[Advaita-l] wilhelm halbfass

[Michael Shepherd]

Sunil ji,

There is a certain purity in ignorance, where it is more like 'nescience'
and arises from accepted ideas that are not personal..

As recently as 1950 in London, there would be notices on the window of
bed-and-breakfast or lodging houses in poor districts where the oweners
themselves scraped a living, 'NO Coloured. NO Irish'..

The reasons ? Black people were then new to Britain, and the ignorant
thought that the blackness might rub off on the bed linen...
The Irish, a merry, convivial, and inflammable race, were known for
combining drink, singing, and argument in one joyous eruption.. or in police
terms, 'disturbing the peace'..

So, two different reasons for something which barely supports the general
term 'racism' as regards individuals -- however poisonous in governments and
politics.. rather, a certain purity in ignorance ?

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
[mailto:advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org]On Behalf Of Sunil
Bhattacharjya
Sent: 30 September 2009 13:00
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] wilhelm halbfass



Namaste,
 
You mentioned about scholars like Francis Clooney, who are dissociating
themselves from the ugly crowd. You may be right. Dr. Clooney is of Irish
descent and in one of his talks he himself talked about how the Irish were
also the victims of Racism. He said that at one time there were places,
which the Irish and the dogs were not allowed to enter..
 
Regards,
 
Sunil K. Bhattacharjya
 
 
 

--- On Wed, 9/30/09, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian
<rama.balasubramanian at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rama.balasubramanian at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] wilhelm halbfass
To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta"
<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 1:51 AM


On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 12:48 PM, Vidyasankar Sundaresan
<svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> BTW, someone wondered if my opinion of Halbfass extended to all his books
>> (private email). The answer is no. His books are good and worth reading.
But
>> IMO, you have to be aware of the agenda that he is subscribing to. I.e.,
>> superiority of the Western methods of analysis. But to his credit he
raises
>> the question if Hackers Christian beliefs misled him in his readings of
>> Sankara. That itself is a major achievement for a Western academic - if
any
>> Hindu raised that question he would be dismissed as a "fundamentalist".
>
>
> I didn't get a chance to respond to the other replies on this thread
yesterday.
>
>
>
> It seems to me that I am prepared to "cut some slack" more readily than
others to Halbfass. And it is precisely because of his instinct to be fair
to the subject of his study and to be alert to the possibility of bias built
into the Western academic process!
>
>
>
> Re: the treatment meted out to traditionally schooled pundists in Western
academia, it will all change if they perceive that the social and political
establishment in India gives these pundits the respect they really deserve.
A lot has to change at home before they will change abroad. Why should we
blame only the Indology/religion/philosophy departments in European and
American universities?
>

I agree, there is a certain personal element in how much slack is cut
here. But, let me explain myself. I used to cut a lot of slack to
these people till I realized that many (not all), but many are well
disguised racists or have some kind of religious agenda that they
suppress during normal times. This spilled out during some of the
"heated" discussions on the Indology list, and I think you know what I
am talking about. Of course I can't comment on Halbfass in this regard
- he may be a stellar character. I am certainly impressed that
Halbfass even raised the question of bias. Of course, I would have
been more impressed if he had raised it himself and not as a
consequence of Said's "Orientalism" being applied to non-Islamic
cultures. And I would have most certainly been very impressed if he
had not concluded that there is no essential problem with the
"traditional" analysis since it can "reveal" its own deficiencies,
whatever the heck that means!

>
> How many universities in India engage the traditional scholars in
meaningful discourse? No, the big bogey of high caste vs. low caste will
always raise its ugly head if the topic were to be even remotely broached.
The upshot is that Indian universities produce hardly any scholar with good
knowledge of either the Sanskrit language or specialty texts in various
fields of knowledge. Meanwhile, the traditional pundits remain completely
separated from the workings of modern universities.

I think there are some universities like the Venkateswara university
which have traditional pundits. The problem is that the public are
more interested in slick presentations in English. Of course,
humanities as a field of study is itself dying a slow death
everywhere, including the US, but especially fast in India. In any
case, scant respect is given to even great scholars such as
S.S.Suryanarayana Sastri, Mm. Kuppuswami Sastri and so on. It's a fact
that it is easier for Indians to get kudos from the West if they write
bad things about Indian/Hindu culture.

In spite of all this, I think things are getting better. There are
more respectful scholars such as Diana Eck, Francis Clooney, Stephen
Phillips and so on who are dissociating themselves from this ugly
crowd.

Rama
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