The demeaning way in which religions view women

WOMEN AND RELIGION Charles Sabillon April 10, 2007 Home

Charles Sabillon attended high school in Texas and has undergraduate degrees in Philosophy, Economics and Law as well as a masters and a doctorate in International Relations. After earning his PhD, he undertook post-doctoral research in the fields of History, Economics, and Ecology. He speaks fluently English, Spanish, French and German. author's web site view author's other articles

Women should take a good look at religions because creeds have never behaved as if females mattered. It is a strange sociological phenomenon, but in all nations of the world, women are more spiritual then men. Independent of the religion prevailing in a country, women tend to kneel and pray in larger numbers than men.
Due to the above, it should not surprise that in all continents women are less inclined to doubt religious dogma than men. For some reason, females accept the arguments of clerics more easily than their male counterparts. Through history, the great agnostics, secularists and atheists such as Socrates, Da Vinci, Voltaire, Darwin, Nietzche or Sartre were all men.
Contrary to men, women will not to defend their faith with violence, but they will verbally do it with more enthusiasm.
Such a situation is an oxymoron considering the demeaning way in which religions view women.
In the holy books of all creeds, it is explicitly said that women are inferior to men. It is also affirmed that women must obey men because that is the will of God. Another thing that all creeds assert is that females are inherently evil and sinful. Whether Christianity, Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism all view women as a source of problems.
With such premises, it is only natural that all religions have justified the oppression of females. Each has its particularities but at the end, all have treated women as second class citizens or as slaves.
Hinduism is the oldest of the large religions of today for it saw its birth almost four thousand years ago. It is a creed largely circumscribed to South Asia and is based on a caste system, which segregates people based on skin color and several other factors. At the bottom of the pyramid in this caste system, are the Untouchables. They account for about a sixth of the population of India and are the poorest.
Aside from underpinning a largely racist system, Hinduism does worst things with women. Untouchable girls for example, were for centuries given by their poor parents to Hindu temples, where they were used to appease the Gods by satisfying the sexual needs of upper caste men. That such acts happened in the past is bad enough, but the worst is that they still take place today.
There are many other horrible things that Hindu religion sanctions on matters of female oppression, but no matter how bad they are, in the other religions they are just as bad if not worst.
Of the three others, Islam takes centre stage in brutalizing women the most. It literally denies them the right to feel pretty, by veiling them and allowing others to see only their eyes. It denies them the right to education, by asserting that women’s role in society is just to rear children and to serve their spouse. It sanctions men’s right to beat them whenever they are not obedient and it even condones murder whenever they deviate sexually.
Despite the ignominious way in which religions treat women, things were a lot worse in past centuries. It does not matter which moment in time it gets analyzed, there was never a moment when females were not abused.
History shows that religions have never brought any benefits to women. Aside from oppression and humiliation, they have also brought poverty and disease due to their constant opposition to science.
In today’s developed Christian countries, the Church no longer has the power to mistreat women as it did in the past, but it continues to hinder technological progress by opposing science. That ultimately has terrible repercussions on women’s health because it curtails medical advances.
Considering the way religions have treated them, it is indeed a mystery why women still belief in God. They should have not long ago renounced their respective faiths.
Logic suggests that women should not just renounce their faith, but they should also become committed atheists. It is evident that the more they oppose religion, the larger the chances that science will be able to do great things for them. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO MY WEBSITE

I identify with the object-cause itself, recognizing the object-cause as my true subject

Larval Subjects 13 November 2006 Some Scattered Observations on Fantasy

One of the unique features of Lacan's account of desire revolves around his theory of fantasy. As Zizek has pointed out, ordinarily, when we think of fantasy, we think of it as a sort of scenario or image in which we envision the satisfaction of our desire or wants. A fantasy, under this model, is a sort of wish. Thus, for example, when I am frantically working to complete some unpleasant task, I might fantasize about sitting in my favorite chair, reading a book that I've been excited to explore. The fantasy consists in my image of satisfaction or of what it would mean to be satisfied. Similarly in the case of my desire for a man or woman. My fantasy might consist of the scenarios I concoct as I imagine finally achieving the sexual bliss or union with the beloved. While, no doubt, this conception of fantasy is related to the Lacanian conception of fantasy, it is not properly Lacan's account of fantasy. If this were all fantasy were, then it would be difficult to see why traversing the fantasy or working through the fantasy could have the therapeutic effects which it has. Anyone who has done serious work engaging with fantasy knows that the traversal of the fantasy effects the very nature of desire itself.

One of the problems with this account of fantasy is that it treats desire as anterior to fantasy. Here I have in mind the idea that there is, on the one hand, basic desires characterizing what it is to be human, while there is, on the other hand, a set of fantasies constructed around these desires which envision their satisfaction. In short, this conceptualization tends to heirarchialize the relationship between fantasy and desire such that desire is treated as being more fundamental or primordial than fantasy. We can very quickly see where this line of reasoning will lead. In conceiving that desire is more primordial than fantasy we will be led to argue that there are natural desires and perverse fantasies... That somehow fantasy departs from universal desire, such that if we only get rid of fantasy we will be on our way to a rectification of desire.

Needless to say, this is not the Lacanian conception of fantasy. We go astray when we conceive desire as anterior to fantasy. As can be seen in the third cell of Lacan's famous graph of desire in "Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire", fantasy is not so much the imagined fulfillment of desire, as it is the frame through which we desire. We must remember that desire, for Lacan and Freud, has no natural object, that strictly speaking there is no object of desire. Rather, as Lacan puts it in Seminar V, The Formations of Desire, desire is characterized by an endless metonymy or movement from one object to another without ever alighting on a final object. Could this not be yet another signification of what Lacan has in mind when he claims that "desire is the desire of the Other"? To say that desire is the desire of the Other would not simply be to say that desire is structured by language, or that desire is the desire to be desired, or that I desire as an-other desires, but also that I perpetually desire what is other. I perpetually desire something else. This reading, of course, is far fetched and departs from what Lacan had in mind with his aphorism. But, nonetheless, it captures the effective metonymy or displacement that endlessly characterizes desire.

Thus, as Zizek has put it, we do not know what we desire. Damned if I know, one might say. I desire without knowing what, exactly, it is that I desire. And so I alight from object to object on the basis of my identifications, seeking that object that would finally stuff my lack full without ever filling it. And it is here that fantasy is involved. For one of the functions of fantasy is to give me a frame through which to desire. Fantasy isn't simply imagined satisfaction of a pre-existent desire, but rather fantasy gives form to my desire, selecting for it an object, in much the same way that a window selects a view for my regard. Simply put, we do not know what it is we desire and it is fantasy that thus functions to structure or in-form our desire.

We can see the relationship between non-knowledge and desire very clearly in the vulgar and commonplace desire of the person eating at the foreign restaurant. If the experience of eating at a foreign restaurant is often intimidating, then this isn't because one has any special attachment to their own national cuisine, but because we no longer know what it is we want within such a space. "Which dish is the dish for me?" we ask ourselves as we break into a sweat wondering whether we'll order the wrong thing or humiliate ourselves by ordering a dish disgusting or less than appetizing even to those familiar with it. What, then, is our first response in such a situation? Well, it is likely that we either ask the person that we are with or the server for advice on what to order.

I like this example because it's so basic and down to earth. While it risks overly simplifying Lacanian theory, it also gives us a nice model for uncovering certain salient relationships at work in the structure of desire. If our first response to the non-knowledge of our desire is to ask the person we are with or the server for advice, then we can very clearly see how desire is bound up with identification. The fact that I refer my desire to these other positions means that I identify with them at some level, that I recognize them as the ones who know. The fact that I trust in their judgment indicates that I take them to have a desire to please or satisfy me in some way. What I ultimately come to choose is bound up with an identification. I very literally come to desire as the other desires, as my companion desires. Thus, as Bourdieau has argued, taste is deeply bound up in social identification. What I desire will, in part, be tied up with those with whom I identify. A judgment of taste is also a judgment regarding the sort of person (group identification) I take myself to be, as well as the sort of person I want others to take me to be. It cannot therefore be said that desire is first anterior to fantasy (though we still need to clarify fantasy). Rather, the two are intimately bound up with one another.

It is this sort of observation that led Deleuze and Guattari to contest the concept of fantasy based on lack. It is my view that Deleuze and Guattari go too far in their critique insofar as there is certainly an experience of lack in the everyday life of any subject. However, Deleuze and Guattari's point is well taken if we bear in mind that there are no originary desires, that desire has to be produced, or that what we come to desire is ultimately the product of a desiring synthesis. Taking a cue from Deleuze and Guattari's influence from English empiricism, we might point out that there's nothing about the brown liquid in my coffee that makes it inherently appealing to a subject such as myself. If I see this brown liquid (coffee) as an appealing object, then this must result from a complex synthesis that connects it to certain experiences of satisfaction and social value, rather than intrinsic features of my desire. In other words, the problem that arises when we begin with characterizing desire as lack, lies in the fact that we tend to thereby naturalize desire, rather than seeing it as the result of a complex synthesis (primarily symbolic in character) that precedes my experience of lack. As Lacan remarks in his "Reply to Hyppolite" in the Ecrits, every act of negation is first based on an affirmation. One revolutionary feature of Lacan's distinction between need, demand and desire is that it allows us to overcome the naturalizing and essentializing tendency of those approaches that tend to equate need and desire, by showing how our desires are themselves produced or fabricated. If desire is the discourse of the Other, then this is in part because the manner in which I become a subject gives form to a desire that did not itself exist before. Although sometimes giving the impression that they are rejecting Lacan, Deleuze and Guattari ought to instead be understood as drawing our attention to the symbolic networks of relations that come to structure and inform our desire. The affirmation which they teach as the mark of a schizo subject is that affirmation that would strive to produce new networks of relations (and therefore new ways of feeling and desire) on the basis of the resources of the network within which we find ourselves. Insofar as the psychoanalyst feels that we are able to transform the very nature of our desire through speech, this must be a deeply psychoanalytic notion despite its occasional romanticism.

Back to fantasy. Fantasy is the frame through which we desire. It is not an image of the object that we desire, but rather is a structure that in-forms or gives form to what we desire. My desire for a particular car, for example, isn't based on the fantasy of me imagining myself related to a particular car, but rather I treat this car as an object of my fantasy on the basis of a fantasy that sanctions this car as an object of desire. In and of itself, fantasies are always intersubjective. They are responses to the question of what I am for the Other and of what the Other wants from me. Thus, although I desire the car it is not the car that figures into the fantasy, rather my desire for this car is an elaboration of this intersubjective fantasy. Perhaps, for instance, by owning this car I will increase my social status and thereby be the kind of man desirable by a particular sort of woman. We must therefore resist the urge to equate the object desired with the fantasy structure. We must not assume that because someone desires this particular object the fantasy is organized around that object. The object might not appear in the fantasy at all. We can refer to this practice of treating the object of desire as equivalent to the fantasy as the fallacy of tracing the transcendental from the empirical. The empirical, of course, is the particular object that I desire. The transcendental is the fantasy insofar as fantasy serves as a condition for my desire. I trace the transcendental from the empirical when I assume that the transcendental must somehow resemble the empirical or the realized states of desire.

This point, obscure as it is, gives insight into how not to understand Lacan's matheme for fantasy ($ <> a), read "the divided subject related to objet a. Generally when one speaks of Lacan's matheme for fantasy it is suggested that it expresses the subject related to the object of its desire. Thus, in the example of the car, we might articulate the fantasy as the statement "Levi related to such and such a car". The problem with this characterization is that it equates objet a, the object-cause of desire, with the object of desire. The object-cause of desire and the object of desire are different, extremely so.

One way of thinking the relationship between objet a and the object of desire is to think it as a relation between cause and effect. Objet a causes my desire, it elicits my desire, it excites my desire, while the object of desire is an effect of that desire. It is that thing that I come to desire. Objet a is thus the occasion of desire while the object of desire is that which comes to be desired as a result of desire. Over the course of his teaching Lacan came to increasingly think of objet a as a remainder, a scrap, a bit of waste, an excess, or shit. These developments are highly significant, because they allow us to better think both why we desire at all and why we cannot draw a strict opposition between fantasy and desire.

If fantasy is the frame of my desire, then this is not because it presents me with a scenario of what it is I desire, but because it relates the subject to that which escapes the subject and prevents it from being complete. In other words, it is a certain moment of incompleteness that evokes my desire at all. Lacan illustrates this point in The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, when he relates the cryptic story of seeing a sardine can floating in the water while working as a young man on a fishing boat. As the can floated upon the waves, glistening in the sunlight, one of Lacan's fellow fishermen remarked "Look at that sardine can! You can see it, but it cannot see you!" The fisherman found this highly amusing, while Lacan experienced discomfort and anxiety with respect to the observation. What we have here is an example of gaze, one of the possible manifestations of objet a. However, the crucial feature not to be overlooked is that the gaze in question is not the gaze that we actually experience or that we encounter in the look of the other, but rather it is the gaze that escapes us, that we cannot capture. This is why Lacan works so diligently to distinguish the eye from the gaze. It is not the eye that escapes my desire, but rather the object-cause of my desire is precisely that gaze that exceeds me or which I cannot apprehend.

Is she gazing at me or not? Did she just look my way? Here Sartre's examples of the farm house that stares at the soldiers in Being and Nothingness immediately come to mind. We might also think of the way the heroin of The Secretary experiences herself perpetually under the gaze of her boss. It is this gaze, a gaze of which she is never certain, a gaze which she is forever unable to determine as to whether it is truly taking place, that ultimately wins her love. She does not feel gazed upon because she loves her boss, but rather she loves her boss because she wonders whether she is gazed upon. The gaze is the object-cause of her desire. Her desire for her boss is the effect of this cause. This, then, is the crucial, not to be missed, point: The fantasy does not conjoin the woman with her boss, but rather conjoins the woman with the gaze... She is conjoined with that remainder, that point of excess that always escapes within her signifying economy.In this regard, there is often precious little said about the losange (<>) relating the subject to the object-cause of desire in the formula for fantasy. According to Lacan, the losange does not simply mean "related to" but rather, in a number of places Lacan remarks that the losange is to be read as being equivalent to the mathematical symbols for "greater than" and "less than" (>, <) as in 4 "less than" 5, but also as the logical symbols for "and" and "or" (v, ^). This is not without consequences, for it allows us to render the concept of fantasy more precise and useful in both a clinical setting and in the critique of metaphysical and ideological fantasies. Objet a does not simply express the object-cause of desire, but is also a way of formalizing Freud's so-called lost object of desire or that object of desire that we desire without ever having had it.

Freud first develops this account of the lost object in his unpublished Project essay, but it can be detected in one way or another throughout his writings. The unique feature of this lost object is that it is an object that we only come to desire as a result of having been submitted to some prohibition or law. In other words, the object was never an object that I, in fact, had, but rather I only come to desire this object as a result of having been submitted to the symbolic. Lacan's graph of desire clearly captures this point as can be seen from the fourth cell of the graph where we are given to see the relationship between castration and fantasy. The function of fantasy is to cover over the horrifying truth of castration or the manner in which the big Other doesn't exist or is itself barred. Fantasy gives body and substantiality to the non-existent big Other.Now it is a mistake to understand Lacan's concept of castration as pertaining to the penis and the threat of having the penis cut off. One major differences that separates Freud and Lacan is that whereas Freud seems to treat castration as a mere threat that empirically took place at some point, Lacan holds that insofar as one is a subject one is always already castrated. Castration has already taken place. Under the Lacanian model castration pertains not to the penis, but rather to the sacrifice of enjoyment I experience in being subjected to the symbolic order. If I am to enter into the symbolic order, then I must sacrifice some of my enjoyment. We see this very clearly, for example, in Mill's essay Utilitarianism, where my employment of the greatest happiness principle invites me to evaluate not my own personal happiness, but to impartially calculate the happiness for the greatest number of people even if it contributes to my own happiness. In other words, entering into the symbolic requires a sacrifice of enjoyment... An enjoyment that I never had to begin with (since the state before this contract was even worse than the one after this contract). Freud makes exactly this point in Civilization and its Discontents, when he speaks of the unhappiness we experience as a result of being members of society. If the individual continuously bites at the bit of the social, then this is because the individual sees the social as having stolen his happiness despite the fact that he couldn't exist at all without this collective.

However, despite the fact that I sacrifice some of my happiness in entering into society, bits of this enjoyment continue to persist in fractured forms. In short, there is a remainder that the symbolic cannot quite integrate, that always escapes, that functions as excessive waste. It is, in fact, this remainder that ties me to the social in the first place since my enjoyment of this remainder functions as the motive of my identification: I(a). Now it is precisely here that we can read the variations on fantasy. Most commonly we read fantasy under the model of conjunction. We read fantasy as consisting of the conjunction of the subject with his object of desire. Yet fantasy can also be read as disjunction (me or them), or as the subject greater than the object of desire (domination) or the subject as less than the object-cause of desire (subjection). In each of these cases different desiring relations are effected between the subject and the world. We see, for example, these various permutations of fantasy in Freud's article "A Child Is Being Beaten" where it is first a scene witnessed by an onlooker ($ > a), then me being beaten ($ "less than" objet a), then perhaps me and the child being beaten ($ and objet a), and so on. Each one of these variations is a response to the question of what the other wants and how the other desires me and is therefore a response to the non-existence of the Other or the way in which the Other is barred. The common feature in all of these examples is that the subject is thought in some relation to the lost object, to the object-cause of desire. Or better yet, the subject thinks itself in some relation to this remainder or bit of excess that resists integration into the symbolic.Yet it is precisely this relation that is at issue. For what the fantasy covers over is the the non-existence of the symbolic order or castration. Fantasy treats this non-existence or this thing which is rotten in Denmark as if it were a contingent feature of the symbolic universe, failing to see that it is instead constitutive of the symbolic. We thus get a better sense of what is at stake in traversing the fantasy. My fantasy produces a symptom insofar as it attenuates objet a in the functioning of the symbolic as a way of producing my desire as an effect.

In traversing the fantasy I am led back from the object of my desire to the object-cause of my desire to the castration or separation out of which this object-cause emerges. But in this movement of tracing, my fundamental relation to the object-cause is itself transformed, such that the object-cause is no longer something that I am superior or inferior to, something that I am conjoined or disjoined to. Rather, in traversing the fantasy I identify with the object-cause itself, recognizing the object-cause as my true subject, and thereby dis-identifying the object-cause with the various identifications under which it has been hid. In traversing the fantasy I shift from being a subject of desire to a subject of drive insofar as my relationship to the object is no longer determined in terms of prohibition and transgression of the law such that my object of desire is formed in an identification, but rather I now relate to this excess as the very being of my subject. posted by Sinthome at 1:45 PM 2 Comments:

Anonymous said...Levi, I know flattering leftist homologies have been made by Zizek and others between Lacan's subject of drive and Badiou's subject of the truth procedure, but to me, there is also a conservative side to the traversing of the fantasy. Once you forget the Big Revolution and changing the world and all that (an elusive object of the metonymy of desire par excellence), what is left for you than to turn...pragmatic and utilitarian, perhaps? I couldn't care less about changing the world politics though I go to elections every now and then, I still pay taxes, enjoy my daily lunch and a drink with friends after the hard day's work not to mention some good screwing with my wife a few times a week. Should I traverse my petty bourgeois fantasy? But what if I'm already on the other side? November 15, 2006 4:05 AM

Sinthome said...I don't think it can be said that traversing the fantasy produces one kind of subject or one kind of drive. Maybe you could say a bit more as to what you discern Zizek's conception of revolution to be. Zizek emphasizes drive repetition in terms of repeated failure, and gives very little in the way of a utopian vision. It's hard to see drive as conservative, utilitarian, or pragmatic, as all of these stances involve a belief that one knows what the Other desires. For instance, the utilitarian says, "x is not possible at this time, in this situation". November 15, 2006 6:37 AM

Mumbo-jumbo scholarship

INDIA, ARYAN PATRIARCHY AND DRAVIDIAN MATRIARCHY Ray Harris I've recently discovered the work of Giti Thadani, an Indian lesbian academic. In her books 'Sakiyani: Lesbian Desire in Ancient and Modern India' and 'Moebius Trip' she describes an India quite different to the India of the modern conservative politician concerned about morality and preserving Hindu traditions. integral world

In previous articles I've examined Islam and Christianity. Now I feel ready to tackle Hinduism. But first let me make an admission. I'm very sympathetic to what I call Advaita Tantra, nondual Tantrism, particularly as expressed in Kashmir Shaivism (KS) and some schools of Vajrayana Buddhism. This does not mean I'm not critically aware of what can only be described as the mumbo-jumbo of Tantric esotericism. Any scholar of Tantra will tell you that many of the texts are obscurantist and difficult. Yet, such esotericism gave rise to some remarkable philosophy, both Hindu and Buddhist.

Another admission: I spent five years living in an ashram where I had a number of profound experiences. It doesn't matter if these were 'real' or not. I'm actually still undecided about there being a metaphysical reality distinct from physical reality. Modern techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) have shown conclusively that meditation changes the brain. When Buddhist monks say meditation makes them happier they are not 'imagining' it. The work of Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin at Madison has shown more activity in the left prefrontal cortex of meditators than non-meditators – the left prefrontal cortex is where feelings of wellbeing are located (activated). Other studies have shown how meditation affects the areas of the brain that deal with notions of self and other. As these studies continue FMRI will no doubt reveal that we have considerable control over our own thoughts and mental and emotional 'states'. In other words – meditation works. (What I would like to see is FMRI studies of fundamentalist Christians in prayer and a comparison with serious meditators, now that would be interesting!).

If meditation can make people happier then it has value in its own right, independent of whether or not it proves one or other metaphysical theory. In fact we may be seeing the beginning of a science based, rational philosophy of meditation. If we seek pleasure for pleasure's sake then why not meditate because it is good for us? Forget all the religious accretions.

Okay, so before I digress too much let me also confess that whilst I lived in the ashram I had time to study Indian philosophy to some depth, particularly KS - a philosophy that is very compatible with modern scientific theories of cosmogenesis. For example KS posits a 'singularity' (so called because it is nondual), which self-expands and limits itself by creating spacetime (called niyati and kaala in Sanskrit). The paradoxes of modern cosmology are compatible with the paradoxes of nondual philosophy. There was no time 'before' the expansion because there was no 'time'. There was no 'inside' and 'outside' the singularity because there was no 'space' as we understand it. Of course, KS often described these things in mythic language, but I can assure the reader that the process of understanding the philosophy of KS involved stages of understanding compatible with the findings of developmental psychology. These things can be read in rational and integral ways. Now, I'm not suggesting in any way that KS proves modern cosmology or vice-versa – they are quite different fields of inquiry. No, what I am saying is that KS is more compatible with modern science than the Abrahamic religions that posit a God (often anthropomorphic) that sits outside spacetime and magically creates and destroys the Cosmos. KS is technically atheistic - nondual logic demands it...

Tantra is unique in its frank use of sexual imagery. Spiritual realisation is depicted as the union of male and female, with the goddess afforded a primary position as the creative force (eros) of the cosmos. In KS she is called mahashakti, the 'energy' of creation. I won't go into a description of Tantra here. I believe most of my readers will already be familiar with it, and if not, a google search will have to do. What I want to do here is mention two things:

• First, Tantra has given great respect to women adepts. Tibetan Buddhism tells of one of Padmasambhava's consorts, the Lady Tsogyal. Hindu Tantra acknowledges several great female siddhas and yoginis and the goddess is afforded supreme status.
• Second, Tantra deliberately sought to transgress the religious rules of the Arya. Left-hand Tantra intentionally advocates using the five banned substances of the Arya in their rituals...

In her studies and travels Thadani shows that the Arya has suppressed the goddess. This has been done in both petty and more profound ways. An example of the petty was the number of times Thadani came across naked statues of the goddess covered by a piece of cloth by the local Aryans, embarrassed at her nudity.

The more profound suppression involves the systematic distortion and rewriting of Indian history. Thadani has given numerous accounts of where the feminine of the original Sanskrit has been translated as masculine. She also encountered temples where the goddess had been mutilated and either replaced by or turned into a masculine god. One of the more amusing attempts to rewrite goddess mythology concerns the goddess Kali. There are many examples of artwork showing the fierce Kali standing on the corpse of Shiva with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. In the Shaivite and Shakta traditions the exposed tongue simple represents her fierce, defiant aspect and the iconography is about her dominance of Shiva. But in the Aryan retelling the tongue is said to represent shame – Kali is showing remorse for accidently stepping on her 'husband' Shiva... Ray Harris, February 2007 Harris lives in Australia and can be contacted at: rharris6@bigpond.net.au. Ray has written about Christianity (see his essay "Christianity: The Great Lie") and Islam (see: "The Many Faces of Islam", among many others in the Reading Room), this time he addresses Hinduism.

The action is not addressed to the oppressors but the witnesses

One of the things that struck me about Jodi's claim that she can't see any coherent alternative was the sense of inevitability that it embodied, as if the institution of Christianity or religion could not possibly disappear. Yet historically we've seen all sorts of institutions and religions disappear, and new things emerging in their place.
Additionally, you seem to be suggesting that the very awareness of this, the very awareness of the contingency of institutions, accelerates this process and opens up new potentials for engagement that would not be there without the thought of contingency. Reason must come to see itself as a contingent formation within history, which isn't to say that reason is somehow undermined or dismissed.
I have a tendency to think of a number of these issues in terms of populations, in much the same way that a biologist or an ethnographer might look at processes of speciation. One of the things I've found interesting in this discussion and the original post has been the tendency to focus on the *content* of the discourse, its propositions, whether it grounds itself or not, etc., and to evaluate it academically or intellectually in these terms. What seems to be forgotten in this is that discourses are populations or ways of life that are more or less intense or present within a historical setting or society. That is, we miss the dimension of these discourses as material realities that people live. Materially Christianity has been tremendously successful in the United States. There are churches on nearly every street corner, they own multiple television networks, speech addressing them is present in nearly every major governmental event, there are mass mailings that go throughout the population, they publish a tremendous amount of inspirational and fictional works, etc. It can, of course, be pointed out that the vast majority of Christians are not fundamentalists as Adam rightly points out. But what Adam seems to miss is that the content of a position erases itself in its actuality, reducing itself to what is most immediately present, i.e., the signifier "Christian". As a result, when legislation is enacted its inward content might very well be "nutjob fundamentalist" material, but it is supported by the larger population as this content erases itself and all that is heard is the signifier "Christian". That is, the distinctions disappear. As a result, those moderate secular Christians end up unwittingly supporting fundamentalist policies and public officials as they assume that the signifier has the same content as their own use of the signifier. Hence we cannot strongly draw these distinctions at the level of their material practice.
The question then becomes one of how new populations can be produced, new material forms of subjectivity traversing the social field, new speciations, etc. This is not a question of sterile academic debate where we wonder over whether this or that is grounded, or whether this or that is formally identical to religion, etc. Rather, it is a question of how to get certain strands of communication as material reality out there in the social field. This, for instance, is why I see books like Richard Dawkin's God Delusion or the Left Behind books as far more powerful than an ideological critique by Zizek or others in effecting change. When you see such a book advertised on the major news networks, spoken of in popular press, etc., you also see that the themes of discourse are changing. It's not a question of agreeing with Dawkins or whether he has a particularly sophisticated view of religion, and so on. Suddenly entire populations of youth find themselves with a vocabulary to voice thoughts that might have before been vague and undeveloped, and apoligists find that they must respond-- which entails making concessions --and the discourse shifts as a result. Rather, it's a question of how the field of forces is modified by the emergence of such things that must then be responded to at very basic and public levels outside the academy. I'm not expressing very well what I'm trying to get at here. Perhaps I'm trying to say that it's less a question of whether the position is true or false or the cleverness of an argument, but more the question of the relationship between a communication and an audience, and what potentials there are for producing a new species, subjectivity, or population. Posted by: Sinthome March 25, 2007 at 01:50 PM

Anthony you're correct, I'm talking about liberating the non-religious kernel from the religious flotsam in Jesus' religious teaching. And so yes, I'm certainly talking about a disfiguration. I think Jesus says some non-religious things of value such as loving ones neighbor, defending the marginalized, turning the other cheek, etc. I don't see why any of this need be connected to the Paul Bunyan stories that came to be attached to him. Certainly you weren't thinking that I would somehow ever become supportive of religion, did you? The most you might hope for there is a bit of mild tolerance for it as it isn't going away any time soon. I will also, of course, feel that some of my religious fellows are well meaning and have the right political and ethical aspirations. But that doesn't mean I'm suddenly going to begin seeing belief in divinity and the supernatural as a legitimate stance. Posted by: Sinthome March 25, 2007 at 01:56 PM

"In fact, you would have to erase much of his teaching to get at anything like a ground for ethics of the decent, procedural liberalism the Enlightenment bequeathed."
I always find it odd when you say things like this. I would claim that the Enlightenment has bequeathed many things... For instance, I would see Marx as a culmination of the Enlightenment. It's a little jarring for someone as steeped in Deleuze and Guattari as yourself to have such a difficult time with the concept of creative repetition or a repetition that is not a repetition of the same. I perpetually get the sense that you think I'm defending a position like John Locke's (your remark about Voltaire seemed to suggest this), or a form of rationality like Descartes'. It's more a question of a certain type of spirit and less a question of the content for me. Posted by: Sinthome March 25, 2007 at 02:00 PM

And, of course, Jesus is not the ground of anything... He happened to say some things that I believe are true. Talking of any man as the ground of anything is the whole problem. This is why I side with Socrates over Jesus. Socrates says "ignore me and evaluate what I say". Jesus says "I am God therefore obey what I say". I think this simple difference distils the entire difference between the religious tradition and the philosophical tradition and why they're not ultimately compatable. Jesus, no doubt, was deluded as to his identity and authority, but we, of course, can use our critical subjectivity to determine whether he nonetheless said some true things. Posted by: Sinthome March 25, 2007 at 02:04 PM

Yes, I am convinced that your approach to religion is essentially politically, intellectually, and ethically useless, much like Voltaire's. I value your insights on other things, but religion is not one of them. Love your enemies is not a truth one comes through by way of reason. Posted by: Anthony Paul Smith March 25, 2007 at 02:19 PM

"Love your enemies is not a truth one comes through by way of reason."
Sure it is. It is an exercise in rhetorical warfare at the level of political practice. Take Gandhi. In practicing non-violent protest and allowing themselves to be brutalized by their followers, they earned the sympathy of the witnesses of this violence. That is, the action is not addressed to the oppressors-- though perhaps the unwillingness to strike back horrifies them too --but the witnesses. In doing this, the witnesses come to side with the victims and the power of the oppressors is diminished. Socrates makes similar points at the end of the Apology. All of this strikes me as very reasonable political praxis.
You would have to make arguments as to how you see my remarks on religion as politically, ethically, and intellectually useless. Politically I'm discussing moments in history where fighting against religion in highly religious environments has been successful, thereby undermining the canard that it must simply be accepted. Moreover, I'm troubled by the way in which religion has so often been used as a tool of the oppressors. Here Zinn's opening chapter in the People's History is priceless. These issues would be related to ethics as well. Moreover, I'm simply refusing the common thesis that there can be no ethics without religion or that ethics somehow come from religion. Finally, intellectually, I'm bothered by the way in which religious belief has so often been anti-intellectual and inhibited intellectual development. The Middle Ages put Europe behind for about a thousand years. You can disagree, of course, but really you should make an actual argument rather than simple assertions. Posted by: Sinthome March 25, 2007 at 02:35 PM

Sinthome, "You can disagree, of course, but really you should make an actual argument rather than simple assertions."
It's a blog comment box. If you believe your words have gone past a slightly complexified assertion this is purely fantasy. And, of course, I have my own reasons for disagreeing. The reasonable question always in conversations like these remains "Is it worth my time to write them all out knowing full well it likely won't really change anyone’s views?" Frankly I think you are very convinced and even the discussion of empirical evidence to the contrary concerning the role of religion in intellectual and political life in the middle ages will fail to persuade you of anything other than the average historical summary found in most history of philosophy books.
Non-violent protest is not love. The purpose of Gandhi's movement was not to love the British but to defeat them. Instrumental reason of this sort is not at work in the Gospels. Posted by: Anthony Paul Smith March 25, 2007 at 02:48 PM

It's unclear whether the historical Jesus claimed to be God. It's also unclear that the intellectual "lag" in the middle ages was due to "religion" rather than to a really tenuous political and economic situation. The authority of the pope varied from decade to decade; certain parts of Europe were able largely to ignore it, etc. And on the other side, a lot of the accomplishments of Islam -- in astronomy, for instance -- were motivated by religious needs (precision in locating Mecca for prayer purposes, etc.). Overall, your non-dialectical and ahistorical approach to these questions is astonishingly unconvincing. Posted by: Adam Kotsko March 25, 2007 at 03:01 PM

Black is a color. Race is a social construct

Let’s say that within the Limbic System which controls the emotions, and instincts, feeding, fighting, fleeing, and sexual behavior one particular type of cultural human being took from their environment those Deep Cultural Structures (Nobles) that suited their world view and developed their societies around them. For example, the African who culturally matured in a “relaxed” warm hospitable environment where Nature provided for their needs would have time to focus on and develop their emotions, not worry about feeding themselves thus limiting fighting and also have time to enjoy their sexuality in accordance with what they were close with and respected, Nature. They would develop a sense of community and sharing as well as embrace connectivity because they needed the group to survive within Nature's bounty. The spoken Word was law. Group think!

On the other hand, the European, who culturally matured in a “hostile,” cold ice age environment would have little time to deal with their emotions (in fact they would be a hindrance for their survival), have a difficult time finding resources to feed themselves therefore fighting and weapon development for resource acquisition and control would be a prominent part of their cultural world view. Their sexuality would be confined to the warmth of their caves and because of the confinement would probably increase the opportunity for sexual “experimentation” for inter-group and/or inter-gender relationships. Therefore, they would be more aggressive, protective of their space/resources, xenophobic, technocratic, replace Nature with things artificial and develop deceptive practices for manipulation of the Word for their protection. All leading to Individual think, or at best later, the small controllable “nuclear family thinking”

Similar to the carry over from our early cerebral biological development, I’d say the humans cultural development was also coded and evolved from the environment to create such behaviors. That would mean that today, if we could find out which person would embrace which code of the aforementioned behaviors, than we could very well issue an “African or European” cultural card, depending on their embraced of their ancestral Deep Cultural Structures.

As I see it, the only hindrance to correct coding would be hypocrisy or deceit. For instance, one person from either cultural group, if they wanted to claim African status, could feign “Group think,” when their ultimate goal is to achieve individual advantage. This may be because it’s a part of their ancestral cultural thought and behavior or their own has been hidden and they have adopted another through the adaptation to foreign ideology. For those of us who can't get beyond the idea of skin color or the concept of race, this doesn’t negate the fact that we can issue a “Blacker than me” card once we learn to identify our own cultural behavior and through observation issue them to those who more closely follow their ancestral Deep Cultural Structures which ever one they may be or which ever culture they claim.

Footnote: In this reality, an Asian could be more African than a modern day African if the African has adapted, adopted, as well as practiced, another cultural thought and behavior. Remember Africans, in so called "prehistory," laid the foundation for many of today’s world cultures. Posted by AFRICANVOICE.COM at Monday, March 12, 2007

"White" refers to their advanced spirituality and has nothing to do with race

The Great White Brotherhood is a term used in some metaphysical and Theosophical literature, as well as in Ascended Master Activities, to be an association of enlightened Spiritual Beings, in or out of incarnation, who continue to take an interest in the spiritual development of the human race. The Ascended Masters are believed by some to form such a college.[1]

Originating in the teachings of H. P. Blavatsky as developed by C. W. Leadbeater, Alice Bailey and Helena Roerich, the term Great White Brotherhood was further developed and popularized in 1934 with the publication of "Unveiled Mysteries" [2] by Guy Ballard's "I Am" Activity.[3] This Universal Brotherhood of "Immortal Saints and Sages" [4] who have gone through the Initiations of the Transfiguration, Resurrection, and the Ascension[5] was further popularized by The Bridge to Freedom, The Summit Lighthouse, and The Temple of The Presence. [6]

The Great White Brotherhood is perceived as a spiritual organization composed of those Ascended Masters who have risen from the Earth into Immortality, but still maintain an active watch over the world. The Great White Brotherhood also includes members of the Heavenly Host (the Spiritual Hierarchy directly concerned with the evolution of our world), Beneficent Members from other planets that are interested in our welfare, as well as certain unascended chelas. [7]

The Ascended Masters are supposed to be joined together in Service to our Earth under the name of the Great White Brotherhood. The use of the term "white" is supposed to refer to their advanced spirituality (i.e., that they have a white colored aura) and has nothing to do with race. The later versions of Blavatsky described the masters as [8] ethnically Tibetan or Indian (Hindu), not European. Recent research indicates, however, that this description was used by Blavatsky to hide the real identity of her teachers, some of whom were well known Indian rulers of her time. [9] Library > Reference > Wikipedia

The people of the Christian West (i.e. the United States) had been so poisoned against Muslims

Professor Stanford J. Shaw zs"l 1930-2006 A Personal Appreciation by Shelomo Alfassa (December 24, 2006)

I was deeply saddened to have learned of the death of Professor Stanford J. Shaw at the age of 76. Professor Shaw was an Ottomanist, a world renowned expert on Jewish life in Turkey during and after the era of the sultan. Although I had never met the professor in person, we had struck up an Internet friendship that had lasted many years. As a Turkish Jew and a lover of Ottoman Jewish history, I found a deep appreciation for this man that spent nearly his whole life researching, writing about and focusing on my people. Professor Shaw contributed such a tremendous wealth of knowledge to the body of history on the Jews of Turkey, that the debt of gratitude that is owed him can never be repaid. His academic work strengthened our understanding of what Jewish life was life under the sultan, from as early as the expulsion of the Jews from Spain to as late as the development of Ataturk's modern Republic...

Professor Stanford Shaw was not afraid to challenge the Armenian claims of genocide at the hands of the Ottomans. Shaw stood by his position, one shared by many others, that the wars that the Ottoman Empire faced were brutal to people of all races and various ethnic groups. After studying in the Turkish archives, he took the position that there was no directly intended genocidal attempt and that all parties were liable for the high numbers of deaths due to the vicious warfare that occurred. Professor Shaw realized that the people of the Christian West (i.e. the United States) had been so poisoned against Muslims by wartime propaganda that it was easy for the Americans to jump on the 'blame the Turks' bandwagon. Because of his opinions, Shaw's house in California was bombed in 1977 by Armenian extremists...RETURN HOME

Quarrel over the interpretation of bodies

Religion and Art: Allies or Adversaries? By Brian Kluepfel

In her forthcoming book, Complex Delight: Secularization of the Breast, 1350-1750 (University of California Press, 2007), Miles notes a historical demarcation: until the 1700s, the breast, particularly that of Virgin Mary, was a religious symbol. In the post-Renaissance world, she says, the body became an “object of both erotic pleasure and medical use,” objectifying what was once holy. “The conflict is a quarrel over the interpretation of bodies,” Miles said.

Miles defined religious art as “art that offers the viewer orientation in the universe and a consonance with other living beings.” She said that there is a schism between religion and media culture, in which “bodies are a spectacle, a source of medical scrutiny or pleasure and pain.” Miles offered a strong view about what religious art should stand against. Art that reinforces consumerism and capitalist values, she said, is certainly not religious, even if it uses religious imagery (as in television commercials, for example, that use images of Adam and Eve). Return to Inside Fordham home page

Plato or Aristotle hardly reflected the average mentality of the time

One Cosmos Under God Robert W. Godwin

There are many good books on mankind's practice of human sacrifice -- again, it is our "default" religion -- but perhaps the best one is Violence Unveiled by Gil Bailie, because he places it in the context of the overall arc of salvation. I cannot possibly do justice to his full argument here, but in his view, human beings were actually in desperate need of a cure for religion, and Christianity turned out to be this cure. "Ironically," Jesus was a victim -- and as a result, a permanent reminder -- of that which he came to cure -- the ritual scapegoating of victims in order to create social solidarity. For nothing creates social solidarity and temporarily eases the war of each against all so much as when everyone's aggression is hypnotically focussed on a sacrificial victim...

As I mentioned yesterday, not only did the ancient Jews begin to reflect superior ideals that far surpassed their contemporaries, but these ideals have still failed to permeate into many modern groups -- e.g., in Africa, China, and Islam. Not only that, but the modern West has produced its own permanent counter-revolution in the form of the international left, which, since it rejects the cure for religion, is reverting back to primordial religion -- undisguised "born again" paganism in the form of body mutilation, magic (almost all "new agers" and "integralists" are leftists), infrahuman entertainment, the cult of celebrity, blood worship ("multi-culturalism"), pantheistic environmentalism, sexual license unbound from any sacred channel, etc.

As mentioned yesterday, Breiner's book Slaughter of the Innocents: Child Abuse Through the Ages and Today goes into some of the distinct values of the ancient Jews, as mankind took a particularly dramatic turn into verticality. I just realized I have posted some of the following material before, but it can't hurt to review the situation. Starting first with the goyim, Breiner notes that the women of ancient Greece were essentially slaves. A wife’s function was to “look after the household and produce children -- preferably boys.” While courtesans -- who were used for pleasure rather than procreation -- could be educated, wives were illiterate.

Similar to Islamic societies today, the ancient Greeks “viewed men as sane and stable while women were considered mad, hysterical, and possibly dangerous and destructive to men.” Furthermore, “a woman’s freedom was severely restricted” and she was without power. “A man could sell his daughter or sister into concubinage if he wished.” Children of concubines were simply “aborted, killed or sold into slavery.” (Please bear in mind that we are not talking about luminaries such as Plato or Aristotle, who hardly reflected the average mentality of the time.)

At the time of Pericles in the late 5th century BC, a girl could marry only through parental arrangement: “no man married for love.” And once the marriage took place and the Athenian bride went to live with her husband, “she was cut off from her family and became a menial worker in her husband’s home.” Even the children she bore were not her own, but belonged to the husband to dispense with as he saw fit. Out of a population of 400,000, only 14,240 people had full civil rights. The rest were women, children and slaves. Unwanted children were simply exposed on a mountainside to die. “In all the Greek cities except Thebes the father had the right to kill his child at birth without question. In all cities except Athens the father could sell his children to slave dealers.” Female infanticide was the norm. Like China today, very few families raised more than one daughter. Even then, girls were given inferior food and no education.

Breiner feels that the revulsion towards women was at the basis of Greek male homosexuality. Can you think of a better explanation? The fashionable modern idea -- a fine example of leftist anti-scientific magical thinking, by the way -- is that homosexuality is purely “genetic” and not subject to environmental influences. If so, how does one account for the prevalence of Ancient Greek homosexuality? “It was considered quite proper for the young men of Athens to engage sexually with older men, and most did.” “Merchants would import handsome boys to be sold to the highest bidder”; these boys would “be first used as concubines and later as slaves.”

Breiner speculates that “homosexual pederasty was so universal in Greek society” because it was “a means of ‘rescuing’ the male child from the perceived dangers of women...” “Boy brothels flourished in every city and a child prostitute could be rented, even at the height of Athenian culture... A freeborn child might see his father having sexual relations with a child his own age who was a slave” (!!!). In this context, the evolution of so-called "homophobia" by the ancient Hebrews was clearly an advance, not a regression, as it particularly benefitted women and children.

I don’t even have time to get into the pervasive human and animal sacrifice. “Human life was considered so short and cheap that there was little concern about killing. When a town was captured the men were automatically killed or sold into slavery and the women were taken as concubines or slaves.” Traits such as “gentleness, kindness, industry, honesty, and integrity were scorned as effeminate and inferior.”

I could go on, but I think you get the point. Obviously, human beings were desperately in need of a vertical intervention to save them from the hell on earth they had created. All of us continue to benefit everyday from that little sliver of light that miraculously opened up in a world of infrahuman darkness. More on which -- now, don't absolutely hold me to it, just in case I am seized by other energies -- tomorrow.

Islamic parenting advice, untouched by the arc of salvation. posted by Gagdad Bob at 2/22/2007 06:09:00 AM 68 comments links to this post

Family-related issues

By JEFF ISRAELY/ROME TIME EuropeTuesday, Feb. 20, 2007

In recent months, Martini has raised subtle though crucial objections to the Church's steadfast opposition to all circumstances of assisted fertility, distribution of condoms for AIDS victims and so-called "right-to-die" cases. His long cover-story interview last April with the Italian magazine L'Espresso set off an internal Church debate about whether a married AIDS patient's use of a condom is the "lesser of two evils," and a Vatican document on the issue may come out later this year.

Martini has long understood that speaking softly is the best way for a dissenting voice to be heard. Most recently, in an interview published Sunday in the Rome-based daily La Repubblica, he politely challenged both Benedict and Cardinal Camillo Ruini, head of Italy's bishop conference, for their repeatedly strong condemnations of an Italian government proposal to legalize civil unions for homosexuals and heterosexuals who don't want to marry. Though no supporter of gay marriage, Martini nevertheless decided it was time to register his opposition to the Vatican's hammering away on family-related issues. "The family is the cell of society, and is therefore very important," he said. "Certainly the family should be defended and promoted.

But the promoting, I think, is more important than defending." He went on to warn against the "confrontation among the various positions that create tensions and useless and dangerous clashes." In the past, he has voiced his support for woman deacons, and even called for a Third Vatican Council to address the many issues dividing Catholics. Martini has long been a beacon for a generation of progressive bishops and cardinals, like Archbishop of Westminster Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, who has recently pushed to have a mass for gay parishioners. Martini and his followers, in fact, have long contrasted with the future German pope.

The vast cultural differences between the ancient Jews and their contemporaries

One Cosmos Under God Robert W. Godwin

Perhaps it is because I have been incubating these curious ideas for so long, but it is not even a question to me that the Jews were evolutionary agents chosen for a divine mission -- or, if they were not, they might as well have been. In the course of writing my book, many obscure books synchronistically fell into my eager coon paws at precisely the right moment, including In the Shadow of Moloch: The Sacrifice of Children and Its Impact on Western Religions by Martin Bergmann, and Slaughter of the Innocents: Child Abuse Through the Ages and Today by Sander Breiner...

One of the virtues of the book we recently discussed, Before the Dawn, is that it pulls no PC punches in chronicling just how unimaginably savage human beings were in the past...Thus, from our vantage point, the 20th century looks like a catastrophe, but from the vantage point of antiquity it was conspicuously peaceful -- even though seven out of ten European descendents of Abraham were incinerated in the process...

The devolutionary forces of the lower vertical are always visible in groups that oppose the Jews, currently Islam and the international Left. In his book, Breiner analyzes the vast cultural differences between the ancient Jews and their contemporaries -- the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, and Chinese. The notion that these vast differences can be explained by "genetics" is strict nonsense. This would be the position of Wade and other orthodox Darwinians -- as if Abraham didn't sacrifice Isaac because of a random genetic mutation! Perhaps tomorrow I'll discuss further the cosmic "righteous angle" represented by the people chosen to carry out phase I of the arc of cosmic salvation. posted by Gagdad Bob at 2/21/2007 06:54:00 AM 18 comments links to this post

It's a collective experience of reconsidering bodies

Despite all the jiggling, sweating flesh on display Saturday as crowds of dancers pressed together in the first full day of carnival celebrations, Brazilians say the spectacle is not all about sex. They see it as a celebration of the body, closer in the spirit to the Olympics than the strip bar...

Brazilians say nakedness at carnival is about sensuality. Yes, sexual imagery abounds in the samba schools, and thousands of revelers dance skin-to-skin on the sidelines. But nudity carries a different connotation in Brazil than in many other countries. "Here, nakedness doesn't only lead to sexuality, it leads you to aesthetic appreciation. A woman is dancing but it's not pornographic. It's a collective experience of reconsidering bodies, like at the Olympic games," said Roberto Da Matta, a retired University of Notre Dame sociology professor and author of Carnivals, Rogues and Heroes.

Da Matta says his granddaughters watch the nearly nude samba dancers in TV ads during the run-up to carnival, grading them like judges at a gymnastic competition, or in the same way Rio's Samba parade is judged..."This is Rio de Janeiro, it's all about the beach and sun. We don't wear many clothes here at anytime during the year," Faria explains. Front page / World

Let English bloom

State of English KANCHA ILAIAH The Times of India 21 Feb, 2007

The proposal of the Congress party to constitute the second state reorganisation commission (SRC) necessitates a larger debate. Linguistic states deserve a relook at a time when English is developing as a pan-Indian language. The rationale behind establishing a linguistic federation of Indian states is questionable. If one assumes that regional languages develop like the European languages, then the federation is likely to break, as each advanced linguistic region would like to be a nation by itself. Would India like to take the course of Europe, where many developed linguistic nations emerge and contradictions sharpen?

But Indian regional languages are not as advanced as European languages like English, French, German, Spanish and so on. In the ancient period, Sanskritic forces stilted their growth. In the late mediaeval period it was stilted by Persian. In the colonial period, English intervened. Now, there is no possibility of these languages developing to the levels of European languages. In an under-developed language system, thought processes will also remain underdeveloped. In modern knowledge societies, underdeveloped languages cannot produce advanced thought. The present Indian languages, including Hindi, were more underdeveloped than any European language of the early 18th century. The advanced linguistic nationalism of Europe sharpened contradictions, leading to nationalist wars among them, even though they all shared the same religion. The common historical roots of all the European languages, in Greek and Latin, did not prevent the emergence of such contradictions.

Once each language branches out, it develops nationalist aspirations, whipping up linguistic chauvinism. The recent chauvinist expressions that Telugu is greater than Tamil or vice versa, in order to get ancient status, is an indication of that trend. The Dravidian or Pali linguistic roots of these languages are set aside and every linguistic state wants to prove that its language is great. With English developing as a language of administration and the market in India, the country can now afford to sidestep the European model of linguistic nations.

It is important to initiate a debate on this larger question before Andhra Pradesh, the first linguistic state to be formed, is split on developmental grounds. Once this happens, the principle of underdeveloped regions within every linguistic state being divided on the same grounds as AP comes into play. Each region can put forth its own case. The only option left for us is to choose the American model of developing one national language across the federation and dividing provinces into viable administrative units. Given the historical roots of English in India over a period of a few centuries, it can become the spoken language of all Indians alongside regional languages. Linguistic history has enough evidence to show that whether one is literate or not every human being can become bilingual.

By 1510 (before the Bible was translated into English facing a great papal resistance), English was a language of the British illiterate productive masses. Within just 500 years it has become the most popular language of the world. Within 200 years of its introduction in India it has become the language of easily about 100 million people. Its expansion in future will be several fold faster than earlier. It has become a language of day-to-day use for several million upper middle classes and rich. The poor and the productive masses have a right to learn the language of administration and global communication. This ground reality forces us to accept that at least 50 per cent of the school syllabus in all govern-ment schools across the country should be taught in English. The country would then overcome the yawning gap between convent and missionary English-medium school education and regional language-centred government school education.

When educated social masses communicate in English across the country, the concept of linguistic state would become redundant. The provincial states then should be compact administrative units. This 21st century reality should compel us to have a second SRC. This should examine the very concept of continuing with language-based provincial units within integrated Indian federal system. The writer is a political scientist

Economics to sexuality in bureaucratic regulation and control

Consider what happens if one looks a little more closely at the data, and breaks up Indian bloggers by gender. Among women netizens 51 per cent are bloggers. Declining sex ratios attest that India is a land of sharp gender disparities, and women are resorting to blogging on a large scale to give vent to pent-up feelings.

India may be a democracy, but in areas ranging from economics to sexuality it is heavily invested in bureaucratic regulation and control. The culture of mai-baap sarkar gives little latitude to the individual. Babus routinely stonewall requests for information, despite being required to do so under the RTI Act. Adultery is not just an ethical transgression and homosexuality an alternative lifestyle choice; both are criminal offences. Moral crusaders in the I&B ministry can and do pull the plug on TV channels. Liberalisation notwithstanding, red tape remains rampant and India is near the bottom of the world in several business metrics. The Times of India> Editorial> 19 Feb, 2007

How to deal with religion in the political sphere

Islam challenges Europe view religion is private, church heads told Stephen Brown Wittenberg, Germany (ENI) 16 February 2007 07-0139

The growth of Islam in Europe is challenging deeply-held notions that faith is a private matter which should be banished from public life, a prominent sociologist of religion has told a gathering of European Christian leaders. "We ignore the presence of Islam at our peril," Professor Grace Davie of the University of Exeter in Britain told leaders from Europe's main Christian traditions at a 15-18 February meeting in Wittenberg in Germany. "This is a catalyst for a much more profound change in the religious landscape of Europe."

Recent controversies such as those about the wearing of the Muslim headscarf by school students in France, or the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers, were cases in point, noted Davie, professor of sociology at Exeter university and director of its centre for European studies. "The presence of Islam is a catalyst that has reopened issues that Europeans thought were closed," Davie said on 16 February. "You cannot privatise Islam. We have seen that." But she said Christian churches had a major task in helping to find ways to deal with such public expression of religion.

Davie was presenting the results of recent research* on the place of religion in Europe, in which she wrote about the controversy over the cartoons: "The lack of comprehension on both sides of this affair, together with an unwillingness to compromise, led alarmingly fast to dangerous confrontations, both in Europe and beyond." The notion that religion should be banished from public life - and particularly from the state and from the education system - was widespread in Europe, Davie noted. But in part due to the presence of Islam, religion was increasingly likely to penetrate the public sphere in Europe, a tendency being encouraged by the ever more obvious presence of religion in the modern global order.

However, this was "probably more of a problem for the secular elite than the Christian churches", Davie suggested in her comments in Wittenberg. She said, "We need to grasp how to deal with religion in the political sphere and here Christian churches have a huge contribution to make." * Grace Davie, "Is Europe an Exceptional Case?", in The Hedgehog Review, Spring/ Summer 2006 issue, www.virginia.edu/iasc/hedgehog.html

In some radical Islam societies, women are surviving a horrible life

Redefine Religion for Equality [Opinion] Faith-based discrimination a misinterpretation of scripture Smita Poudel (smita)

In the "Biographical Dictionary of Prominent Muslim Ladies," writers Kabir Kaushar and Inamul Kabir in the introductory part of the book write, "Islam gave women many privileges, legal rights and a high status in the society which in the 7th century AD she didn't possess anywhere in the world." The writers assert that those privileges were not given to them in the Western world until 1918, and Western women acquired those rights only after agitation and demonstration.The above-mentioned fact is a contradiction, if compared to the real situation of millions of Islam women in many parts of the world. What has led to such a pathetic situation of women despite the freedom from the religion's side? Definitely, the answer would be misinterpretation with the pure motive of male supremacy. Such radicals can in no way be called religious; rather, they are hypocritical.

It is said that during the Caliphate of Abbasid from the 8th down to 12th century, Muslim women in Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq, presided over literary meetings and salons, worked as jurists and lectured on history in Baghdad University. But the images of women behind the dark veil have marred the glory of that time.Women's confinement within narrow horizons in the name of religion prevents them from their quest of higher achievement. They were not allowed to study or work outside the kitchen, perhaps in the fear that their awareness would someday provoke justifications of the rules imposed upon them.

In some radical Islam societies, women are surviving a horrible life. Honor killings, the Purdah system and many other evils that are justified in the name of religion have tortured women. These people are twisting Mohammad's true meaning for the sake of their supremacy; similar is the case of radical Hindus. Now it's high time to redefine the true spirit of religion so that the dream of equality becomes a reality. Religion is the very first point from which the battle should be announced. Better than saying that Islam suppresses women or that Hinduism and Christianity undermine women's roles, one should now point the finger towards the chauvinistic interpretations that have truly created the ground for discrimination. 2007-02-17 09:35 (KST) OhmyNews Other articles by reporter Smita Poudel

Religious practices have drifted away from their philosophy

HindustanTimes.com » Editorial » The Big Idea » A time to heal Open space

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar February 16, 2007

Laws have failed to change the attitude of people, and contemporary religious leaders have done precious little to remove the prejudices and bring about reconciliation. In the past, Maharishi Dayanand, Sri Basavanna in Karnataka and Ramanujacharya in the South have taken up the cause of the oppressed. Ramanujacharya put tripund/tilak and gave janeu (sacred thread) to thousands of Dalits and made them Brahmins. Basavanna vigorously fought against the caste system and brought together people of all castes into the path of bhakti.

Maharishi Dayanand dented the caste system through his brilliant and eloquent dialogues and speeches. He fought against prevalent superstitions. Thanks to him, thousands of Dalits could access the knowledge of the Vedas and the yagyas. He also created many purohits from among the Dalit community...As Maharishi Dayanand, Sri Aurobindo and many others have rightly pointed out, religious practices have drifted away from their philosophy.

It is unfortunate that people without proper knowledge of the scriptures simply quote from the Manu Smriti, which is only a code of conduct given by a king and has nothing to do with the Shrutis, Vedas or the Upanishads. It is time to honour the philosophy and discard the unscrupulous practices. Instead, people have discarded the philosophy and allowed the unscrupulous practices to continue.

I am following the path of bhakti to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo

Shall We Walk on Water? (Or, About Me): Several years ago, while a freshman in college in Lahore, Pakistan, my life changed dramatically when I stopped being an orthodox Muslim woman, and became an agnostic. Religion was too limiting and the God of religion too forbidding. I figured, even if such a God existed, I despised him. I felt stronger once I had gotten rid of the shackles of exoteric religion, and my skepticism felt liberating. Later on, still in college, I came out as a lesbian and had to deal with an abusive sexual experience. In healing from this experience, I went through what is known as a psychospiritual emergency in transpersonal psychology, which culminated in a kundalini awakening. In the years that have gone by since this experience happened, I have struggled to reconcile my newfound spirituality with my love for science and philosophy. It is easy to fall for the tricks of the ego-mind, which only wants to manipulate us and to change things to suit itself. My struggle as a mystic has been to try to silence the noise of the mind, and listen carefully to the quieter desires of the soul and become more grounded in it.

This does not, however, mean that I am anti-science or an anti-intellectual. I enjoy building up cognitive maps of reality that fit in with my own experiences and those of others, but I am careful to remind myself not to take these maps too seriously. My focus is on my own spiritual transformation, not on being intellectually “right” on all counts. Truth cannot ever be adequately expressed in words. Truth can only be lived — because we can never encompass Reality, only live in it. In other words, Truth encompasses us, not the other way around, and it is only our petty egos that think they ever possess Truth. I am following the path of bhakti to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, whose philosophy I find to be very encompassing and inclusive of all others, including science. However, my devotion to them does not imply naive, cultic guru-worshipping. When I disagree with them, I gladly admit it. I merely see them as conduits to my own higher Self. Worshipping them would be just another religion, something they were both vehemently against. What is required is a healthy amount of skepticism with an openness to higher spiritual experiences.

the stumbling mystic God shall grow up . . . while the wise men talk and sleep

Each stumble and fall gets me one step closer. The spirit rises mightier after it has been defeated. The purpose of this blog is for me to teach myself humility, to quieten my mind and gently strip away its arrogant mental pretensions, and learn to see things as they really are and not as I would like them to be. And, also, to perhaps see the humour in life and stop taking myself so seriously!