This was a super-interesting convo. As someone of Maharashtrian descent who was born in the States and didn't grow up with my Indian parent (thus almost completely disconnected from that side of my heritage*), your talk presented me with a hell of a lot to chew on.
The question I posed in the live chat actually landed with the >opposite< meaning as I'd intended it. I asked something like "What status-seeking behaviors were >not< attributable to colonialization?" Because I accented the word >not< it came across like I was projecting zero agency onto a colonized people -- something that irks me to no end about the so-called "progressive" worldview (which, as I've written on my Substack, is not actually progessive at all but a neo-colonialist REgression to orientalist noble-savage fantasies of "brown people" as a single, monolithic morally pure heap of "other" cultures, with modern "progressives" constantly flagellating themselves as if white Europeans are the source of all human evil while at the same time putting themselves at the epicenter of human agency).
So both of y'all were like "We have a problem with this!" LOL. In fact, I was trying to root for where we might be able to attribute that agency -- even if it's a murky/fuzzy line that's hard to draw -- and hoping you could trace back some of the social/cultural tendencies you both take to task (or even ones you appreciate) that might pre-date the British. I also didn't mean the question with a predictably "anti-woke" kind of spin, because that's become it's own orthodoxy too.
I guess I'm just asking -- for ANY group of people who've got this undeniable stratum of their history taken up by having been occupied: who ARE we? (Or: who WERE we vis-a-vis who "we" became?) And with "Indians" the question is even more tantalizing because, as you pointed out, there wasn't even a self-identified sense of being one unified people -- or anything even close to that.
So in a case where one occupying culture ends up >defining< another, that question is really alluring to me b/c it's kind of bottomless. But it's hard to gaze into that well when those discussions are slathered in progressive/orientalist sloganeering on the one hand and "fuck it, pull your asses up by your bootstraps and tough shit!" denialism on the other.
Like, who would India's intellectual analog to Thomas Sowell be? And how fruitful and awesome would it be if THAT person could have a 3-hour good-faith sit-down with, say, Arundhati Roy? (Or someone else with an opposing worldview to Sowell's but with the equivalent sobriety and incisiveness.) Could two people like that actually discourse and TALK without peacocking to their respective constituents?
*Almost completely disconnected from that side of my heritage other than certain elements that I'm convinced I've inherited, but in abstract ways, such as the way I hear music -- which is not a conclusion I arrived at myself, but has instead been pointed out to me as a possibility. And also a relationship with housing that appears to have an uncanny connection to the occupation that runs in my family lineage, which I wasn't aware of until my mid-30s. My dad also insists that I remind him of his father and grandfather -- both attorneys -- in the way I make arguments and process information. But I seriously can't tell whether he was just saying that so I'd get a real job.
Thanks, hope you enjoyed it! I know you've been doing a lot of research, outreach, and communication on the unique nature of American Hinduism. I've recently come to realize that Tamilian Brahmins born & raised in the West will have to start taking a much more active, strategic approach to comporting their traditions to the federalist Protestant-Deist underpinnings of the country while upholding core parts of the culture.
this is what i expect
This was a super-interesting convo. As someone of Maharashtrian descent who was born in the States and didn't grow up with my Indian parent (thus almost completely disconnected from that side of my heritage*), your talk presented me with a hell of a lot to chew on.
The question I posed in the live chat actually landed with the >opposite< meaning as I'd intended it. I asked something like "What status-seeking behaviors were >not< attributable to colonialization?" Because I accented the word >not< it came across like I was projecting zero agency onto a colonized people -- something that irks me to no end about the so-called "progressive" worldview (which, as I've written on my Substack, is not actually progessive at all but a neo-colonialist REgression to orientalist noble-savage fantasies of "brown people" as a single, monolithic morally pure heap of "other" cultures, with modern "progressives" constantly flagellating themselves as if white Europeans are the source of all human evil while at the same time putting themselves at the epicenter of human agency).
So both of y'all were like "We have a problem with this!" LOL. In fact, I was trying to root for where we might be able to attribute that agency -- even if it's a murky/fuzzy line that's hard to draw -- and hoping you could trace back some of the social/cultural tendencies you both take to task (or even ones you appreciate) that might pre-date the British. I also didn't mean the question with a predictably "anti-woke" kind of spin, because that's become it's own orthodoxy too.
I guess I'm just asking -- for ANY group of people who've got this undeniable stratum of their history taken up by having been occupied: who ARE we? (Or: who WERE we vis-a-vis who "we" became?) And with "Indians" the question is even more tantalizing because, as you pointed out, there wasn't even a self-identified sense of being one unified people -- or anything even close to that.
So in a case where one occupying culture ends up >defining< another, that question is really alluring to me b/c it's kind of bottomless. But it's hard to gaze into that well when those discussions are slathered in progressive/orientalist sloganeering on the one hand and "fuck it, pull your asses up by your bootstraps and tough shit!" denialism on the other.
Like, who would India's intellectual analog to Thomas Sowell be? And how fruitful and awesome would it be if THAT person could have a 3-hour good-faith sit-down with, say, Arundhati Roy? (Or someone else with an opposing worldview to Sowell's but with the equivalent sobriety and incisiveness.) Could two people like that actually discourse and TALK without peacocking to their respective constituents?
*Almost completely disconnected from that side of my heritage other than certain elements that I'm convinced I've inherited, but in abstract ways, such as the way I hear music -- which is not a conclusion I arrived at myself, but has instead been pointed out to me as a possibility. And also a relationship with housing that appears to have an uncanny connection to the occupation that runs in my family lineage, which I wasn't aware of until my mid-30s. My dad also insists that I remind him of his father and grandfather -- both attorneys -- in the way I make arguments and process information. But I seriously can't tell whether he was just saying that so I'd get a real job.
Looking forward to listening to this!
Thanks, hope you enjoyed it! I know you've been doing a lot of research, outreach, and communication on the unique nature of American Hinduism. I've recently come to realize that Tamilian Brahmins born & raised in the West will have to start taking a much more active, strategic approach to comporting their traditions to the federalist Protestant-Deist underpinnings of the country while upholding core parts of the culture.
I think you'll find this essay of interest!
https://frontierdharma.substack.com/p/the-hindu-case-against-hinduism-a
I did read that one (it was well presented) and the rebuttal that Aanang Mittal wrote on his website. A whole lot of subtleties to consider.