Hyagriv wrote:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The point there, as explained by Purva_Acharyas is as follows:
Man is supposed to live by the rules of Dharma.
However, at one stage of Spiritual progress, Dharma ceases to exist as cardinal, and the ultimate aim of Salvation becomes supreme.
For highly realised souls, very near to the object of realisation, Dharma becomes an impediment, they have to reject Dharma and TRANSCEND it, because Dharma belongs to this realm.
In Bhakthi tradition, at advanced stages of Bhakthi, one does not observe the rules of society, tradition or mundane dharma after reaching a stage of unpolluted, unrestrained love for God.
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..and SwamyG wrote
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->What is going to prevent people from kicking the stools that they stand on and proclaim whatever they do is because of their supreme love towards their gods. Suicide bombers of Islam are then blowing themselves and others, to show obedience to their god and reach him, discarding mundane dharma of the society we live in.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think these statements are mutually incompatible. It is indeed possible to use Bhakti in the manner that SwamyG says, but I don't think the rules of dharma can be kicked out altogether.
Yes, to attain the absolute, one must divest oneself of all attachments, and to that extent attachment to the compulsions of dharma must be removed. But bhakti too can only be a means to get near the absolute, but at the door, even bhakti must be discarded. "Love of God" itself is an attachment that has to go before one enters the domain of the absolute, where there is no love, and no hate.
However I don't think that the route to the absolute is ever recommended as being so devoid of dharma that one causes visible pain and misery to humans or animals. Devotion to dharma itself is what Yudisthira showed.
Islam takes you only so far as telling you that bhakti is all you need, but is unable to expand on the fact that dharma cannot be wholly rejected en route to the absolute and that the real "afterlife" is the absolute where everything is and isn't.
<!--QuoteBegin-SwamyG+May 19 2007, 03:29 AM-->QUOTE(SwamyG @ May 19 2007, 03:29 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Is there a reaon why this forum is not the best place to discuss this subject matter?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Swamy, you are not discussing, only asking questions. To discuss you will have some groundwork, like going through a number of books first please.
On this forum, the viewership is wide, and Hinduism is so deep a religion that its surface looks monstrous, ackward, superstitions, misgynist and so forth, but those who can successfully scratch the surface and examine below will find the highest philosophical thought hidden behind a facade. Also, the present situation with Hindus is that all that they know about their religion is hear say, whatever they have observed and whatever they imagine things to be from comics and TV serials.
No body has time anymore for reading their scriptures or hearing discourses from Authentic Authorities. Therefore, its harder to talk to fellow Hindus about Hindus than to evengelists- atleast we know where they are coming from.
<quote>In the mother-child analogy, does the child do everything to please the mother?</quote>
Of course it does, as it grows, it understands ways to reciprocate. It tries to repeatedly do something its mother smiles at with encouragement. There is definite two way exhibition of love, the child is not exacly a passive and inert recipient of motherly love. It gives back in its own way, terms and gestures, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously - even a cutely sleeping baby is making its mother feel joyful.
<quote>How come only the girls get to exhibit this kind of love? </quote>
Who said only girls get to exhibit this kind of love?
All Bhakti Poets have sung in the mood of Gopis irrespective of their sex. Since the Lord is the whole and individual souls part of that whole, the relationship is that of souls yearning for unity with the whole, not the otherway around; the whole is always the whole and never misses any of its individual parts. It might seem as if this is lopsided in favour of the male, however, there is this whole mystical level of understanding that the Goddess is more loving, more enjoying and having more powers than the male, while on the surface the male God seems to be all powerful. I am not sure if this can be explained here, nor is it possible that you can grasp it from dry reading. I suggest you join some Vaishnava Ista Goshti or Shaiva/Shakta Mutt nearby, be a regular, dont' ask questions for atleast a year, only observe and if possible participate as much as you can, and then, as your questions automatically resolve, you will find yourself enjoying it too with a totally different level of understanding made possible simply by association - Thats precisely why we place much emphasis on Sat Sangha.
And if you want to experience relationships with Goddesses, expand that angle which might be forbidden for the general public, you might want to explore the rich Tantric Traditions, you won't be dissapointed.
Please post any more questions in private. We can take it from there. Thanks.
Hyagriva:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Swamy, you are not discussing, only asking questions. To discuss you will have some groundwork, like going through a number of books first please.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If I sound ignorant, then so am I. Well I have not read all the texts out there, and neither have I yet reached the "This is the last page on the Internet. Now you have read all the content. Have a good day!".
Now, if people post their views, and I have questions then I ask them. Period. I see no point in suppressing them, and pretending to know everything or parroting what is out there in the books and webpages. Questions can elicit information and also can be used to disagree with something that has been said.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->On this forum, the viewership is wide, and Hinduism is so deep a religion that its surface looks monstrous, ackward, superstitions, misgynist and so forth, but those who can successfully scratch the surface and examine below will find the highest philosophical thought hidden behind a facade.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I am yet to read any stories in our narrative, where a guru turned down a shishya because the shisya was not well read. Wonder what would have happened if Yajnavalkya did not answer Maitreyi's questions, or Yama dharmaraja, inspite of his initial refusla, did not answer Nachiketa, or Krisna Arjuna's questions. In all these and other examples, you see there is genuine curiosity that brings out the much heralded Hindu narratives.
Now only if people can get down from their own stools, and answer questions and teach the ignorant, then probably there is a chance for people to look beneath the surface.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->you might want to explore the rich Tantric Traditions, you won't be dissapointed.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I might not be disappointed, but my near and dear would shun me away. So that is the price I pay.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->be a regular, dont' ask questions for atleast a year, only observe and if possible participate as much as you can, and then, as your questions automatically resolve, you will find yourself enjoying it too with a totally different level of understanding made possible simply by association<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I recognize the importance of observation and learning, but you are suggesting that I just drink the kool-aid and get used to things.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I recognize the importance of observation and learning, but you are suggesting that I just drink the kool-aid and get used to things<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
SwamyG, I don't read the advise given by Haygriva the way you have put it here.
05-19-2007, 10:22 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-19-2007, 11:00 PM by Bodhi.)
<!--QuoteBegin-Hyagriva+May 19 2007, 03:11 AM-->QUOTE(Hyagriva @ May 19 2007, 03:11 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->How come only the girls get to exhibit this kind of love?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Who said only girls get to exhibit this kind of love?
All Bhakti Poets have sung in the mood of Gopis irrespective of their sex. [right][snapback]69027[/snapback][/right]
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Very much. So much that Bhakti can even be born from the homo-sexual ecstasy. Even a certain homo-sexual Pathan by the name of Syed Ibrahim can turn Bhakta Raskhan and transform his lust into his love of Krishna.
रà¤à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¯à¥ मà¥à¤¸à¤à¤¾à¤¤ लला निà¤à¤¸à¥à¤¯à¥ à¤à¤² à¤à¥à¤à¤à¤¨ तॠसà¥à¤à¤¦à¤¾à¤
à¤à¥à¤à¤¿ à¤à¤¯à¥ à¤à¤° à¤à¥ सब बà¤à¤§à¤¨ à¤à¥à¤à¤¿ à¤à¥ à¤à¤°à¤- लाà¤- बà¥à¤¾à¤
[When Krishna smiled, filling colours, in the Kunj-streets
What to do, all bonds broke lose, all concern of Maryada dropped, all pride and lajja just disappeared]
and:
नà¥à¤¨ दलालनि à¤à¥à¤¹à¤à¥à¤ म मानिठपिय हाथ।
"रसà¤à¤¾à¤' ढà¥à¤² बà¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¥ बà¥à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¥à¤ हिय à¤à¤¿à¤¯ साथ।।
[My eyes became 'pimps', who dealt Raskhan's heart away to Him, on the beats of Dhol (disreagarding any lok-lajja)]
SwamyG: regarding questions. Probably you should also read the discourses of Bhagwan Buddha on what are the questions and what are non-questions. Quests of Nachiketa, Arjun, Maitreyi, Janak, Anand, and Sariputra are born out of their deeply thirsty hearts, after exhausting all other channels of fulfilment, coming defeated to the feet of their respective Gurus as the last resort of the quest.
<!--QuoteBegin-Bodhi+May 19 2007, 10:22 PM-->QUOTE(Bodhi @ May 19 2007, 10:22 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->SwamyG: regarding questions. Probably you should also read the discourses of Bhagwan Buddha on what are the questions and what are non-questions. Quests of Nachiketa, Arjun, Maitreyi, Janak, Anand, and Sariputra are born out of their deeply thirsty hearts, after exhausting all other channels of fulfilment, coming defeated to the feet of their respective Gurus as the last resort of the quest.
[right][snapback]69041[/snapback][/right]
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I will be glad to read the discourses and learn. Now only I, and only I know the true nature of my questions. I have no qualms in admitting some of them are in the nature of raising disagreements, but many of them are out of the genuine interest to know.
It so appears, that when I raise non-controversial, secular questions in nature, then people are ready to answer them patiently. For example about the etymology and language related questions I have asked. But when it comes to something connected with Hinduism, then people seem to look down. It can mean, people have no patience or do not know the answers themselves.
So here, I have you gurus right in front of me, and there is a possibility of an exchange; and you (in plural) want me to go elsewhere. But it also might be that this is one of the avenues that I am trying, and exhausting, and that my I am yet to meet my guru who will teach me.
<!--QuoteBegin-Hyagriva+May 19 2007, 12:41 PM-->QUOTE(Hyagriva @ May 19 2007, 12:41 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Please post any more questions in private. We can take it from there. Thanks.
[right][snapback]69027[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hyagriva, That is impossible. This forum prohibits exchanging personal messages between members.
<img src='http://www.outlookindia.com/images/glitterati_esha_deol_20060731.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Isha deol with Gayatri Mantra tatto <!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
SwamyG,
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->So here, I have you gurus right in front of me, and there is a possibility of an exchange; and you (in plural) want me to go elsewhere. But it also might be that this is one of the avenues that I am trying, and exhausting, and that my I am yet to meet my guru who will teach me. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I wouldn't recommend finding a guru online or even on this forum. Let me see if I can post a story I had read somewhere.
----------------
Neighbour of a learned man went to this learned Pandit and said, "I long to learn spirtuality, would you come over to my house and talk to me about it?"
Pandit didn't commit himself since he realized that this neighbour was under delusion that mysticism can be transmitted to another by word of mouth.
Some days later the neighour was shouting from his house, "Panditji, I need your help to blow some fire in my chullaha, embers are dying"
Pandit responds, "Why of course, my breath is at your disposal, come over and you can take away as much as you can".
--------------------------
Bodhi:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Quests of Nachiketa, Arjun, Maitreyi, Janak, Anand, and Sariputra are born out of their deeply thirsty hearts, after exhausting all other channels of fulfilment, coming defeated to the feet of their respective Gurus as the last resort of the quest.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I trust these noble souls shed their arrogance and pride as they set out in their quest.
05-22-2007, 09:27 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-22-2007, 09:27 AM by Bodhi.)
yes Viren.
'kabiraa khaDaa bajaar mein, liye lukaaThee haath,
mood kataaye aapnaa, so chale hamaare saath'
[Kabir stands in the marketplace, with wooden cane in hand,
Calls those who are ready to chop their own heads, to join him in the journey]
'chopping the head' in Kabir's words refer to sacrificing the pride.
He also says, 'mood kaTaaye Guru milain, to sasta sauda jaan' - 'if Guru is to be found at the cost of sacrificing the head, consider the deal a bargain'. Finding one's Samartha Sadguru is once-in-several-lifetimes opportunity, and in a way end of the quest, and in other way the real beginning of the quest.
Viren:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I wouldn't recommend finding a guru online or even on this forum. Let me see if I can post a story I had read somewhere.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I disagree with you. Anybody that teaches me a thing or two is a guru to me. Gone are the days where one has to visit gurukulams, and work under the tutelage of the Guru and his wife. Things have evolved, and I don't consider it any little to solicit knowledge from people on the internet. After all I am going to use mull over them, apply filters and digest things.
If someone teaches me how to fix the faucet on my counter top, he becomes my guru on that subject. Someone teaches me how to change oil filters, plant a garden, find ways to get the cheapest air tickets on the internet etc he or she becomes a guru. Similar is on the subjects of religion, gods, spiritualism, hinduism etc.
I did not go knocking on my neighbor's door, the panditji(s) were already assembled in a community place called the discussion forums. I happen to be there, and sought answers. I understand I can't force them to answer, though.
As already stated I ask questions to inform/educate me and also to profess disagreements (i.e make a point). In what other way or form do you want me to set my pride down, than the way I have already said - I don't know. If this is not the most civil & polite way to ask things, then I better start my schooling from KG.
Bodhi: As you can see, I did post the question despite knowing the answer for a wide variety of reasons. Though reading your response is a pleasure in itself. Thanks again.
Sorry I vanished from here for a few days folks.
I was lurking - and busy thinking about an issue that is bothering me. I have already made a reference to what got me thinking a few days ago in the "Monitoring Anti-Hindu activity" thread.
But I am bringing the topic on here as well because it bothers me quite a bit and has many aspects that impinge on the Hindu narrative, and I will explain. I will need time to read and re read and re- reread to formulate coherent and difficult to reject arguments in my own mind against what is written in the article linked below.
It is a vicious attack on the narrative - it is basically an attempt by an American Professor at "Identity assassination" of Hindus. But the wording is very careful and the article and any others it may spawn need to be rebutted in a robust fashion by many. And I am certain this article will be the basis of many others to follow - from the usual sources.
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=t...8b82dpsct9f9003
A narrative is after all a story, a memory much of which may be true, but parts tied up in myth. The article trashes all Hindus and makes it look like enjoying the Ramayana is to be a supporter of murder. But that trashing of Hindus is done so well that the counter arguments need to be formulated with care, and that is my quest.
rebuttal: http://desicritics.org/2007/05/24/024708.php
<!--QuoteBegin-sengotuvel+May 25 2007, 08:20 PM-->QUOTE(sengotuvel @ May 25 2007, 08:20 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sorry I vanished from here for a few days folks.
I was lurking - and busy thinking about an issue that is bothering me. I have already made a reference to what got me thinking a few days ago in the "Monitoring Anti-Hindu activity" thread.
But I am bringing the topic on here as well because it bothers me quite a bit and has many aspects that impinge on the Hindu narrative, and I will explain. I will need time to read and re read and re- reread to formulate coherent and difficult to reject arguments in my own mind against what is written in the article linked below.
It is a vicious attack on the narrative - it is basically an attempt by an American Professor at "Identity assassination" of Hindus. But the wording is very careful and the article and any others it may spawn need to be rebutted in a robust fashion by many. And I am certain this article will be the basis of many others to follow - from the usual sources.
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=t...8b82dpsct9f9003
A narrative is after all a story, a memory much of which may be true, but parts tied up in myth. The article trashes all Hindus and makes it look like enjoying the Ramayana is to be a supporter of murder. But that trashing of Hindus is done so well that the counter arguments need to be formulated with care, and that is my quest.
[right][snapback]69317[/snapback][/right]
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Deconstructing Martha Nussbaum: The Hindu Right Revisited
May 24, 2007
Cynical Nerd
Martha Nussbaum, Professor of Law, Religion and Philosophy at the University of Chicago launches her book this week titled The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence and India's Future. The Harvard University Press published this. She had a preview published at The Chronicle for Higher Education on May 18, 2007. Here are my preliminary impressions on the latter.
I give her the benefit of the doubt. Nussbaum appears to be a genuine liberal, a well wisher and broad minded. Her criticisms of the Hindu right are not without reason and she makes some valid points. The 2002 Gujarat riots deserved criticism. This said, she makes huge leaps of argument without substantiating them, provides zero context and stands accused of several factual inaccuracies. This makes me query her credentials as a lawyer-academic. Nussbaum lacks the rigor one would have expected of a senior academic. Let me illustrate.
Hers is a foreign policy prescription directed at a liberal democrat audience. She argues that democratic institutions are vulnerable to the challenge posed by religious nationalism. In India, this is epitomized by the Hindu right as witnessed in the Gujarat riots. The phenomenon was largely unnoticed in the United States preoccupied with Islamic fundamentalism. She iterates that such threats need to be confronted.
<b>
Nussbaum is not entirely incorrect. The RSS represents an insular atavistic world view that is often coarse. The rhetoric of the Bajrang Dal exemplifies this. But Hinduism and the BJP-led National Development Alliance (NDA) can not be equated with the RSS. The NDA when in power included Dalit activists such as Ram Vilas Paswan, the Kashmir-based National Conference, anti-Brahmanic "Dravidian" parties and veteran socialists like George Fernandez! It cut across regions and the social divide. She needs to temper her strident critique with a more nuanced and accurate view.
</b>
History
Nussbaum distorts history with her slipshod analysis and facile methodology. At one point she describes "traditional Hinduism" as "decentralized, plural and highly tolerant". She contrasts that with the Hindu right and proceeds to outline what she thinks to be their version of history. She concludes that "Hindus are no more indigenous [to India] than Muslims" in light of the Aryan invasion. Her history needs to be corrected.
The colonial-era hypothesis of "a people who spoke Sanskrit migrating into the Indian subcontinent finding indigenous, probably Dravidian peoples there" needs to be revised in its chronology and sequence . The Indo-European speaking peoples purportedly migrated at a much earlier time period, were far fewer in number and certainly did not speak Sanskrit which evolved later. I refer to archeologists such as Colin Renfrew, J.N. Kenoyer and Marija Gimbutas and to the geneticist Cavalli-Sforza. Whether the purported indigenes were "Dravidian" is uncertain as well. It is more likely that the introduction of iron and improved technology facilitated the spread of civilizational ideas associated with those speaking Indo-European dialects. Hinduism had evolved over the centuries in the Indian subcontinent drawing from multiple sources be they Aryan or Dravidian by the time the earlier verses of the Rig Veda were first uttered in the Punjab circa 1,500 BCE. Hinduism had its origins in the region!
Political Context
Nussbaum views events in isolation. She repeatedly fails to provide political context. She relies on V.D. Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar to illustrate the Hindu right emphasizing their alleged Nazi German ideological antecedents. I do not intend to defend either except to add that the German and Japanese defiance of the West during World War II found resonance not just in India but in Latin America, the Middle East and South East Asia. Mohammed Iqbal, the intellectual forerunner of Pakistan, found inspiration in Germany. Subhas Chandra Bose of the Indian left was another example. Many were attracted by the discipline, defiance and success on the battlefront. This fascination across continents had little to do with the Nazi treatment of European Jewry though Nussbaum would understandably be aghast given her adopted Jewish heritage.
It is indeed correct that Golwalkar extolled Germany in 1939. The Muslim League had upped the campaign for partition the previous year by accusing the Congress under Mohandas K. Gandhi and Nehru of sidelining Muslim interests. Religious riots had assumed a new ferocity, the seeds for partition had been sowed and a program of religious polarization initiated. This was exemplified in the Muslim League's Pirpur report of 1938. Nussbaum is unaware of context. She should therefore not arrogate the right to comment on issues that she knows little about.
She asks "how did fascism take such a hold in India?" Context is key once again. India is surrounded by neighbors that epitomize raw aggression and violence. The recent history of Afghanistan hardly needs reiteration. Bangladesh, the erstwhile East Bengal, had a Hindu population of 29% in 1947. This fell to 10% in 2001 due to the eviction, intimidation and land grab over the decades. Bhutan expelled 1/7th of its population because they spoke Nepalese. 30 million people might have died in the great Chinese famine in the late 1950s. China's treatment of Tibet in the late 1960s had elements of genocide. Hindus and Sikhs comprised 19% of what is today Pakistan in 1947. This declined to 1% where the rest were subject to sectarian ethnic cleansing. Pakistan unleashed terror in East Bengal in 1970 that led to the death of 1.5 million Bengalis. India stands out by its commitment to pluralism and democracy despite setbacks.
The RSS became influential in a political vortex fueled by multiple actors. A credible analysis needs to factor this in and not view things in isolation. India's only Muslim majority state i.e . Kashmir expelled its centuries old Hindu minority from the valley in 1989. Nussbaum fails to cover the rise of fundamentalism in Kashmir while she zeroes in on it in Gujarat! Rather than condemn the Hindu right alone, one needs to contextualize the competing religious fundamentalisms, each of which fed upon the other to cause mayhem. Islamic fundamentalism has had a vigorous presence in India as witnessed in efforts to stall the reform of Muslim Personal Law, the rights of Muslim women, bomb attacks and riots triggered by reported attacks on Islam in the West etc. The international campaign against Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses had its origins in India.
Social Service
Nussbaum draws inspiration from Rabindranath Tagore and Mohandas K. Gandhi. She fails to mention that both were profoundly influenced by the Hindu ethos of inclusivism, tolerance and restraint. M.K. Gandhi, a devout Hindu, turned to the Bhagavad Gita each day to seek spiritual strength to fight injustice. He termed this Satyagraha or the power of truth. Rabindranath Tagore was leader of the Hindu reformist Brahmo Samaj having established Vishwa Bharati as a center of learning and culture. If one were to meaningfully counter the Hindu right, one has to incorporate the wellsprings of the 20th century Hindu enlightenment rather than rely on a flawed Nehruvian secularism.
This said, the Gandhian movement to alleviate poverty known as Sarvodaya (the awakening of all) and Bhudan (land to the landless), and the Brahmo Samaj failed to sustain the empowerment of the marginalized. The Brahmo Samaj and Sarvodaya are no longer active. The RSS affiliates conversely strengthened their grass roots presence. The Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram provides service to the scheduled tribes. The Seva Bharati works with the largely scheduled caste urban poor. Vidya Bharati works on education in remote rural India.
While the intelligentsia may condemn the rhetoric of the Hindu right, they lack a similar calling to serve the poor and downtrodden. So rather than decry political Hinduism, Nussbaum should perhaps assess why the tolerant Hindu ethos as represented by Tagore and Gandhi failed to retain a social service ethos. The two movements lost their civilizational moorings and relevance in their embrace of "Nehruvian secularism". The decline was therefore inevitable despite the real needs on the ground.
Conclusion
Nussbaum makes sweeping statements , each of which can be critiqued. Her hypothesis of the "wounded masculinity" of India partakes of an unsubstantiated pop psychology. She refers to the "rote learning" and the "lack of critical thinking" reportedly pervasive in Indian public schools. I would stay free of such facile generalizations. I am not sure how nuanced the average American student is or whether "rote learning" is a phenomenon confined to India. Her narrative of events be it with regards to the Gujarat riots, the Indian general elections or the fractured poll verdict is wrong. More importantly, she fails to illustrate the threats to Indian liberalism in a meaningful, nuanced and factually accurate manner.
Nussbaum is not alone in her critique of the Hindu right in American circles. The American conservative has sought to cultivate good ties with a resurgent India only to stymie it. This is witnessed in the provisions of the proposed Indo-American nuclear deal. This is a barely disguised attempt to coerce India to throw open its nuclear reactors to international inspections, halt fissile material production and commit to a nuclear test ban, all under the garb of a purported energy deal!
The American Atlanticist on the other hand flaunts his commitment to liberalism and uses that to urge greater scrutiny of China, India, Iran and Russia. The pro-Israel lobby, of which I count Nussbaum as one, is alarmed by the Islamic resurgence that threatens Israel's existence. It attempts to divert Islamist attention away from Israel to other instances of alleged persecution of Muslims be it in the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Indian subcontinent. Nussbaum is not all that kosher after all given the wider effort to "deconstruct" potential geo-strategic competitors. In this, she has the powerful backing of academics like Frykenburg and Witzel, of newspapers like the New York Times with its former editor Rosenthal and one time correspondent Barbara Crossett, not to mention Indian journalists of the ilk of Pankaj Mishra who writes to the Atlantic Magazine!
Authored by Jaffna
The author writes at National Interest
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<b>Narrative constructions: cultural frames for history</b>.
From: The Social Studies
Date: May 1, 1995
Author: Levstik, Linda S.
<b>The narrative is an effective way to teach history to students. It shapes the events and lives the story is portraying and contextualizes them in culture. Moreover, the narrative moralizes the events being told and helps in developing historical judgment.</b> With some mediation from teachers, the narrative can help students hone an improved sense of its interpretive and tentative aspects. <b>Nevertheless, the narrative is only one piece of the historical puzzle and individuals must learn to take more than a narrative approach to historical understanding.</b>
At least since Barbara Hardy (Meek, Barton, and Warlow 1978) wrote her oft-quoted remark that narrative is a primary act of mind, educators have tried to use narrative as a way to structure new information for young children. Because children's ability to understand and use narrative has generally been assumed to precede their ability to understand and use other genres (Britton et al. 1975; Egan 1988; Moffet 1968), narratives have been seen as particularly useful pedagogical tools in all areas of the curriculum (Egan 1988; Wells 1986).
Specifically, Egan (1979, 1983, 1986) argues that a grounding in story, with its emphasis on human response to historical events, is the beginning of historical understanding. Even in our civic discourse, history is often framed as the "story" of a particular people, place, or event (Barber 1992). Politicians in the United States refer to "the American story," and it is not uncommon to find textbooks similarly rifled. The form and content of the "American story" (or stories), for instance, provide a frame within which American history is created and critiqued. Individuals and groups can understand themselves as standing within, outside of, or in opposition to whatever version of the American story is being told. <b>Seen in this way, historical stories become powerful cultural forces. Yet it is this link between history and narrative that is generally overlooked in discussions of the impact of narrative on historical understanding in children. </b>
<b>Narrative as a Cultural Frame for History </b>
In order to understand the way in which narrative functions in shaping historical stories, it is first necessary to clarify what is meant by the term narrative.
Generally, work on narrative/ history connections has defined narrative in terms of story-like features. In particular, narrativity is seen as having spatio-temporal and causative elements common to stories and to such nonfictional accounts as biographies, autobiographies, and traditional histories. According to Traugott and Pratt (1980), <b>narrative is "a way of linguistically representing past experience, whether real or imagined"</b> (248). Narrative events are perceived as connected and significant; a <b>narrative is expected to go somewhere, to have some point or conclusion</b> (Toolan 1988). Whether an author operates within this definition of narrative or against it, the resultant text is still created and understood within a particular sociocultural context. There is, however, a difference between acknowledging the power of narratives such as these to shape historical understanding and assuming an uncritical intellectual and academic primacy for narrative.
Claims regarding the primacy of narrative, especially in the thinking of young children, have begun to come into question. Research by Pappas (1991) indicates that children's ability to "process" information texts - texts generally using expository rather than narrative structures - is much greater than had been thought. But there are issues beyond those of how well children process non-narrative texts, especially in relation to historical understanding. If, for instance, text genres are seen as cultural forms and thinking involves "the intentional manipulation of cultural forms" (Geertz 1983), then the use of different genres takes on new meaning in curricular decision making and the "naturalness" of one genre over another becomes more problematic. This does not mean that narrative is not a powerful tool in developing historical thinking but rather that we must think more carefully about how different genres operate in relation to historical understanding.
<b>The Discourse of Disciplines or Domains </b>
Geertz (1983) argues that academic disciplines should be seen as social activities in a social world. They serve as ways of distinguishing broad traditions of intellectual - and discourse - styles. In this view, human thought is "a collective product, culturally coded and historically constructed" (14). Individual disciplines or domains such as history represent attempts to organize and make sense of human experience. As cultural artifacts, they can both illuminate our world and block our view. In either case, however, thought is shaped by and expressed in particular text genres (cf. Barber 1992). Although narrative is only one of several genres commonly employed by modern historians, it remains a "naturally occurring" (actually used by historians) genre in the discipline or domain of history. As such, it serves an important function and deserves critical attention in a history curriculum. Hayden White (1980) describes narrative as a "metacode" transmitting transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality. <b>Narrative, he argues, "solves the problem of how to translate knowing into telling"</b> (5-6). Put another way, <b>narrative transforms chronology (a list of events) into history (an interpretation of events). </b>
<b>Translating Knowing into Telling </b>
The transformative power of narrative does more than allow a reader to look into other lives and times. It is not a simple matter of telling the story. Rather, narrative shapes the events and lives it depicts and embeds them in a culture. As one ten-year-old explains, "The social studies book doesn't give you a lot of detail. You don't imagine yourself there because they're not doing it as if it were a person" (Levstik 1989). Narrative, on the other hand, is generally perceived "as if it were a person." In narrative, the voice of the "teller" and the tale that is told are both heard. The narrator's voice, carried through the nuances of a culturally embedded language, asserts authority and elicits a degree of trust (Toolan, 1988).
One form of historical narrative, the historical novel, has elicited positive student response in certain classroom settings (Levstik 1986, 1993). In this type of narrative, an author holds a magnifying glass up to a piece of history, providing humanizing details often left out of broad survey history texts. If the novel is accurate history and engaging literature, the reader finds out how some people felt about history, how they lived their daily lives, what they wore, how they spoke.
These details are an integral part of the transcultural messages of which Hayden speaks, but they are not, of course, the whole message. Rather, the author organizes details to further the narrative. Kermode (1980) calls this an "arbitrary imposition of truth," but it is not arbitrary at all. Rather, it represents history within a sociocultural frame "that is the source of any morality that we can imagine" (White 1980, 18).
<b>Moralizing History </b>
In well-written narratives, readers encounter the human capacity for both good and evil in a framework that generally invites them to sympathize with, or at least understand, the protagonist's point of view. One of the most striking features of studies of children's response to historical narratives (Levstik 1986, 1989, 1993) is the frequency with which they explain their interest in historical topics in terms of "needing to know" about a topic, of wanting to learn "the truth," or "what really happened." <b>This search for "truth" is both an issue of ethics and morality and of narrative structure. </b>Narrative changes historical data by forming a story that implies certain things to the reader. White (1980) suggests that one of the implications of narrative is the moralization of the events depicted.
This aspect of narrative operates on several levels. To begin with, narrative conflict and sequencing invite the reader to see history as "caused" (Rabinowitz 1987). The reader assumes that first events cause subsequent events unless there is a contrary indication. As one child explained, "Even if it weren't all true, it could have been true, and it could have happened like that" (Levstik 1989). On another level, the conflict at the heart of most narratives implies that at least two versions of the story are possible. The possibility of alternate points of view raises two issues. First, as the story enlists the readers identification with a particular perspective, it may also raise issues of morality that influence the child reader's search for "truth." Second, the reader may also come to expect history, at least in its narrative forms, to be interpretive and to involve moral issues. After reading several historical novels, a fifth-grade child explains her frustration with the textbook version of the American history:
"[The textbook] just says that Americans were right, but it doesn't tell you exactly why they were right, or why the British fought" (Levstik 1989, 117).
This type of engagement, it seems to me, is crucial to meaningful historical study.
If history is just chronology, there is little reason to "understand" it. If, on the other hand, it involves the interpretation of vital moral and ethical issues, it not only requires understanding, it is also relevant to the way in which we come to understand ourselves and the world around us. Bardige's (1988) study of adolescent moral development in the context of a literature-based history curriculum, points out another consideration in attending to the moral and ethical dimensions of history. She notes that history instruction that emphasizes greater and greater degrees of abstraction, while trying to maintain a neutral or "objective" stance, can increase children's feelings of impotence and lead to their inability to take action against evil.
<b>Developing Historical Judgment </b>
Historical interpretation is not confined, of course, to narrative moralizing. It is also a matter of weighing evidence and holding conclusions to be tentative pending further information. As Bardige (1988) notes, there is a tension here between helping children see multiple perspectives and leaving them unable to take any kind of stand, because all perspectives are perceived as equally good. This delicate balance is especially interesting to consider in light of the findings in two studies of the impact of narrative on historical understanding (Levstik 1986, 1989). In neither study did historical fiction appear to trigger student questions about an author's correctness of interpretation. Rather, children seemed to value the "truthfulness" of the historical fiction and use it as the standard against which other information was measured. Spontaneous skepticism was evident in the way children viewed their social studies text, and they generally recognized that another perspective could have been represented in a particular story, but it required teacher intervention to lead children to consider alternatives to a literary interpretation of history seriously. This response to historical narrative places on authors and teachers a double obligation to create and select historical narratives that are both good literature and careful, accurate history. It also means that special attention must be paid to how teachers mediate texts.
<b>Teacher Mediation</b>
One of the most common sociocultural contexts within which both history and narrative operate is individual classrooms. Within classrooms, teachers have the opportunity to mediate some of the ways in which history, narrative (and other genres), and learners come together. In research by Bardige (1989) and Levstik (1986, 1993), children were studied as they responded to history and historical literature. In Bardige's study, children kept journals in which they recorded personal feelings, observations, opinions, and questions about the material they were encountering. The intent of the journals was to provide a forum for "facing history" and "facing one's self" and was a written conversation between students and teacher (90). In my (Levstik 1986) study of a sixth-grade class, the teacher used journals, but she also organized response groups. Because children often read multiple books on a topic, they had several opportunities to reen-counter ideas and issues from previous discussions. For instance, children reading holocaust literature returned several times to a discussion of Hitler's "bravery."
One student declared that Hitler was brave for wanting to take on the whole world. Others disagree, and the discussion moved on. But several children were still concerned. Was he brave? Could an evil man be considered brave? They returned to their reading to see if they could make sense of the questions raised in discussion. In a later response group, another student shared information from a biography that he was reading. He suggested that Hitler was insane. The first student nodded, perhaps recognizing a way out of her original dilemma: "It was insane bravery." By providing opportunities to encounter and reencounter a topic, the teacher also provided a context for communal construction of meaning. Students adjusted their ideas, not just in response to the text or to teacher comment, but on the basis of interactions with their peers (Wells and Chang-Wells 1992).
In addition, the teacher encouraged reference to multiple sources of information. When a dispute over the accuracy of historical information arose, the teacher arbitrated first by having students check each author's credentials and then by sending students to the library to look for confirming or non-confirming information. In doing so, the teacher directed children to other "naturally occurring" genres in the domain of history. In other words, she provided a number of opportunities for students to engage in historical discourse and to practice using some of the variety of text genres commonly used in that discourse.
In another study (Levstik 1993), a first-grade teacher also used a variety of genres in presenting history to her students, often emphasizing the tentative nature of the information they encountered. Her students had been studying the history of the earth and had heard several stories about the end of the dinosaurs. She invited children to speculate about what they thought might have happened to the dinosaurs:
Child 1: The weather changed, and all the flowers died, and the plants got frozen.
Teacher: And do we know this for a fact?
Child 2: No.
Teacher: No, we think that's a very good. . .
Child 1: Idea.
In each case, teachers arranged an environment in which there were opportunities to propose ideas, test them in interaction with peers and/or the teacher, and modify or retain them. Although children were expected to begin with a personal response: "It made me sad" or "It made me think that I could do that too," they were also encouraged (often required) to move beyond narrative. In the sixth grade, journals and response groups provided opportunities to ponder historical data before students selected and presented history-related projects. In the first grade, the teacher presented a piece of literature, helped children construct word webs to outline what they thought they knew and wanted to find out, and then provided a variety of extension activities culminating in a class discussion and class-produced "story."
<b>Conclusion </b>
It would seem important in the development of any mature historical understanding that learners see history as a human enterprise made up of interpretations, subject to revision and expressed through a variety of genres. The structure of narrative appears to encourage readers to recognize the human aspects of history, and, with some mediation, to develop a better sense of its interpretive and tentative aspects. In addition, narrative may help students maintain a balance between the abstractions of history as an intellectual exercise and history as an ongoing, participatory drama. <b>But narrative is only one piece of the puzzle, for history is more than narrative. It is also learning to sift evidence before it has been shaped and interpreted. It is putting one's own time and place into a broader perspective and seeing oneself as making choices that are, cumulatively, historic.</b>
This requires more than a narrative approach to history. Rather, well-crafted, carefully selected narrative can motivate interest and spur inquiry into historical topics. The task of the teacher is to help students focus that interest, to judge the interpretations appearing in narrative, to make sense out of alternative points of view, and to make careful historical judgments. Questions of fact and interpretation raised in this context can be used to initiate historical inquiry, refer students to other sources, including the full array of nonnarrative genres, and provide a forum for the presentation of student interpretations. This, I think, is a crucial and often overlooked component to thinking and learning in history. This type of mediation also helps guard against the uncritical acceptance of literary constructions of history. The power of narrative is not an unmitigated good. As has already been noted, the impact of narrative operates regardless of the accuracy of the historical content it carries or the particular interpretive frames within which it operates. In other words, a good story can mask bad history and blind students to other interpretations. The power of the truth imposed by narrative constructions of history, can well mean that children will believe bad history if the narrative is compelling or that they will ignore good history if the narrative is insipid. This should serve as a caution to those currently involved in trying to "narratize" the curriculum. Little fine literature is produced by committee; little first-rate history grows from a steady diet of myth and legend. And there is no evidence that a history curriculum based primarily in narrative and storytelling is either good pedagogy or good history.
Our children deserve the richest curriculum we can give them. There is certainly a place in that curriculum for narrative, as I have argued here and elsewhere. Relying primarily on narrative, however, deprives our students of full access to history and to the intellectual excitement that a variety of genres of literature can provide. In particular, relying on narratizing as the primary pedagogy for history instruction can too easily become a solo performance requiring no more of children than their passive attention. Even when children enjoy the performance, they are missing the opportunity to be historical inquirers - makers of historical interpretation.
<b>REFERENCES </b>
Barber, B. 1992. An aristocracy of everyone: The politics of education and the future of America. New York: Ballantine.
Bardige, B. 1988. Things so finely human: Moral sensibilities at risk in adolescence. In Mapping the moral domain, edited by C. Gilligan, J.V. Ward, and J.M. Taylor. Cambridge: Harvard University Graduate School of Education.
Britton, J., Burgess, T., Martin, N., McLeod, A., and Rosen, H. 1975. The development of writing abilities. London: Macmillan.
Egan, K. 1983. Accumulating history. In monograph, History and theory: Studies in the philosophy of history. Belkeft 22: Wesleyan University Press.
-----. 1986. Teaching as storytelling. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Egan, K., and D. Nadaner. 1988. Imagination and education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Geertz, C. 1983. Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretive anthropology. New York: Basic Books.
Kermode, F. 1980. Secrets and narrative sequence. Critical Inquiry 7(1): 83-101.
Levstik, L. S. 1986. The relationship between historical response and narrative in a sixth-grade classroom. Theory and Research in Social Education 14: 1-15.
-----. 1989. Coming to terms with history: Historical narrativity and the young reader. Theory Into Practice. 28(2): 114-9.
-----. 1993. Building a sense of history in a first-grade class. In Advances in Research in Teaching, Vol. 4, edited by J. Brophy. New York: JAI Press.
Levstik, L. S., and C. C. Pappas. 1987. Exploring the development of historical understanding. Journal of Research and Development in Education 21: 1-15.
Meek, M., A. Warlow, and G. Barton. 1978. Introduction. In The cool web, edited by M. Meek, A. Warlow, and G. Barton. New York: Atheneum.
Moffett, J. 1968. Teaching the universe of discourse. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Pappas, C. C. 1991. Fostering full access to literacy by including information books. Language Arts 68: 449-62.
Rabinowitz, P. J. 1987. Before reading: Narrative conventions and the politics of interpretation. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Toolan, M. J. 1988. Narrative: A critical linguistic introduction. London: Routledge.
Traugott, E., and M. L. Pratt. 1980. Linguistics for students of literature. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Javonovich.
Wells, G. 1986. The meaning makers: Children learning language and using language to learn. Portsmouth, N. H.: Heinemann.
Wells, G., and G. Chang-Wells. 1992. Constructing meaning together. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.
White, H. 1980. The value of narrativity in the representation of reality. Critical Inquiry 7 (1):5-27.
LINDA S. LEVSTIK is a professor of social studies and humanities education at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
<i>COPYRIGHT 1995 Heldref Publications</i>
Interesting article K Ram
The author contrasts narrative with chronological history.
I would like to draw a medical parallel to make a point. Often, the process of disease, its spread, and possible cures filter down to doctors as narratives. A narrative is often an anecdote - and many anecdotal references to various things in medicine are well known,
Anecdotal "evidence" in medicine is never taken as proof, but is nevertheless recorded as a possibility that need further investigation - to be proved or disproved on the basis of solid evidence.
The important thing here is that the anecdote, the narrative is not thrown away.
That may be true for medicine, but historians are a different bunch from medical researchers. Historians are not driven by the ethical considerations of doctors. As individuals, doctors have everything to gain - professional satisfaction, respect and monetary gain by sticking to the truth and using that route to fame and fortune. For that reason, they tend not to throw away others' narratives/anecdotes - in case it is useful to them.
Historians on the other hand often don't give a damn. Historians as a profession are typically funded by someone else, and may be under pressure to write history for someone else. It is in the nature of a historian's job that he can choose to trash and kill all narrative as wrong and choose to stick to certain chronological, numismatic and archaeological artefacts to write history.
Once again I stress that Indians, particularly Hindus do not have a tradition of physical record keeping. Hindus records have - for a great part of history, been in the form of a narrative, and for that reason alone Hindus narrative must be recorded and given an indelible place before egregious bitches like Nussbaum add to the forces choosing to delete all references to any kind of Hindu narrative.
<!--QuoteBegin-sengotuvel+May 27 2007, 12:53 PM-->QUOTE(sengotuvel @ May 27 2007, 12:53 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Interesting article K Ram
The author contrasts narrative with chronological history.
......
Once again I stress that Indians, particularly Hindus do not have a tradition of physical record keeping. Hindus records have - for a great part of history, been in the form of a narrative, and for that reason alone Hindus narrative must be recorded and given an indelible place before egregious bitches like Nussbaum add to the forces choosing to delete all references to any kind of Hindu narrative.
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Well, it is just one application. Let's say we have all the narratives we want (call it data), and then what? The purpose of the data if you will, after all - history telling, ethical/moral lessons, conduct, etc etc. IMO Hindus take a beating here. We have to get the language of 'story telling", and have to have a common "interpretive framework", that will explain to ourselves, and counter commies. No?
Anyways, speaking of identity, one application of narratives & Identity Management (my words):
http://www.nyu.edu/gallatin/pdf/BonistalliRationale.pdf
<!--QuoteBegin-Admin+Apr 9 2007, 08:54 AM-->QUOTE(Admin @ Apr 9 2007, 08:54 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-Admin+Mar 30 2007, 12:08 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Admin @ Mar 30 2007, 12:08 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><b> Translations, or Travesty of Traditions
by Prof S N Balagangadhara
Tiny URL : http://tinyurl.com/ys8jnl</b>
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Second article in the above series.
<b> ââ¦To Follow Our Forefathersâ¦â The Nature of Tradition
By S N Balagangadhara
Tiny URL : http://tinyurl.com/2ogt3a</b>
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<b> Why Understand the Western Culture?
Tiny URL : http://tinyurl.com/36pza4</b>
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