a. In this chapter, the author states "the profound assumption" of the west that "the shape and direction of world history are leading to a single western goal – be it salvation or scientific secular progress."
b. Cultural Appropriation: Germany is cited as a case study in "western digestion and synthesis".
"The French – as the inheritors of the renaissance – the center of European high culture , leaving the Germans without a similar narrative. In fact, textbooks across Europe at this time depicted Germans as the barbarians who had destroyed first the Roman Empire and then the high culture of Europe in France."
"India became a major source from which Germans began to construct their own identity." But "this romantic attraction for India and for the Sanskrit classical era in particular, was always self-serving."
For example, "Schlegel tried to separate Indian religion from Sanskrit texts in order to appropriate selectively the non-religious aspects of Sanskrit civilization into the German Christian identity. The romance for India gradually diminished, and Schlegel and other Germans began to see India as a primitive society with many evils."
c. Friedrich Hegel: Hegel's myth of the west is cited as an example of western hegemony over world history.
"Hegel's world spirit is a synthetic unity encompassing all humanity. It privileges the west and those who do not fit into his scheme are not a part of history."
"Hegel dismisses Native Americans as `obviously unintelligent' and speaks of them as `unenlightened children' distinguished only by `inferiority in all respects'. He also proclaims that India `has no history'".
d. Finally, the author states that common responses to the challenge of western universalism – including secularism, postcolonial deconstruction and difference anxiety - have themselves been inadequate so far, and they have "been re-exported back to India in problematic forms."
KK
**************************************
http://beingdifferentbook.com/
To join the Yahoo egroup that has been set up specifically to discuss this book, send an email to: RajivMalhotraDiscussion-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
**************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment