Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 08:49:29 +0000 From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: BHA: Re: The tall poppy syndrome within CR Hi Radha, I'm not surprised, but I must confess to a certain irritation and frustration. I spend a lot of time trying to encourage people to read DPF etc and don't find it helpful when people seem intent on doing the opposite. For the rest, I absolutely agree. Thank you for taking the discussion to a deeper and more rewarding level. Do tell us when you're ready what's in that crystal ball! I have one of my own, and I'm trying to exercise some influence over what's in it. I wondered why you call the spiritual turn 'so called'. What is the problem with 'spiritual turn' (given that handy labels are more or less necessary)? I think there has been a definite turn in Bhaskar's thought, and that 'spiritual' is the best single-word label, but I might be missing something owing to my one-thirds perspective. Mervyn r.dsouza <r.dsouza-AT-waikato.ac.nz> writes >Mervyn >My spontaneous reaction to your mail was "why am I not surprised" followed >by "but why is Mervyn (the writer of the new age, new left article) >surprised?" and are you surprised Mervyn? I don't mean this as a rhetorical >question in any sense. Surely, CR is not exempt from a sociology of its own >and from its historical, cultural and political contexts that we talk about. >As someone from the so called "Third World" (which in my view, is the >two-thirds world) it interests me that with so many radical "schools of >thought" in the so called "West", from scientific theories to Marxism, >socialism et al, the problem for the two-thirds world is not so much with >the philosophy or theory per se (the text) but with the sociological and >cultural assumptions (the context) that makes the theory/philosophy >problematic. There appears to be threshold beyond which the >theory/philosophy is constrained by its own cultural and historical context. >It certainly happened with Marxism in the "West" and the ramifications it >had for the "Third World". >Is it surprising at all that the so called "spiritual turn" should have >invited the kind of response it did, or, for that matter the reactions on >this list to the ad for a publicist recently (I don't recall how the >position was described exactly now). And, do we not lapse quickly and >comfortably into bourgeois norms of discourse or social practices for that >matter, even when critiquing those norms in the issues we talk and write >about? >Calling it "tall poppy syndrome" is putting it too simplistically, it is >much deeper than that. I am reminded of Rumi's famous story of the parrot >and the merchant, (I don't know if you are familiar with it). Indeed, like >the parrot in the story, one has to give up things (die) to be free and >enlightened, and to "gain" new things. I am not sure the adversarial and >individualistic intellectual traditions in Western academic institutions >ably guided by the "invisible hand of the market" are the most conducive >places for an introspective approach that helps to locates oneself in the >wider search for answers to the questions of our times. >I am tempted to look into my crystal ball now to see what CR will look like >25 years from now, but I think I will leave it for another time. > >Radha > > > --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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