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Category: Popular
Taking sides when good and evil is unclear
One of the things that I admitted when reflecting on where I’ve been wrong, is that my default stance is to be somewhat isolationist because international entanglements are so complex. Some critics always wonder why I use such a simple heuristic, why not evaluate on a case by case basis?
At the extreme, this is obviously what would happen. But most cases are not at the extreme. The reality is I know more about history and geography than the vast majority of people, and I just don’t feel comfortable offering definitive judgment on many issues.
In the USA today the Right is pro-Israel to a default, to such an extent that it strikes me that they are as pro-Israel as they are pro-American. At least their in their rhetorical posture. Similarly, the Left is now pro-Palestine to a very great extent.
We could conclude that both the Right and Left have thought through their positions deeply and come to a reasoned position, but the reality is that these are just tribal politics. A subset of the Right adheres to a philo-Israeli theological position that has emerged in the last few decades, and these dictate the terms for the broader Right. Similarly, a small group of activists have kept and amplified the fire of 1970s Left nationalism which aligned with Palestine, and merged with more mainstream “social justice” views so that the pro-Palestinian position is now the Left position.
This is the case with many issues. Tribal politics and coalitional affinities drive solidarity and opinions. When your enemy was the Nazis, things get much easier. But these are very rare cases. Reality is more complex.
Which gets to why I used Ilhan Omar and Sarah Palin to illustrate this post. Both are very sincere and very stupid. So they have strong unnuanced opinions on foreign affairs, even if they could barely navigate a map. They are the best models for “hash tag activists.”
America does a good job assimilating immigrants
Priyanka Chopra tweeted during a time when we were this ?? close to sending nukes to one another. Instead of advocating for peace she tweeted in support of the Indian army pic.twitter.com/LhbMkOW59v
— Ayesha Malik (@Spishaa) August 11, 2019
If you are lucky, you are not aware that Priyanka Chopra got “called out” by a young Pakistani woman for “encouraging nuclear war against Pakistan.”
On the face of it seems very unlikely that Chopra was doing anything more than making a vanilla patriotic statement during a very tense time (I assume literally no one except for insane people would have wanted nuclear war in any case or even a conventional war!).
Though the initial stories referred to a “Pakistani woman”, you can tell by the accent that she was raised in the USA. In fact, she was naturalized as an American citizen at a very young age (she posted the certificate on her Facebook page). To be honest, even when I heard her referred to as Pakistani (she refers to herself as such), I was a bit skeptical and suspected perhaps she was actually American because this sort of self-righteous grandstanding is what America teaches the current generation.
Ayesha Malik is self-centered, ignorant, and milking an issue of genuine geopolitical concern to elevate her own individual profile as a beauty vlogger. Very American.
Open Thread – Brown Pundits
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Kashmir “open thread”
Nothing to say of substance myself. What do I know compared to you geniuses? That being said, I’m a little surprised how dumb the American media is ( basically they seem to fall back on the same sources).
Like they used to say back in the day, “it’s yours”….
Memory outlives flesh
In the comments below a reader asks a legitimate question: why the focus on Indo-Aryans when the most probably model suggests that even among the most “Aryan” of South Asian groups the ancestry attributable to the Andronovo-Sintashta people are only on the order of 30%? In most of northern South Asia, the fraction is probably closer to 10%, and it is far lower in the south (there is a concomitant varna gradient as well).
The exact point estimate will change, but it is almost assured that most of the ancestry of Indo-Aryan speaking South Asians is going to derive from the people who were resident within the Indian subcontinent when the Indo-Aryans arrived. So why the arguments and debates about Indo-Arans?
To understand this I will move the discussion out of a South Asian context first:
O most valiant and blessed martyrs! O truly called and elected unto the glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ! Which glory he that magnifies, honors and adores, ought to read these witnesses likewise, as being no less than the old, unto the Church’s edification; that these new wonders also may testify that one and the same Holy Spirit works ever until now, and with Him God the Father Almighty, and His Son Jesus Christ Our Lord, to Whom is glory and power unending for ever and ever. Amen.
– Perpetua
The above is the conclusion of the witness and statement of St. Perpetua, a young Christian woman martyred by the Roman authorities on account of her faith. For over 1,000 years Christians have identified with and drawn strength from Perpetua. Young Catholic women in Poland cry to this day when they read her story. The story of Perpetua is their story in some deep way.
When Perpetua was being sent to her death, the ancestors of the Polish women who identify so great with her were pagans, practicing slash and burn agriculture south of the Baltic shore. They were worshipping and venerating gods which in fact held a distant relationship to those of the Rig Veda!
Many of us may laugh at the fact that Pakistanis venerate Muhammad bin Qasim , when if he were alive today he likely have contempt for the “black crows” which bow down before the Arab god (Qasim lived before a more universalistic Islam emerged, and when the sect was very much a cult of the Arabs of the Arabs). Similarly, the origin priests of the Indo-Aryans would probably look with confusion and bewilderment at the “black” people speaking with their voice.
But speak they do! The power of the Indo-Aryans is the power of memory over flesh. In the Bible, Ruth states that “thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried…”
What language did the mleccha speak? I am convinced that some of them surely spoke dialects related to those of southern India, though the existence of Burushashki points to greater complexities than we may imagine. What gods did they worship? There are suppositions one can make about the non-Aryan elements of Indian culture. They are likely numerous, constitutive to an understanding of Indian culture, but they are the background. The frame.
In the foreground is the name and the speech of the Aryans. The very words which roll off our tongues, and the memories of the heroes of yore. The Aryans obtained their cultural immortality by implanting in the other peoples of the Indian subcontinent their speech, their mythos, and their very identity.
Open Thread – Brown Pundits
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I’m reading Buddhism: A History. That inspired me to write The Invention Of World Religions 2,000 Years Ago. One of the assertions in the book which I would be curious as to reader opinion: Advaita has more in common with classical Indian Buddhism than the Mahayana sects of East Asia.
They’ll protest more the more they are wrong
A friend seny me the above clip. Some comments:
* The affect, style, and mannerism is very familiar to me. It reminds me of Muslim and Christian Creationist public speakers, who exhibit an air and manner of incredible confidence to audiences who want what they have on offer. Validation. Confirmation.
* The citations of the scholarly literature indicate that the theories of are based on some provisional work…but notice the shift from provisionality to refutation and vindication in the presentation. Just because it is in peer-reviewed journals does not mean it is true.
* Civilization comes from India is the conclusion. The above speaker is sophisticated and intelligent, but the ultimate rub is the same as Indocentric fabulists of the past.
In the past few years, genetic evidence on human differences has become more obvious. The reaction, in the West, is to declare even more strongly that no differences exist, or even could exist. Westerners and Indians are probably very similar, at least the activist sorts that consider these sorts of issues. In the near future, a substantial amount of ancient DNA will be published in India which will resolve current questions to all those approaching it with an open mind. But the ideologues will become even more strident and marshal greater and greater numbers of irrelevant citations.
They believe because it is absurd.
Open Thread – Brown Pundits
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Podcast with Suhag Shukla of the Hindu American Foundation
Update: The podcast was recorded yesterday. So I edited it today, so if you are a patron you can already listen.
I’ll be interviewing Suhag Shukla of the Hindu Amerian Foundation for the BrownCast. I have some questions I’m going to ask, but this is a podcast where I am willing to take suggestions.
So if you have questions, put them in the comments (note that I’m not going to be the only person on the podcast, so I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to get to your question).