tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post3882977315915486783..comments2024-03-21T00:42:18.535-07:00Comments on Koenraad Elst: George Thompson as a case study in racist InvasionismKoenraad Elsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02503713923882807510noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-47960782529807938172015-03-06T04:32:44.375-08:002015-03-06T04:32:44.375-08:00Impressed reading your post.
Metaphysical univer...Impressed reading your post. <br /><br /><a href="http://umsonline.org/" rel="nofollow"><b>Metaphysical university</b></a><br /><a href="http://umsonline.org/" rel="nofollow"><b>Metaphysical school</b></a><br /><a href="http://umsonline.org/" rel="nofollow"><b>Metaphysical college</b></a><br /><a href="http://umsonline.org/" rel="nofollow"><b>metaphysical education</b></a><br /><a href="http://umsonline.org/" rel="nofollow"><b>Metaphysics education</b></a>Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12081426358173966408noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-54967100186189695052012-10-07T06:49:27.984-07:002012-10-07T06:49:27.984-07:00There is some comfort in Ashvamitra's logic - ...There is some comfort in Ashvamitra's logic - since men have been marrying women, like, forever! - men have never considered themselves superior to women, it is all just a modern Gloria Steinem-created myth.<br /><br />Even in the "caste-ridden" ancient Hindu society, it was perfectly acceptable for a woman to "marry up". So these marriages, I presume, prove that caste inequality did not exist!!!<br /><br />Arunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03451666670728177970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-85903855547192147842012-10-07T06:10:03.322-07:002012-10-07T06:10:03.322-07:00Being married to someone of a different race makes...Being married to someone of a different race makes you automatically non-racist, is like saying that being married to a person of a different religion, you cannot be a fundamentalist - history and experience show that to be a total fallacy.Arunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03451666670728177970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-16537686659858642642012-05-16T21:31:27.635-07:002012-05-16T21:31:27.635-07:00Ashvamitra, you are acting like someone stepped on...Ashvamitra, you are acting like someone stepped on your foot by using the word racist to describe a fellow indologist.Daniel Mohanpersadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11580353748893516484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-50827145756275427312012-05-15T09:10:17.615-07:002012-05-15T09:10:17.615-07:00Koenraad Elst ji,
Thanks for sharing this info. Fo...Koenraad Elst ji,<br />Thanks for sharing this info. For Indians it is often astonishing how much interest some Westerners are taking in deconstructing Hinduism using all sorts of angles - race, sexuality, oppression, etc.Trailer of Dharmahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05308403470639916941noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-5775209288697365762012-05-08T03:42:09.761-07:002012-05-08T03:42:09.761-07:00This blog also works on facts and truthfulness.
Ha...This blog also works on facts and truthfulness.<br />Have a good time.<br />http://new-indology.blogspot.com/?m=1Nirjhar007https://www.blogger.com/profile/12880827026479135118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-87849310189890247242012-05-03T18:05:28.626-07:002012-05-03T18:05:28.626-07:00Ah dear, here's another of these words that us...Ah dear, here's another of these words that used to mean something specific but doesn't mean much anymore. Just as "genocide" has come to mean basically "the killing of more than one person beonging to a single social group however defined", and "racism" has come to mean no more than "anything even remotely linkable to the idea of ethnicity in the actions or words of someone I don't like and want to silence", so "ad hominem argument" now means "any spirited argument in which my own foolishness is demonstrated to me". This is not what the term meant, once upon a time, when it meant something. But what's the use.Philliphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07829053219715458764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-51764659490094464362012-05-03T05:48:15.814-07:002012-05-03T05:48:15.814-07:00@Ashwamitra,
The lady doth protest too much.
Al...@Ashwamitra,<br /><br />The lady doth protest too much. <br /><br />All you can say is your critics are ignorant, spiritually or otherwise. Ad Hominem attacks are not worthy of a serious scholar, and do not deserve further response.Narashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08405921234909640586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-4275028391303152452012-05-03T05:21:39.109-07:002012-05-03T05:21:39.109-07:00[A nature lover might spend enormous amount of tim...[A nature lover might spend enormous amount of time studying various types of snakes, and use them ultimately to extract venom, snake skin etc. These eminences were also involved in a similar endeavour.]<br /><br />This is a clever little piece of wordplay, and it goes no deeper than words. For an indologist, the texts he reads speak of a world as real as his next-door colleague Pradip and his wife Arti. And he is not secretly planning to skin them and extract their venom. This is the paranoia of ignorance.Philliphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07829053219715458764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-24718515548011975072012-05-02T23:05:08.245-07:002012-05-02T23:05:08.245-07:00"To say that people who devote their lives to..."To say that people who devote their lives to the study of cultures and languages that are very different from their own, and very difficult for outsiders to understand, do so because they want to destroy and belittle them --<br /><br />As far as I understand, Renè Dubois, Max Muller, Sir Mortimer Wheeler and Sir John Marshall were the founders of the invasionist school. They spent considerable amount of time establishing this school, being in India, studying Sanskrit and so on. <br /><br />I consider invasionism to be a largely colonialist history writing. Whether these eminences were racist or not, I cannot say. But the distortion of history that they did, is what people like Dr. Elst, Edwin Bryant and Michael Danino are trying to undo. <br /><br />Claims of "no racism" has very little to do with attitude to history writing and its politics. A nature lover might spend enormous amount of time studying various types of snakes, and use them ultimately to extract venom, snake skin etc. These eminences were also involved in a similar endeavour.Narashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08405921234909640586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-55021639813104726542012-05-02T18:26:15.040-07:002012-05-02T18:26:15.040-07:00(I find it impossible to know what is metaphor and...(I find it impossible to know what is metaphor and what is literal, that is the deliberate mystery of ancient Indian scriptures. It is meant to separate the truth-seekers from the spiritually ignorant.)<br /><br />Taking you at your word, you show a really admirable honesty in identifying yourself as a member of the second group. However, I believe that this is a false dichotomy: all truth-seekers are ignorant, and they know it, otherwise they would not be seeking. The quest for truth generally takes us very far from where we started, and from what we originally believe. It's a very difficult path, the path that leads away from where you began, and I think it's a very honourable path as well, even though those who travel on it usually find that questions only lead on to more questions, mystery to more mystery. But it is precisly that deepening and ever receding mystery, of course, that make this path worth walking, and not the self-satisfied conviction that one knows the truth -- a conviction that only shows that the person has ceased to think, if he ever thought in the first place. The true dichotomy is between people who think they know, and people who know that they don't know, as a certain ancient muni (whose name escapes me at the moment) once said. So hail fellow well met.Philliphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07829053219715458764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-48555130482659807042012-05-02T17:59:10.502-07:002012-05-02T17:59:10.502-07:00(By the way, somebody was mentioning earlier somet...(By the way, somebody was mentioning earlier something about being a mixed-race vs. racism. I think very few people today are racist (believing in supremacy of one race over the other). But it is easy to think about a race angle over any problem (this is usually the least informative angle)...) <br /><br />I was returning to say something about this, but you have put it so perfectly and sanely that I don't have much more to say on this particular. But I will add this: the frequency of accusations of racism made against indologists unmistakably shows that many of their detractors have never even met an indologist, and have no idea of how they live their lives. Indologists are generally very cosmopolitan people, and modern indology is a very cosmopolitan field. Non-Indian indologists all have close and constant contact with Indian colleagues and friends. Many of them, like myself, are married to Indians, and others have innumerable close friendships with Indians they have known and worked with over decades of coming frequently to India and staying here for long periods (I have been living here constantly for six years, for example). This is not the behavious of racists. Racists are people who believe that other races are by their essential nature inferior to their own. The most significant characteristic of racists is that they do not know, and do not want to know, the people they hate. They stick to their own communities. To say that people who devote their lives to the study of cultures and languages that are very different from their own, and very difficult for outsiders to understand, do so because they want to destroy and belittle them -- people who make such an accusation unmistakably betray a paranoid narrowmindedness that cannot fathom what could motivate anyone to take an interest in a culture other than his own, and can only imagine that those motivations must be hostile. There are many, many reasons to criticize indology, and indology has benefited enormously from such critiques in recent years. But racism is a very, veery serious charge, and those who bring it against indologists rarely know what they are talking about, or when they do, they are indulging in the kind of dishonest character assassination that Elst frequently identifies as a favourite tactic of communists.Philliphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07829053219715458764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-21109767417699471762012-05-02T01:18:22.119-07:002012-05-02T01:18:22.119-07:00@Ray Lightning,
Your point about the abstractness...@Ray Lightning,<br /><br />Your point about the abstractness of ideas of Gods is true. It is also true that the whole premise is silly beyond words. <br /><br />However, colour has been used in Indian history writing to equate Gods with tribals, Dravidians and Aryans. Even today we find "scholars" asserting that Shiva is a Dravidian God, perhaps Vishnu is too, while Indra, Mithra, Varuna are definitely Aryan! Indra, the destroyer of forts (purandar) indicates the Aryan destruction of forts in the Harappan civilization etc.<br /><br />The mystical meaning of purandar is quite different. In Kundalini Yoga, the aspirant comes across many obstacles and "buffers" which he/she destroys with help from Indra, one his/her way up the spinal cord to the Sahasraara Chakra! <br /><br />Another example is Shiva, the Digambar (Sky-clad). The surface meaning is that of a naked man. However, mystically it means he is beyond the 3 bodies (Physical, Astral and Causal). <br /><br />I find it impossible to know what is metaphor and what is literal, that is the deliberate mystery of ancient Indian scriptures. It is meant to separate the truth-seekers from the spiritually ignorant.Narashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08405921234909640586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-10152254688980530402012-05-02T00:10:33.632-07:002012-05-02T00:10:33.632-07:00Calling Prof. Thompson a racist is a stretch, and ...Calling Prof. Thompson a racist is a stretch, and that makes all this email exchange look extremely silly. <br /><br />But the point of Krishna being a tribal god, and thus black in colour is equally silly. Can it equally be deduced that Ganesh is a god of elephant-looking people ? Or that ancient Indian tribes had multiple hands and legs, which they somehow lost over time ? <br /><br />Indian god figures are symbolic representations of abstract ideas - philosophical, spiritual and sometimes simply cultural. It is funny to see these distinguished-looking academic people indulging themselves in such silly banter, and reading too much between the lines. <br /><br />Here is Devdutt Patnaik, when he explains why Visnhu is dark and why Shiva is white, and a myriad other tid-bits about Indian gods. <br /><br />http://devdutt.com/articles/indian-mythology/black-gods-and-white-gods.html<br /><br />By the way, somebody was mentioning earlier something about being a mixed-race vs. racism. I think very few people today are racist (believing in supremacy of one race over the other). But it is easy to think about a race angle over any problem (this is usually the least informative angle). Being a mixed-race person actually forces somebody to think more about these issues, because such a person cannot help thinking about these issues while growing up. This sometimes might cloud their judgement on other unrelated issues.Ray Lightninghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08882462553270746059noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-77170104396089647522012-05-01T05:10:44.594-07:002012-05-01T05:10:44.594-07:00@Ashwamitra, just because some one is half Asian d...@Ashwamitra, just because some one is half Asian doesn't mean he cant not indulging in racism. and by the way, Japanese are not better then "White" westerners when it comes to racist behavior in the past and even today they are not ready to accept genocides committed by their armies during WW2. <br /><br />Even if Thompson would have been 100% "Asian" it wont matter to me at least, as I think it is sufficient to call some one racist regardless of his own race if that person has shown racist tendencies by his acts or writings !Mayur Punekarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09376777152702965449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-70959590030947392682012-04-30T20:48:59.191-07:002012-04-30T20:48:59.191-07:00"the avowed racist George Thompson"
Not..."the avowed racist George Thompson"<br /><br />Not that this should be the last word on the matter, but it is worth mentioning that George Thompson is himself half-Asian, his mother being Japanese (I don't know him myself, but we have a mutual friend).<br /><br />I think indologists should cool it a bit with these mutual accusations of racism. The word has ceased to be very meaningful at this point, as incidents like this suggest.Philliphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07829053219715458764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-64913921623070819782012-04-30T07:02:13.780-07:002012-04-30T07:02:13.780-07:00Dear Dr. Elst, thanks for sharing details of intel...Dear Dr. Elst, thanks for sharing details of intellectual dishonesty shown by so called "eminent historians". I had vague idea about them from your writings but it is much more clear now about how they operate. <br /><br />What I dont understand is, why are you involved with this guys at all? I mean why to give these guys legitimacy by involving your self with such bunch of lairs? I think it would be much better if you your self (or some one like minded) can start an organization or at least an online list that would bring real historian together on AIT/OIT and many other related topics, but at the same by including only those who at least doubt the AIT and would be willing to debate on hard evidence and without calling names.<br /><br />I do understand that it is absolutely necessary to allow freedom of expression in open forums but currently groups like AAR and lists like RISA are not allowing honest people like you to debate at all by calling you names and banning your entries (and now kicking you out of their organization altogether!) and may be there are others who do doubt AIT but do not dare to express themselves out of fear. Such a platform will allow honest historians to debate without fearing expulsion or outcasting by so called "eminent historians".Mayur Punekarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09376777152702965449noreply@blogger.com