[Xmca-l] Re: logic & gender

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Thank you, Rein, for the scholarly specifics.


To others, I don't mean to sound pedantic. It's just that it's important that we understand that we in the West are the only smart people on the planet. And that we are, by being modern, not more intelligent than the Ancients. There is a great deal of work from the Ancients, not just on logic, but also on the mind.


There's lifetimes required to study it all.


Still, because it is not covered in Western academia in the sense of general survey, say as is done with Ancient Greek literature and philosophy, it means unless you are a specialist there is little examples of cross-pollination that can allow us appreciate how it is that we are standing on the shoulders of Giants. That's why I am a fan of Arjun Appadurai. He's very aware of Marxist thought, and from what I sense an appreciation of Vedic values, and he's also quite savvy about media studies. He has been the only example I've been able to find (so far) of this cross-pollination, but I'm hoping there will in time be others.


There are many Vedanta concepts that have filtered into the West, and the more I learn about it, I almost want to say it's the genesis of human knowledge, or at least the means of human knowledge, but I would sound very biased or chauvinist; I don't have enough historical scholarship to support my assertion. So it is my intuition and I hope it would be received and appreciated in that light. Where there's smoke, there's fire.


Also, I would like to make a distinction between Brahmanist and Vedanta. They are not the same things, though there is cultural overlap. "Brahmanist" in my experience is a term Buddhists use. I've never heard that word in any other context. In fact Hinduism is not a real word either. It is just some term applied to the people of India generated by a king in Afghanistan, I think.


Religious Hindus do not separate their spiritual life from every day life, and some are more religious than others, but the term that they apply to themselves is "Sanatana Dharma" which loosely translates to "protectors of Dharma." Dharma is a difficult word to translate into English, and the word has a different significance in Buddhism. But roughly, it means the order of the universe, but also following the order of the universe, which is basically to remain in harmony and to protect harmony. I don't mean at all to give any appearance of expertise in the is area, just sharing my limited understanding. It's hard to explain how one can protect harmony, but perhaps it has more to do with protecting the knowledge that reveals how to appreciate that harmony. So it has to do with passing down a tradition to posterity, a tradition whose core is knowledge.


Anyway, my main point is that the Ancients knew a lot, even logic. We shouldn't dismiss them so easily. There's a lot that can be harvested from their understandings that would benefit us today.


But as far as logic goes, I remain steadfast that logic is a tool and that it has to do with our values and our dedication not to harm others, as well as allowing any human alive the space and resources required to flourish.


Even children require safe places to play.


Kind regards,


Annalisa