The importance of WESTOLOGY in inter-civilization dialog

[Guest guest]

Arial">What Bharat Gupt described is the name-calling and demonizing that is

EQUALLY bad in both directions, and two wrongs don’t make a right. When

arguments run out, or when a person deeply invested in some ideology feels

cornered, they tend to resort to this.

Arial">

Arial">In the de-colonializing process, as an interim stage, two monologs are

better than one, as eventually the two could get fused into one bi-directional

conversation that works. But long-term, separate intellectual camps of: (a) the

culture under the microscope, and (b) those who claim exclusive right to be on

top of the microscope, are untenable. When people reduced to the status of ‘informants’

talk back, an initial period of tension is likely, but it could lead to mutual

respect and cooperation. There are many open-minded persons within each ‘side’

who crisscross boundaries freely. The American Academy of Religion has taken an

important first step, in response to massive criticism by the ‘informants’. At

this year’s annual meet in November, there are at least two panels on

post-Orientalism and anti-defamation, each with voices from various sides.

Arial">

Arial">Somewhere in this cross-cultural process, WESTOLOGY, the study of the

west by the others, is inevitable and necessary. Just as psychoanalysts inform

a person about his/her unconscious or shadow side, and just as anthropologists

do this for an entire culture from a ‘neutral’ perspective (whatever that means

in this Foucault-Derrida era), likewise, the west must be studied

dispassionately by everyone as it is the center of power today and must be

better understood.

Arial">

Arial">Rather than the former informants hitting back in anger, they must have

their own studies of the west’s myths to understand what drives its behavior in

addition to individual agency. This deconstruction of western behavior in

changing circumstances is the place to situate the pathology of western Indology.

Every encounter with a western Indologist turns into a data gathering

opportunity for the Westologist.

Arial">

Arial">The eventual result might be a de-homogenization of ideas that would

counter the potentially dangerous homogenization of: Hindutva, western

feminism, and economic-political westernization of the world. This could be the

return of the native, the indigenous, and of bottom up empowerment as opposed

to top-down ‘development’. Isn’t this what the anti-WTO demonstrators want?

Before they got lost, isn’t this also what the Subalternists set out to

accomplish?

Arial">

Arial">Western hermeneutics will have to share space with other cultures’ lens.

The License Raj of scholarship will get challenged as more channels open up,

partly enabled by new technologies. The present narrow Khyber Pass of idea flow

will fall apart.

Arial">

Arial">R. Malhotra

Arial">

[Guest guest]

Prof. Malhotra wrote:

>

> Yes, but this is not the same thing as a view from the other. I am

> referring to a project of 'Otherizing' the west. In sociology, the

> western scholars cannot help superimpose their own myths

> unconsciously, for instance, as the categories, hermeneutics, and

> even in the choice of topics that are deemed interesting or

> appropriate. In fact, the west's pursuit of Orientalism is

> inseparable from its construction of self-image, and many scholars

> have explained how the other was required to construct this self

> image. Having done that, the Other became the object of appropriation.

>

I agree with what I think is Prof. Malhotra's view that there is value in

having independent studies done of the "West," though I confess my

uneducated Texas ears have difficulty following him.

 

I prefer the idiom of Marshall McLuhan in "Understanding Media," which,

putting aside the hype, is the only practical book of philosophy, how we

perceive and understand reality, I have ever encountered. In McLuhan's

terms, we, as finite creatures, are incapable of perceiving the total

reality of a thing or event, i.e., of perceiving, retaining, understanding,

the full information characterizing an event or thing or whatever. Our

tools, or media, are too limited: eyes, ears, internet. This means,

critically, that each of us, at best, obtains only a partially correct idea

of reality. We are conditioned by our tools, our sources of information,

in

both minor and major ways, often without being aware of what is missing. In

consequence, we may well act and think irrationally if the area in question

is afflicted by the blindness or distortions induced by the deficiencies of

our tools. One must think of the devices by which one obtains one's

information not only as producers of information but also as filters that

eliminate certain kinds of information. One must be alert for areas of

blindness, i.e., one must be alert to the pattern of blindness that each

medium of information imposes on the information it provides. The best way

to do this is by expanding the variety of media on which one relies, new

points of view, as it were. It is through the -clash- of media, i.e.,

through the clash between two overlapping but different versions of reality,

that information can be discovered about their -mutual- limitations. Which

may lead to improved perception and understanding.

 

Hence, a study or criticism of the "West," done with the pattern of

perception and blindnesses of one not-of-the-West, say, from India, has the

potential of uncovering "Western" patterns of perception and blindness which

a "Western" study, perhaps afflicted with those "Western" blindnesses, might

not discover. A fresh look by an outsider thus -could- be useful.

 

But not automatically, especially if couched in unintelligible jargon.

Occam's

Razor applies to words.

 

The benefits flow both ways. The interaction sheds light on the blindness

and perceptions of each point of view.

 

David