12-02-2004, 06:26 AM
User "Emory Student" posted this on Sulekha..
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004
From: Jakob De Roover
1. Does John Rawlsâs account of political liberalism gives us adequate scientific criteria to distinguish between the religious and the secular? No, for Rawls simply *presupposes* that there is a domain of religion in all plural societies, which is characterised by conflicting âcomprehensive doctrinesâ.
The problem is that Rawls does not have any theory of religion. He does not *demonstrate*, but rather presupposes that the coexistence of religious and cultural traditions in all human societies can be understood in terms of a conflict of comprehensive doctrines. If we take the case of India, the flaw in this account becomes clear: one can perhaps make sense of the religions of Islam and Christianity as comprehensive doctrines, but (as has been often pointed out) there is no such comprehensive doctrine to be found in the Hindu traditions. Neither can the conflict between the Hindu traditions, Islam and Christianity be understood as a clash of comprehensive doctrines.
Rawlsâs model does not theorise the pluralism of various societies across the world. It simply takes the doctrinal conflict among the several Christian denominations - which has characterised the predicament of pluralism in Europe and North America from the Reformation onwards - and generalises this into a universal model to understand âthe human predicament of reasonable pluralism.â
2. Here enters another argument against my position: the fact that a particular story about the Indian society has its origin in the Protestant mind set of the European colonials does not prove that this story is false. Very true. But my point is not merely that our conceptions of the secular state and Indian society have Protestant origins. Rather, it is that the dominant understanding of âHinduismâ, âcasteâ and âthe secular stateâ is based in Christian background assumptions. That is, these accounts make sense *if and only if* one accepts an entire set of premises of the Protestant religion. In other words, the intelligibility of the current theories on secularism, Hinduism and caste depends on this particular framework of theological premises.
Examples of such premises are the belief that Indian society can be understood in terms of a distinction between âthe religiousâ and âthe secularâ; the belief that it is wrong to use religion for political purposes; the belief that Brahmins are âpriestsâ who have imposed the religious laws of the caste system on Indian society. This is not the place to argue the case more fully, but we are today able to demonstrate that each of these beliefs is embedded in the Protestant theological framework that has shaped the âsecularistâ understanding of Indian society. The problem is not that the current account on Hinduism, caste and secularism derives from "the social location of its proponents," butthat it depends on a set of *religious background assumptions*.
This is why I stress the fact that no scientific theoretical framework is available today to even distinguish between the religious and the secular domain, let alone separate the two. The only framework that allows us to make sense of this conceptual distinction is that of Christian theology. During the last sixteen centuries or so, this framework and its theological distinction between the religious (as the spiritual domain of the human soul) and the secular or political (as the temporal world of the human body) have determined the political thought of the West. In a secularised form, this theological language has also become the language of the western common sense, the western intellectuals and the western-trained intellectuals of other cultures. This is not a point about the need to draw clear boundaries. The claim is that if we do not know any structural characteristics that distinguish the religious domain from the secular, our talk about the secular state and the separation of politics and religion fails to make sense.
3. Does the fact that many groups in the Indian society and the dominant group of Indian academics have adopted the (secularised) Protestant account of Hinduism and caste show that there is truth in this colonial understanding of India? Not necessarily. We will have to investigate the historical process of the adoption of this language to answer such questions.
It could as well be the case that a colonial consciousness continues to rule in India, which presupposes the inferiority of the Indian culture. When a society is under the spell of such a colonial consciousness, it cannot but replicate the colonial understanding of itself. Perhaps certain groups have learned to speak this language about âHinduism, caste and secularismâ, because it makes them successful at obtaining a better socio-economic position for their communities. Perhaps others have learned to speak this language in an even more fluent way because it gives them access to the international academia. Perhaps the adoption of this language has become a precondition to the pursuit of a fruitful career in the human sciences.
There is nothing âreductiveâ about this interpretation. Actually, it gives us a much-needed alternative viewpoint from which to inquire into the development of Indian society from colonial times onwards. Its aim is *not* to deny the problems in this society, but to analyse them more productively against the background of an alternate theoretical framework.
4. To conclude: It would be extremely interesting to identify *the mechanisms through which the colonial understanding of India sustains itself today*. But the fact that it is sustained in itself does not tell us anything about its cognitive value. This might indicate that the mechanisms behind the colonial consciousness cause an ongoing re-confirmation of its own accounts. In the absence of an alternative theoretical framework, scholars who are under its spell might see corroborations of its basic claims everywhere, because they cannot but presuppose the truth of these claims.
Sincerely,
Jakob De Roover
Research Assistant, Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders Universiteit Gent - Ghent University Gent, Belgium <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004
From: Jakob De Roover
1. Does John Rawlsâs account of political liberalism gives us adequate scientific criteria to distinguish between the religious and the secular? No, for Rawls simply *presupposes* that there is a domain of religion in all plural societies, which is characterised by conflicting âcomprehensive doctrinesâ.
The problem is that Rawls does not have any theory of religion. He does not *demonstrate*, but rather presupposes that the coexistence of religious and cultural traditions in all human societies can be understood in terms of a conflict of comprehensive doctrines. If we take the case of India, the flaw in this account becomes clear: one can perhaps make sense of the religions of Islam and Christianity as comprehensive doctrines, but (as has been often pointed out) there is no such comprehensive doctrine to be found in the Hindu traditions. Neither can the conflict between the Hindu traditions, Islam and Christianity be understood as a clash of comprehensive doctrines.
Rawlsâs model does not theorise the pluralism of various societies across the world. It simply takes the doctrinal conflict among the several Christian denominations - which has characterised the predicament of pluralism in Europe and North America from the Reformation onwards - and generalises this into a universal model to understand âthe human predicament of reasonable pluralism.â
2. Here enters another argument against my position: the fact that a particular story about the Indian society has its origin in the Protestant mind set of the European colonials does not prove that this story is false. Very true. But my point is not merely that our conceptions of the secular state and Indian society have Protestant origins. Rather, it is that the dominant understanding of âHinduismâ, âcasteâ and âthe secular stateâ is based in Christian background assumptions. That is, these accounts make sense *if and only if* one accepts an entire set of premises of the Protestant religion. In other words, the intelligibility of the current theories on secularism, Hinduism and caste depends on this particular framework of theological premises.
Examples of such premises are the belief that Indian society can be understood in terms of a distinction between âthe religiousâ and âthe secularâ; the belief that it is wrong to use religion for political purposes; the belief that Brahmins are âpriestsâ who have imposed the religious laws of the caste system on Indian society. This is not the place to argue the case more fully, but we are today able to demonstrate that each of these beliefs is embedded in the Protestant theological framework that has shaped the âsecularistâ understanding of Indian society. The problem is not that the current account on Hinduism, caste and secularism derives from "the social location of its proponents," butthat it depends on a set of *religious background assumptions*.
This is why I stress the fact that no scientific theoretical framework is available today to even distinguish between the religious and the secular domain, let alone separate the two. The only framework that allows us to make sense of this conceptual distinction is that of Christian theology. During the last sixteen centuries or so, this framework and its theological distinction between the religious (as the spiritual domain of the human soul) and the secular or political (as the temporal world of the human body) have determined the political thought of the West. In a secularised form, this theological language has also become the language of the western common sense, the western intellectuals and the western-trained intellectuals of other cultures. This is not a point about the need to draw clear boundaries. The claim is that if we do not know any structural characteristics that distinguish the religious domain from the secular, our talk about the secular state and the separation of politics and religion fails to make sense.
3. Does the fact that many groups in the Indian society and the dominant group of Indian academics have adopted the (secularised) Protestant account of Hinduism and caste show that there is truth in this colonial understanding of India? Not necessarily. We will have to investigate the historical process of the adoption of this language to answer such questions.
It could as well be the case that a colonial consciousness continues to rule in India, which presupposes the inferiority of the Indian culture. When a society is under the spell of such a colonial consciousness, it cannot but replicate the colonial understanding of itself. Perhaps certain groups have learned to speak this language about âHinduism, caste and secularismâ, because it makes them successful at obtaining a better socio-economic position for their communities. Perhaps others have learned to speak this language in an even more fluent way because it gives them access to the international academia. Perhaps the adoption of this language has become a precondition to the pursuit of a fruitful career in the human sciences.
There is nothing âreductiveâ about this interpretation. Actually, it gives us a much-needed alternative viewpoint from which to inquire into the development of Indian society from colonial times onwards. Its aim is *not* to deny the problems in this society, but to analyse them more productively against the background of an alternate theoretical framework.
4. To conclude: It would be extremely interesting to identify *the mechanisms through which the colonial understanding of India sustains itself today*. But the fact that it is sustained in itself does not tell us anything about its cognitive value. This might indicate that the mechanisms behind the colonial consciousness cause an ongoing re-confirmation of its own accounts. In the absence of an alternative theoretical framework, scholars who are under its spell might see corroborations of its basic claims everywhere, because they cannot but presuppose the truth of these claims.
Sincerely,
Jakob De Roover
Research Assistant, Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders Universiteit Gent - Ghent University Gent, Belgium <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->