye opening.

Here is from an interview in England in 1896. It is about law, morality and the state
-interviewer:-
I think I see one difference between the wisdom of the East and that of the West. You aim at producing very perfect individuals by Sannyasa, concentration, and so forth. Now the ideal of the West seems to be the perfecting of the social state; and so we work at political and social questions, since we think that the permanence of our civilisation depends upon the well-being of the people."

-swami V:-
"But the basis of all systems, social or political," said the Swami with great earnestness, "rests upon the goodness of men. No nation is great or good because Parliament enacts this or that, but because its men are great and good. I have visited China which had the most admirable organisation of all nations. Yet today China is like a disorganised mob, because her men are not equal to the system contrived in the olden days. Religion goes to the root of the matter. If it is right, all is right."

-interviewer:-
"It sounds just a little vague and remote from practical life, that the Divine is within everything but covered. One can't be looking for it all the time."

-swami V:-
"People often work for the same ends but fail to recognise the fact. One must admit that law, government, politics are phases not final in any way. There is a goal beyond them where law is not needed. And by the way, the very word Sannyasin means the divine outlaw, one might say, divine nihilist, but that miscomprehension pursues those that use such a word. All great Masters teach the same thing. Christ saw that the basis is not law, that morality and purity are the only strength.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by A_Gupta »

The West is very good at producing long-lived institutions.
Let's look at a random sample:
1. The Catholic Church - 2 millenia
2. Society of Jesus (Jesuits) - founded in 1534.
3. The Royal Society (for science) - founded around 1660
4. Red Cross - founded 1863
5. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching - founded 1905.
etc., etc. etc. - museums, libraries, universities, public organizations.

Most Indian efforts seem to revolve around the founder, and only a few survive long beyond the founder. Ramakrishna Mission is one that appears to have lived. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan - is it still around? etc.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

csaurabh wrote:I have been reading up a lot of Swami Vivekananda's works. His thoughts are really eye opening.

Here is from an interview in England in 1896. It is about law, morality and the state
-interviewer:-
I think I see one difference between the wisdom of the East and that of the West. You aim at producing very perfect individuals by Sannyasa, concentration, and so forth. Now the ideal of the West seems to be the perfecting of the social state; and so we work at political and social questions, since we think that the permanence of our civilisation depends upon the well-being of the people."

-swami V:-
"But the basis of all systems, social or political," said the Swami with great earnestness, "rests upon the goodness of men. No nation is great or good because Parliament enacts this or that, but because its men are great and good. I have visited China which had the most admirable organisation of all nations. Yet today China is like a disorganised mob, because her men are not equal to the system contrived in the olden days. Religion goes to the root of the matter. If it is right, all is right."

-interviewer:-
"It sounds just a little vague and remote from practical life, that the Divine is within everything but covered. One can't be looking for it all the time."

-swami V:-
"People often work for the same ends but fail to recognise the fact. One must admit that law, government, politics are phases not final in any way. There is a goal beyond them where law is not needed. And by the way, the very word Sannyasin means the divine outlaw, one might say, divine nihilist, but that miscomprehension pursues those that use such a word. All great Masters teach the same thing. Christ saw that the basis is not law, that morality and purity are the only strength.
Thanks for posting. I am happy to read that I have been on the right track - probably because I have already been expose to views such as Swami Vivakananda's or similar people but can't remember why I have these attitudes.

Vivekananda too makes it a point to differentiate between morality and state laws. Morality (and purity as per Vivekananda) are the first, basic layer. State laws are the next layer.

It is not at all difficult to look at dozens of cultures and see that their basic tenets of morality are all very similar.

I am ready to give up all morality if the science that I abide by uses its own scientific methodology to show that morality as known by so many cultures is wrong. I know I am asking an impossible question because science can't answer that question easily. But if science can't achieve something, the morality of science itself demands that science should admit that not dismiss morality willy nilly as superstition and provide nonsensical "scientific facts" to promote any politically convenient but immoral act.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

A_Gupta wrote:The West is very good at producing long-lived institutions.
Let's look at a random sample:
1. The Catholic Church - 2 millenia
2. Society of Jesus (Jesuits) - founded in 1534.
3. The Royal Society (for science) - founded around 1660
4. Red Cross - founded 1863
5. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching - founded 1905.
etc., etc. etc. - museums, libraries, universities, public organizations.

Most Indian efforts seem to revolve around the founder, and only a few survive long beyond the founder. Ramakrishna Mission is one that appears to have lived. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan - is it still around? etc.
The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan is alive and thriving.

But would you not consider the Buddhist and Jaina traditions, Sikhism, the Veerashaiva traditions as institutions that have long outlasted their respective founders? The RSS looks like a self sustaining movement. There must be hundreds - unless I have misunderstood your point.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by member_20317 »

Self sustaining or self propagating. What is it that is sought?

Indians do not have it in them to put out self-propagating institutions. Self propagation requires a lot more than just goodwill. It would require at the very least an aware self-preservative attitude and ideally a bloated sense of self-worth. For example it takes a lot to be a beneficiary/actuator of an exploitative toxic pus of a system and yet 'teach a lesson' to the rest of the world.

To an extent, turd world people including regular Indians themselves are to blame for it. There is a terrible sense of self doubt. If there is so much as a small tiny winy doubt that the collective action will result in one innocent man from the other side getting slapped, all the Indians would simply melt away, looking for a way out to explain how it went wrong and how it should not have happened. A desire for perfection to such a degree in the state of affairs is worthy of striving for but is not worth holding your breath for. In fact, I bet a lot of the people (mostly lurkers) who would be reading this line of thought would promptly hold it bad in morality/law/dharma/WU. Come on be honest just say it if you feel that was what you felt. Usual suspects please keep out, you are incorrigible.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by A_Gupta »

Maybe institution is the wrong word, (e.g., "marriage is an institution" :) ). I mean organizations of people operating within some framework for some specific purpose.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by A_Gupta »

ravi_g wrote:Self sustaining or self propagating. What is it that is sought?

Indians do not have it in them to put out self-propagating institutions. Self propagation requires a lot more than just goodwill. It would require at the very least an aware self-preservative attitude and ideally a bloated sense of self-worth. For example it takes a lot to be a beneficiary/actuator of an exploitative toxic pus of a system and yet 'teach a lesson' to the rest of the world........
No, that is not what I mean. If Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan is thriving that would be an example of what I mean. It is an organization that provides a long-lived framework within which people can work to some goals (e.g., inculcating Bharatiya culture). If it is governed more by rules than by personalities, then it can survive bouts of indifferent/poor leadership. BVB survives its founder by some 43 years, and would be about 76 years old.

Such are important because they can muster more resources than any individual or ad hoc group, and keep a movement going over generations.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by Pulikeshi »

A_Gupta wrote:Maybe institution is the wrong word, (e.g., "marriage is an institution" :) ). I mean organizations of people operating within some framework for some specific purpose.
Good question -
The four Amnaya Peethams of Adi Shankaracharya have been around for 12 centuries at least - started around 800 CE.
I know several Vaishya organizations in South India that are claimed to be from medieval times... many of these claim ancient Sreni origins, was on my todo but never got to learning more, will find out more.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by RajeshA »

csaurabh wrote:Hmm lets see. Do you follow this approach personally or just recommend it for other people? How about putting your foot where your mouth is and see if you can feed, house and educate family of 10-15.
My upbringing has been in the best traditions of Secularism, Macaulayism and Western Universalism. By the time one finds out that one has been taken for a ride and one starts analyzing critically, often a few buses may have been missed. Not all are born with this wisdom pervading in one's family and environment.

If the challenge is to feed, house and educate a nuclear family of 10-15 in an urban landscape in a small flat and send one's children to expensive public schools with the income of just one working member, then it is not really possible in the current circumstances.

But raising such families used to be possible. How did these previous generations manage it?

The real challenge for our society is to put systems in place which makes feeding, housing and educating families of 10-15 possible! Instead our cynicism allows us only to cringe at such numbers, throw our hands in the air and accept the inevitable model that is being dished out now, all in the name of pragmatism.

The constant should be our Familly & Social Model and we put in place the needed systems, rather than accepting the system as given and moulding ourselves to fit to it.
csaurabh wrote:Next problem: Where are all these people going to go, exactly? Our environment is already hugely stretched and burdened by overpopulation. Additional people are going to need additional X amount of water, land, housing, coal, steel and so on. Do we have the luxury of genoiciding a bunch of other people and taking their lands like the Europeans did during their population boom period?
Universe is a big place. Science Fiction often provides help in unlocking the realms of the possible.
csaurabh wrote:Muslims not following population control is a problem I agree. But it is solvable, otherwise how does Iran have such a low fertility rate? And same for most Arab countries. Bangladesh fertility rate is 2.2
The population problem goes away once the country is completely turned into Dar al-Islam, otherwise maximum fertility rate is the norm. Would that be an acceptable proposition for India in your opinion? I'm eager to know your solutions.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

RajeshA wrote:
If the challenge is to feed, house and educate a nuclear family of 10-15 in an urban landscape in a small flat and send one's children to expensive public schools with the income of just one working member, then it is not really possible in the current circumstances.

But raising such families used to be possible. How did these previous generations manage it?

The real challenge for our society is to put systems in place which makes feeding, housing and educating families of 10-15 possible! Instead our cynicism allows us only to cringe at such numbers, throw our hands in the air and accept the inevitable model that is being dished out now, all in the name of pragmatism.
Families of 10 to 15 (and larger) were not always the children of a single couple.

Let me try and expand on that.

If you ignore (i.e don't count) grandparents, their children and children's spouses and their grandchildren, who would be siblings and cousins in a joint family, and define a "family unit" as simply man woman and children, you get a reductionist viewpoint of the actual dynamics. I am not saying this as praise or criticism. Just bland observations for clarity of what used to happen or can happen.

If a girl gets married at 18 (usually it was 13-16 in my parents generation) and gets pregnant soon - she will have her first child within a year of marriage. Because breast-feeding suppresses the chances of pregnancy it is unlikely that she can get pregnant again instantly. But she could technically get pregnant and have children once a year so she has 6 children by the age of 24. Since every baby squeezes out nutrients from the mother she would be very weak by this time and at great risk of dying from the most minor illness. In the meantime many of those 6 children themselves would have been born underweight and a couple of them might have died too. So if you examine some of these pre-1940s societies (I have family records going back to the late 1800s) you find that in many cases the first wife died and many young children had died. For the family these deaths are of "wife" or "mother" or "child". In the record books they reflect as "maternal mortality" and "infant/child mortality".

Because of these tragic facts the actual family size of husband, wife and children was rarely more than 6 or 7, often much smaller. In addition, in India, the girl who delivers a child traditionally does so at her mother's home and she stays there for 6 months to a year after delivery to build up strength. That would prevent her from getting pregnant immediately, but that also increases the time gap between pregnancies - which is beneficial to her health and the health of her current and next child, and reduces the total number of kids.

The large family size was, as I said, typically a joint family of grandparents with married sons and their children, unmaried daughters and sisters of the grandparents who were unmarried or widows. For these reasons the average number of surviving children that any woman could have was rarely more than 4 or 5 while she would have lost another 2 or 3. These 8 to 9 children (5 alive, 3 dead) would have been borne over a period of about 14 years or so from age 15 to 29. By that time the woman herself would die, or start having grandchildren, reducing the opportunity for her husband to get her pregnant.

There is nothing wrong with the joint family system. But modern preventive medical care ensures that if a woman has 8 children, all 8 will survive and she will survive too. So the typical joint family of grandparents etc would swell to grandmother and grandfather, with three sons, their spouses and an average of 6 children per son and spouse - making a total of 26 or more people because of reduction in maternal and child mortality. In the old scheme of things, with high maternal and child mortality that number might have been just 15. This is where modernity has affected family dynamics of Indian society. We can only move forward from here we cannot move back
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by csaurabh »

Good answer shiv! I would also add that before vaccines etc., diseases caused huge mortality rate. Also famines and wars.

I will answer this one..
RajeshA wrote: Universe is a big place. Science Fiction often provides help in unlocking the realms of the possible.
Except that science fiction is.. well.. fiction. For the most part, that's all it is.

Please educate yourself sir on the logistics of what is possible. The average temperature on Mars is -70 degrees and there is no oxygen there. who is going to lug over vast amounts of fuel and air supplies over millions of km and for what reason exactly? We have a better chance of colonizing Antarctica than the Moon or Mars.

I expect that in the next 100 years we may have manned missions to Mars and maybe even a permanent settlement on the Moon or Mars similar to that of the International Space Station or the bases in Antarctica today. But they are not going to be a solution to the population problem.. sorry to break your pipe dreams.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by RajeshA »

shiv wrote:There is nothing wrong with the joint family system. But modern preventive medical care ensures that if a woman has 8 children, all 8 will survive and she will survive too. So the typical joint family of grandparents etc would swell to grandmother and grandfather, with three sons, their spouses and an average of 6 children per son and spouse - making a total of 26 or more people because of reduction in maternal and child mortality. In the old scheme of things, with high maternal and child mortality that number might have been just 15. This is where modernity has affected family dynamics of Indian society. We can only move forward from here we cannot move back
shiv saar,

thank you for going into detail into this.

6 surviving children was also the norm in my family, up till my grandparents, and then it fell rapidly down to two, as the "Hum Do Hamare Do" program kicked in.

Some data on a public "heroine"
Rabri Devi married Lalu Prasad Yadav in 1973 at the age of 14 and has eleven children - 7 girls and 4 boys.
Indeed what modernity does is that it keeps infant and mother mortality low, which should allow couples to have similar number of kids as our grandparents without going through the pain, loss and hassle of deaths and underweight children.

A previous post by me on "How many children should Dharmics have?"
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by RajeshA »

csaurabh ji,

there are some relatively intelligent people who feel that the Earth can support up to a 100 billion people with a relatively good standard of living, if we improve on our politics, economics, organization and technology. Look around the Internet if you are more interested.

I appreciate your zeal in breaking other people's "pipe dreams" and bringing them down to ground.

Please also do share your ideas on bringing down the Muslim population growth in India or was that just a "pipe dream"?
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

RajeshA wrote: Indeed what modernity does is that it keeps infant and mother mortality low, which should allow couples to have similar number of kids as our grandparents without going through the pain, loss and hassle of deaths and underweight children.
Rajesh what modernity is doing is not merely the altruistic act of reducing human misery. In the west at least it has gone beyond that to say that having babies is misery because of:
1. Loss of freedom
2. Time off work and therefore the human is "unproductive"
3. Cost
4. Introduces inequality between men and women

These latter four points are hidden behind the altruism of reducing maternal and child mortality. You will find that even after maternal and child mortality are reduced a great deal Indians are still "poorer," and in order not to be poorer, what can be better than having even fewer or no children and free up the woman and equalize her with male freedom so both can "work" (for someone else). Children are no longer a gift. They are an expensive pain.

There are some deep philosophical differences between a viewpoint that says that the "cost and pain" of children is repaid in ways that cannot be calculated in monetary terms and one that says "No. Everything has a price and your job is to get as much money as possible and spend it on self pleasure" and "individual self fulfilment". Personal greed has been given the term "Individual self fulfilment", in the same way that Edward Bernay replaced the word "propaganda" with the expression "public relations"

These same philosophical differences extend to the acceptance of sadness and death as part of life as opposed to being anti-life. So we are looking at the imposition of an alien empty non-culture through the back door, sweetened by the promise of limitless monetary gain and "self fulfilment"
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by RajeshA »

shiv saar,

with modernity, I meant modern medical care.

I think individualism as preached in the West has mostly meant that people come to their senses a lot later. For that one can compare the average age of first marriage. There is some data here from United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. This does mean that they would generally have children much later and far fewer children. Among OECD countries, in UK women tend to have children at a much later age, around 30.

Indian men marry at around 26, while German men marry when they are 33.2 years old.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by ShauryaT »

With all due respect to all, the issue is not the number of kids, even if the issues I mention below are caused by it, but do not think we are going back to an era of 5-6 kids any time soon - even for muslims!

The idea is to ensure duties and obligations as enshrined by Ashrama Dharma (life stages) continue. What Indian society is challenged with is how to reconcile a system of obligations devised in an era of many kids and a close family unit ensuring the support of "sons" as one ages to an era, where there are few kids, many times no sons and a culture that largely considers daughters are responsible to their in laws and not the parents.

Kanya Daan is considered by many to be the second highest ritual after the death ceremonies. It is a ritual to symbolize the transfer of responsibilities, duties and obligations from one family to another. If there are no sons or in some cases sons unable to support/fulfill their obligations to their parents, this responsibility falls on the daughter. The daughter is in a dual responsibility role now, one for the husband's family and the other for her parents. WU is one way out of these quandaries. Where every "individual" is on his own. Does Kanya Daan need an evolution? What is the way out, that preservers the essence of Ashrama Dharma, strengthens families and lessens the burden on the daughters? Many times these daughters have to work, look after their house hold, care for in laws and care for parents. Parents are in a fix, with no sons sometimes and a lonely existence at old age.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by RajeshA »

ShauryaT wrote:With all due respect to all, the issue is not the number of kids, even if the issues I mention below are caused by it, but do not think we are going back to an era of 5-6 kids any time soon - even for muslims!
The traditional form and size of Indian family of say 5-6 children is absolutely required to avert the demographic attack and surge of Islam in the Indian Subcontinent. If that problem is taken care of, then and only then is the number of children not a matter, as long as the number is sufficient to replenish the population and look after the parents in their old age.

Western Universalism propaganda has tried to make Indians blind to this issue, turning the focus to other social problems arising due to a rising population, prescribing a reduction in birth rate as the only solution to those problems, whereas other solutions too can be found.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by ShauryaT »

And what form of propaganda has turned some Indians to be bigots to ignore hard data and come up with imagined threats? A quick overview of the census, National Family Health Surveys and analytical data will show the following, within India.
The TFR is 3.1 for the scheduled tribes, 2.9 for the scheduled castes, and 2.8 for the other backward classes. The TFR for Muslims (3.4) is higher than the TFR for Hindus (2.6). Although fertility decreased for both groups in the seven years between NFHS-2 and NFHS-3, the fertility differential did not change over this period.
The proportion of women who have never attended school is higher among Muslims (48 percent) than among Hindus (41 percent) and most of the other religions. Muslim women are also less likely than women of most other religions to have completed secondary education. Educational attainment is highest among Jain women, 52 percent of whom have completed 12 or more years of schooling. By caste/tribe status, the proportion of women who have never attended school is highest, at 62 percent, for women belonging to the scheduled tribes, followed by 51 percent for women belonging to the scheduled castes, and 44 percent for women belonging to the other backward classes.
The TFR decreases steeply by the household’s wealth index, from 3.9 children for women living in households in the lowest wealth quintile to 1.8 children for women living in households in the highest wealth quintile.
Women from scheduled tribes and Muslim women have much lower exposure to family planning messages than other women. The pattern of variation in the exposure to family planning messages among men is similar to that among women, except that differentials by religion are not as pronounced for men.
Sterilization levels and contraceptive use is markedly lower amongst muslims than Hindus, in India. IM literacy rates are lower than Hindus and their poverty rates higher, their participation in MOST institutional and large private industry lags compared to Hindus. I guess these metrics are not a cause for concern for bigoted Internet Hindus. An honest view will find that muslims as a group perform as well or worse based on their socio-economic indices, especially if the factors are localized. Their higher fertility rates are a factor of many conditions that afflict other backward groups in India including conditions generated by social dynamics. Ofcourse, no Internet Hindu dare point to the fact that the differential in fertility rates between Hindus and Muslims of India has not increased and both Hindus and Muslims have reduced their fertility rates. Just as an informal survey, how many of you know Indian muslims in similar socio-economic strata as yourselves and a markedly higher fertility rate?

As for the muslims of Pakistan and Bangladesh, their fertility rates are declining too and are not India's direct concern. Out breeding the competition is a dumb and weak approach to the threat posed due to Islamism. It is Islamism that needs to be suppressed NOT muslims. Be clear on who the enemy is.

The issue of the alleged muslim demographic challenge is OT for thread. RajeshA: You can have the last word on this matter and let the thread move on.

Ref:
http://hetv.org/india/nfhs/
http://hetv.org/india/nfhs/nfhs3/NFHS-3 ... rences.pdf
http://hetv.org/india/nfhs/nfhs3/NFHS-3 ... anning.pdf
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by RajeshA »

Problem with the Seculars is that they look at HDI data of various groups and pass judgment about the behavior of these groups based on that.

It is like saying Pakistan indulges in terrorism because of the poverty there, and due to the higher percentage of children who visit madrassas rather than English-medium private schools. If only all Pakistanis would go for English-medium private schools, terrorism can be wiped out from Soothe Asia.

Right after 9/11, there were some commentators in Europe talking about how poverty and joblessness in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab countries leads to radical Islam and one should go and look at "root causes" rather than declare a War on Terror.

Basically Seculars love to use these indexes and proclaim that a data correlation necessary implies causation. What Seculars never go into in this case is the Islamic psychology and ideological mission statements.
ShauryaT wrote:I guess these metrics are not a cause for concern for bigoted Internet Hindus.
Let's just say that both "Bigoted Internet Hindus" and "Secular Gotravadi Posterboys" have a different way of looking at this. Thanks for letting me having the last word.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by Prem »

RajeshA wrote:Let's just say that both "Bigoted Internet Hindus" and "Secular Gotravadi Posterboys" have a different way of looking at this. Thanks for letting me having the last word.
Welcome Baaak to the world of Rise of Secular Humachines!!
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by csaurabh »

Coming back to the topic. Just recently there was another school shooting in the US. Many dead.

As usual, all the comments I see are security measures. Post cops at all schools. Security checkpoints. Metal detectors. Or gun control. Have fewer guns, less access to guns, less powerful guns etc. etc.

No one is trying to think about it from a morality point of view. It seems like this dude had just broken up with his girlfriend ( teen love affairs.. ) and had racist bullying ( he was a native american ). No those things have nothing to do with it. No sir.

I wonder if we should come up with a school shooting index and rate Western countries according to that.
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

csaurabh wrote:
I wonder if we should come up with a school shooting index and rate Western countries according to that.
It should be easy to come up with all sorts of indices about the US in particular that clearly show that the surfeit of arms in the US is a real problem.

But there is a problem that I have alluded to earlier - and that is that the lobby in the US is very strong, and they really don't care about anyone else' sensibilities. And the politicians themselves are beholden to this lobby. For example. If a person in the US asks for the right to know if he is in the presence of armed people because guns make him feel unsafe, that right does not exist for him. There is an assumption that people who carry concealed guns are all safe and law abiding. I have heard some of the most laughably ridiculous arguments being put up by the gun lobby in the US - but no one has the power or guts to do anything about it. I have a vested interest - I like guns myself so I do not push anti-gun arguments as far as I could push them. But it's not my problem - I don't live in the US and what I say does not count.

I see the rule of lobbies and vested interests in the US as one of the failures of US democracy. I have, earlier in this thread, pointed out that hypothetical Ram Rajya could just as well be touted as being as good as any democracy if that "Ram Rajya" had all the attributes of just governance. If democracy was the best form of governance for "all people" then a given democracy should never elect and support leaders who destabilize or destroy democracy in some other nation in order to install a puppet dictator or despot. What happens with US democracy is that it is best for Americans. The USG will do what it can to keep Americans happy and wealthy and to hell with the rest of the world. This model of democracy is unhealthy for most people in the world and so the promotion of democracy by the US sounds totally fake and insincere. Democracy in the US promotes self interest for Americans in general, and in particular promotes the self interest of a greedy and wealthy sub-set of the American elite. The idea of "Freedom to make it big" in the US is secondary to subscribing to the primacy of that US self interest model.
shiv
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

RajeshA wrote: The traditional form and size of Indian family of say 5-6 children is absolutely required to avert the demographic attack and surge of Islam in the Indian Subcontinent. If that problem is taken care of, then and only then is the number of children not a matter, as long as the number is sufficient to replenish the population and look after the parents in their old age.
Rajesh, if you temporarily leave out Islamic demographics and look at Hindu society today you find that it consists of two broad categories:
1. The westernized, Macaulayized group who are generally well settled and who lead the charge of Indian society towards more personal wealth and fewer children. They generally spout all the arguments that we have learned to expect from the promoters of western universalism. Many of them are Hindus whose self esteem has come from becoming westernized and that westernization has rewarded them with personal wealth and self esteem

2. The less westernized, less wealthy group. They look up at the westernized, smug, self satisfied westernized group and aspire to be like them because this group too have been told that being Hindus is rubbish. They rush headlong to install their children in the "convent schools" of the old days which are now "international schools" with names like "Oxford school" or "Greenwood high". During my lifetime I have seen many people of this latter group gain tangible benefits - in that their children are now "software professionals" and "sales executives" who are firmly middle class. Many of this latter group are burdened by brothers and sisters whom they need to care for and get involved in property disputes where a small plot owned by the father has to be divided between 6 children making it relatively worthless. So they see the ideal of just one or two children knowing that they can get a much better life for those children and leave their children a far larger share of property that they may acquire. So these people are dharmic in wanting to look after their children's future but are still going against the recommendation to have 6 kids.

I think that it is the wealthy people who can afford it, who should be having more children because they are the ones who can absorb the financial stress which has become an inevitable accompaniment to more children. They will also be better able to see the logic behind your argument. How do you convince them to reject their love for WU?
ShauryaT
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by ShauryaT »

shiv wrote: I see the rule of lobbies and vested interests in the US as one of the failures of US democracy.
It is. Separation of wealth from power is essential for smooth functioning of a polity, democratic or not. The US has not achieved that and some EU nations do better. There are some Indian approaches to the issue based on Varna.
RajeshA
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Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by RajeshA »

shiv wrote:Many of this latter group are burdened by brothers and sisters whom they need to care for and get involved in property disputes where a small plot owned by the father has to be divided between 6 children making it relatively worthless. So they see the ideal of just one or two children knowing that they can get a much better life for those children and leave their children a far larger share of property that they may acquire. So these people are dharmic in wanting to look after their children's future but are still going against the recommendation to have 6 kids.
I think for whatever reason the poorer Hindus make more kids, be it tradition, ignorance, or simply lust, we should be thankful, otherwise the demographics would be a skewed a lot more.

Property disputes in India and almost everywhere else happen simply because the parents are too stupid to lay out a just plan for property division early. Many of us may have been witness to it in our own families. But due external counselling for the parents at the right time can be quite useful.

Generations which used to have multiple siblings 3, 4, 5, and more are slowly now dying off, and I speak of this worldwide. People have been used to having relatives on visits and every now and then to see them at family functions, but quite often one tended to take them as given without really appreciating these bonds of blood relations. Generations growing up would just have one sibling living somewhere near or far, and they would be hard placed to look for emotional, logistical and financial support or even security. It is the older generations of uncles and aunts and cousins that give people a illusion that extended family relations are here to stay. They are not, unless one works for it.

So as parents what one can give one's children for posterity is really other brothers and sisters, and that is far more valuable than some little piece of property. Sooner or later the parents are going to go and it is one's brothers and sisters which would still give you the feeling that one has not been uprooted and left alone.

Western society too is having a good taste of loneliness. Old parents gone and no brothers and sisters. Wife was divorced some time ago and the lone child that one did have doesn't seem to call you more than twice a year!

Sometimes we take too many things as a matter of course, that we have a large family network, but once one's uncles and aunts start leaving, it would fragment, and the coming generations would simply not be having family support. Having just one brother or sister is quite risky. One doesn't know if something befalls him or her, or one has a fight with him or her, it would leave one totally devoid of sibling support.
shiv wrote:I think that it is the wealthy people who can afford it, who should be having more children because they are the ones who can absorb the financial stress which has become an inevitable accompaniment to more children. They will also be better able to see the logic behind your argument. How do you convince them to reject their love for WU?
The question is would the Elite want to change anything. It may be in their interest to keep it this way.

Where the West broke down all potential for revolutionary resistance from society by simply turning every individual into a freedom trance silo, China did the same very physically through its one-child policy. In China, how are any two people going to sit down and develop enough trust in each other to start a revolution against the CPC? There is no blood-bond to fall back on as a natural agent of trust! So for a greedy elite there are good selfish reasons to promote very small families of one or two children, or to promote unbridled selfishness among the populace, or to keep them high on party, booze and drugs, or to overload them with social apps and computer games! There is no fight left among the population to overthrow an oppressive system if the population is just a whole lot of individuals and not a network of blood and marital-relations. The same weakness would be there when we have to face the Islamic onslaught.

At the moment Bharatiyas are just sedated by secular ideology, but we still have cohesion which comes from blood and marital relations. We cannot however take this cohesion for granted going forward. I say, this makes Dharma vulnerable!

Perhaps this "cohesion" in the populace can be mathematically modeled, depending on number of siblings.
Last edited by RajeshA on 28 Oct 2014 13:16, edited 2 times in total.
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