Most of the people in the East (who are not living and imported life from the West ) find it hard to continue with their standards, their limits, in the modern world. They see a compromise in completely adopting West. West intrudes our life, and we keep on denying it. Come to India, to see your Palestinian/Arabs mates studying here..watch them indulged into all sorts of debauchery. They don't certainly exemplify the ideal Muslim life, documented in Quran ( Iranian students are a lot better; and so they seldom go to india ;) ) Reportedly, they are purer muslims than the most in subcontinent...right?
This phenomenon is something which has pervaded every tradition, and every norm. Marriage is one of them; Not only is it appropriate to mention this phenomena here, but it is also pertinent with respect to the orignial question that was raised. Possible conversion before marriage, is not just a change of faith, not just about starting to follow certain "correct" traditions, but in an increasingly Westernized environment, its about identity of a Hindu or that of a Muslim. It would not be feasible for any hindu to marry a muslim, if he/she wants to preserve his/her relations with the family/community concerned. Same applies to the muslims too. Being a Muslim or Hindu, is not just about holding certain idea or following certain ideals. It is much more than that in a society whose way to "progress" is about relying on West for new ideas, rather than questioning its own standards, understanding its own norms, churning its own ideas.
The unexpected rate with which AIDS spread in India, the number of hits desibaba receives in an year, are only an example of how devoid of integrity we are. We have dismantled the system which handles our own desires. Our desires find expression in systems, which are not "permitted" in our society. This is only because of our inability to go and make changes in our social systems. If our society can handle our desires (which the case should be in an ideal Muslim world or an ideal Hindu world, and which was the case before British overtook us) we would be less fundamentalist, more welcoming to "aliens". Its just that we don't express our desires in our own systems; we end up abusing our own religion(s) and ethics. At least I am sure about my side of the border (or may be just "my" state or "my" community)
I respect those more who would abandon rules completely, rather than compromising to a hazy bastardized set of standards ... I respect the urban elitist Hindu's candid acceptance of the fact that it "is" real hard to follow Hinduism, to feel "pure" in a really "impure" world, to compromise with "reality". This would make things a lot healthier.
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Friday, October 22, 2004
It goes this way...
What Freud said and neuroscience proved, only implies that human beings are prejudiced, in theory. They don't "understand" facts, instead they just try to correlate newer things, with what they already knew. Mathematically, this implies dependence of cultural biases / observations on history.
People don't work with facts, but they think they do. The acceptance of a "fact" or development of an opinion/vote is case of a dynamic equilibrium. People adjust the known facts, in effect of the environment. In general, a fact which I observed and which I think is the reason of not so successful democracies, is that people just don't have a strong opinion on anything. They are allowed to think rationally, but they seldom do; there is little role of a "fact-finding" in making of an opinion. If you present a point of view to them, they would get back with a counter-argument which in most cases, doesn't challenge the factual truth of the presented view, but just tries to attack it by evoking emotions emanating from the opposite view. The influence of this opposing argument is similarly, emotional most of the times.
Here is the average case:
A : This is observed to be this.
B: Do you mean "blah blah means blah blah blah" What about "blah blah blah"..
Most of the people who win arguments use the strategy of B. I myself have won many arguments with this strategy, but such arguments never ended with more understanding of the issue. What B does is to try to shift the opinion of A by disturbing his equilibrium of understanding (the one I talked in the very fist paragraph) Basic human tendencies of 'eye for an eye' are easy to invoke. People would shift their opinion so as to feel that they have fought back by giving counter-arguments. In this whole course of arguments and counter-arguments the truth value is buried deeper and deeper.
I don't really feel very satisfied with most of the debates I see, especially those in India, where the so-called educated élite are consequence of a colonial education system, which only teaches people to look down upon everything native.
People don't work with facts, but they think they do. The acceptance of a "fact" or development of an opinion/vote is case of a dynamic equilibrium. People adjust the known facts, in effect of the environment. In general, a fact which I observed and which I think is the reason of not so successful democracies, is that people just don't have a strong opinion on anything. They are allowed to think rationally, but they seldom do; there is little role of a "fact-finding" in making of an opinion. If you present a point of view to them, they would get back with a counter-argument which in most cases, doesn't challenge the factual truth of the presented view, but just tries to attack it by evoking emotions emanating from the opposite view. The influence of this opposing argument is similarly, emotional most of the times.
Here is the average case:
A : This is observed to be this.
B: Do you mean "blah blah means blah blah blah" What about "blah blah blah"..
Most of the people who win arguments use the strategy of B. I myself have won many arguments with this strategy, but such arguments never ended with more understanding of the issue. What B does is to try to shift the opinion of A by disturbing his equilibrium of understanding (the one I talked in the very fist paragraph) Basic human tendencies of 'eye for an eye' are easy to invoke. People would shift their opinion so as to feel that they have fought back by giving counter-arguments. In this whole course of arguments and counter-arguments the truth value is buried deeper and deeper.
I don't really feel very satisfied with most of the debates I see, especially those in India, where the so-called educated élite are consequence of a colonial education system, which only teaches people to look down upon everything native.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
A fight I picked up
This was in response to what my friends were talking about Tejomahalaya. The object here, is Taj Mahal which according to a historian ( allegedly an "RSS-guy") , was a temple, rebuilt or probably just refurnished to be labelled as a memorial.
I started having problems when people started making unnecessary comments on RSS (taking this as an average object of "RSS" interest) To those people, this was just another silly (or idiotic) issue RSS or VHP (or the Hindutva Brigade, as it is called by the leftists in India) like to bring up.
Here is what I said:
This is nothing new which I or most of us didn't know about. I remember something in this regard having forwarded once.
1. Ram mandir, or any other temple is not for elite people like us. No true temple (true to me!) is needed for metrosexuals. As far as I am concerned, I don't share my religion with such folks. I would rather consider myself sans religion than someone with this modern Indian flavor of Hinduism or Jainism or Buddhism or even the secular Islam.
2. There "was" something before everything. So is the case with the Ram Mandir. Rama became superhit only after Ramacharitamanas, the poem by Tulsidas (who came at the time of Akbar, grandson of Babar). Before that, he was just a glorious king, an avatar of Vishnu, just like the Nepalese king of relatively "modern" times. Kali, Durga, Siva, all have had tribal connections. Hindus (the term which was coined by the same "muslim" invaders, the term which is not found in any scripture, and doesn't have sanskrit roots) would have done some kind of nihilism too, replacing something with something else.
Buddhists did that too, made religion something by and for the king (this is debatable, the likes of Ambedkar consider Budhhist as "socialistic"); Brahmins established in the villages, getting fucked, fired back, and even massacred a bunch of Buddhists, managed to remain on the top for some more time. What followed after that is what the article(s) might be emphasizing in a fundie tone which itself is part of the Hindu misery.
http://www.salagram.net/VWH-temples-defiled.html
The misery of worshipping cultural symbols and only symbols, associating one's identity with that, is how Hinduism is celebrated and preserved. Its gone worse since Siva of South India is different from Shiva of North, ganapati of Maharashtra is different from ganesha of marwaris in western UP and Rajasthan. But the "sacred" tradition goes on ....redefining itself with debauchery and whoremongering,
dubbed as "economic" and "socio-political" needs in the 21st century!
I don't see anything wrong in some monist trying to impregnate such people with a religion - a true religion rather than one rotten to its core (in words of a missionary). Muslims ravished temples all over Arab, why spare India? Christianity spread all over Europe, why should India be bereft? What is the 'raison d'etre' of this great land with the greatest religion? A fantasy described in imperceptible Sanskrit poems which nobody bothers to grasp?
Where the heck is need of the temples, if you don't want to answer these questions, if you don't "have" a raison d'etre at all? India simply doesn't have a religion anymore; its people don't want any contribution of theirs to ethics of what the world calls "humanity"! Buddhists held Hindu philosophy better, so to say. Of course, we would never need any temples in India...Even if some assholes try to make some, brand them as the blockade to the development.
Thats all so good. India, on an ever-developing, and ever Westernizing path now, looks better as a loose union of states built upon race, language, ethnicity. Is there anything else I missed? ... Not religion of course - the muslim states don't consider themselves even in the Indian subcontinent anymore. How would they if they got a religion to live with?
3. Why blame just Muslims and Christians? After getting English education, the so-called Hindu reformers have been no less deleterious than how Christians or Muslims would have been. These were attempts to have a Hindu "missionary zeal" as futile counter-attacks to what "foreigners" from the West did. It has really nothing to do with the philosophy/spirit of the natives.
I am not gonna respond to any replies / arguements that shall arise from this silly mail of mine. I know some educated responses very well:
* India needs development => forget religion for a while. Yeah sure!
* Talk secularism... all religions are equal (its a different issue, if I know nothing about any one of them) ...Carry on!
* Iranians must have been lunatics when they went for an Islamic revolution discarding all the "development", and now they are having thoughts on democracy...silly! Aint it? Of course, all Muslims are backward anti-democratic oppressors of sexy chicks and potential beauty queens. So true! They are not "developing" ; stuck in a religion, dammit!
* What has politics to do with religion? They are separate… - An educated Indian thought, thanks to British!
I got nothing to say. We are all following the West anyways, and we trust 'em more than anyone else. So why worry, why even argue? Just follow the light…
I started having problems when people started making unnecessary comments on RSS (taking this as an average object of "RSS" interest) To those people, this was just another silly (or idiotic) issue RSS or VHP (or the Hindutva Brigade, as it is called by the leftists in India) like to bring up.
Here is what I said:
This is nothing new which I or most of us didn't know about. I remember something in this regard having forwarded once.
1. Ram mandir, or any other temple is not for elite people like us. No true temple (true to me!) is needed for metrosexuals. As far as I am concerned, I don't share my religion with such folks. I would rather consider myself sans religion than someone with this modern Indian flavor of Hinduism or Jainism or Buddhism or even the secular Islam.
2. There "was" something before everything. So is the case with the Ram Mandir. Rama became superhit only after Ramacharitamanas, the poem by Tulsidas (who came at the time of Akbar, grandson of Babar). Before that, he was just a glorious king, an avatar of Vishnu, just like the Nepalese king of relatively "modern" times. Kali, Durga, Siva, all have had tribal connections. Hindus (the term which was coined by the same "muslim" invaders, the term which is not found in any scripture, and doesn't have sanskrit roots) would have done some kind of nihilism too, replacing something with something else.
Buddhists did that too, made religion something by and for the king (this is debatable, the likes of Ambedkar consider Budhhist as "socialistic"); Brahmins established in the villages, getting fucked, fired back, and even massacred a bunch of Buddhists, managed to remain on the top for some more time. What followed after that is what the article(s) might be emphasizing in a fundie tone which itself is part of the Hindu misery.
http://www.salagram.net/VWH-temples-defiled.html
The misery of worshipping cultural symbols and only symbols, associating one's identity with that, is how Hinduism is celebrated and preserved. Its gone worse since Siva of South India is different from Shiva of North, ganapati of Maharashtra is different from ganesha of marwaris in western UP and Rajasthan. But the "sacred" tradition goes on ....redefining itself with debauchery and whoremongering,
dubbed as "economic" and "socio-political" needs in the 21st century!
I don't see anything wrong in some monist trying to impregnate such people with a religion - a true religion rather than one rotten to its core (in words of a missionary). Muslims ravished temples all over Arab, why spare India? Christianity spread all over Europe, why should India be bereft? What is the 'raison d'etre' of this great land with the greatest religion? A fantasy described in imperceptible Sanskrit poems which nobody bothers to grasp?
Where the heck is need of the temples, if you don't want to answer these questions, if you don't "have" a raison d'etre at all? India simply doesn't have a religion anymore; its people don't want any contribution of theirs to ethics of what the world calls "humanity"! Buddhists held Hindu philosophy better, so to say. Of course, we would never need any temples in India...Even if some assholes try to make some, brand them as the blockade to the development.
Thats all so good. India, on an ever-developing, and ever Westernizing path now, looks better as a loose union of states built upon race, language, ethnicity. Is there anything else I missed? ... Not religion of course - the muslim states don't consider themselves even in the Indian subcontinent anymore. How would they if they got a religion to live with?
3. Why blame just Muslims and Christians? After getting English education, the so-called Hindu reformers have been no less deleterious than how Christians or Muslims would have been. These were attempts to have a Hindu "missionary zeal" as futile counter-attacks to what "foreigners" from the West did. It has really nothing to do with the philosophy/spirit of the natives.
I am not gonna respond to any replies / arguements that shall arise from this silly mail of mine. I know some educated responses very well:
* India needs development => forget religion for a while. Yeah sure!
* Talk secularism... all religions are equal (its a different issue, if I know nothing about any one of them) ...Carry on!
* Iranians must have been lunatics when they went for an Islamic revolution discarding all the "development", and now they are having thoughts on democracy...silly! Aint it? Of course, all Muslims are backward anti-democratic oppressors of sexy chicks and potential beauty queens. So true! They are not "developing" ; stuck in a religion, dammit!
* What has politics to do with religion? They are separate… - An educated Indian thought, thanks to British!
I got nothing to say. We are all following the West anyways, and we trust 'em more than anyone else. So why worry, why even argue? Just follow the light…
Saturday, October 02, 2004
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