Gandhi: Two Books to Guide

Sitting alone in a motel room one night in Hawarden, Iowa, after working a long day blacktopping roads, I turned on the TV and came across a movie about this man Gandhi. I only caught the end, but I learned that he was a saintly man and that when mortally shot by an assassin, he uttered the words “God, God, God”. (To what extent this is accurate, I don’t know, although I think that the actual recitation would have been “Ram, Ram, Ram”.) In any event, I don’t recall if I’d heard of this man before, but the brief exposure the film piqued my curiosity. (N.B. This was well before Richard Attenborough’s 1982 film biography, Gandhi.) I went on to read Louis Fisher’s biography, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (1948) and then Erik Erickson’s Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence, a consideration of Gandhi from Erickson’s unique psychoanalytic perspective. After that flurry of interest, college and an introduction to a wider world of ideas and experiences led me off in other directions—until now, when I find myself in Gandhi’s homeland. I look upon his continence each time I hold a piece of paper money. 

The 20^th century is marked by a handful of titanic political figures. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao comprise a trio of titanic evil marked by war, genocide, and mass murder. Yet each is a complex, daunting, and fascinating human being embedded in their unique times and cultures. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were titans in liberal democracies who rose in response to the crisis of the Great Depression (FDR) and WWII (WSC). Each led his respective nation into and through the war. Together they led their nations into a mutual alliance that triumphed by the end of the 20^th century. Both of them were immensely complex figures, certainly not angels, but canny politicians and strategic thinkers. And then there is the titan Gandhi. Gandhi, the rather unassuming young man turned barrister, turned activist, turned ascetic, turned politician, turned saint, turned father of the nation. One might argue that he proves more difficult to grasp than any of the other titanic political figures of the 20^th century. 

Two books of late, both by authors who attended and presented at JLF, have provided me with new insights into Gandhi. Richard Sorabji’s Gandhi and the Stoics: Modern Experiments in Ancient Values (2012, 203 p.) delves into Gandhi’s thought through the lens of the ancient Stoic philosophies. In Sorabji, a British academic born of Indian immigrant parents, one could not find anyone more qualified person to make this comparison. Sorabji is a revered scholar of ancient philosophy and a wonderfully precise thinker and writer. Sorabji makes his case through careful consideration of Gandhi’s writings and Stoic teaching, while acknowledging from the beginning that Gandhi was not acquainted with Stoic thought (except perhaps to the extent of some fleeting exposure to Epictetus). While Sorabji cannot locate any direct Stoic influence on Gandhi, he does note a number of other well-documented influences: Socrates, Jesus (Mathew’s Gospel and the Sermon on the Mount, in particular), Thoreau, John Ruskin (Unto this Last), Tolstoy (e.g., The Kingdom of God Is Within You), and the Bhagavad Gita are the most prominent and influential. (Gandhi was very well read man, and he continued to expand his reading while jailed.) In addition to knowing what Gandhi read, we have what he wrote, which is immense. Indeed, Sorabji argues that Gandhi qualifies as a philosopher because he led a very examined life, and he did so publicly in order to invite comment and criticism. 

Despite the lack of a direct connection between the Stoics and Gandhi, the comparison proves quite fruitful because both traditions (Gandhi alone, I think, can constitute a tradition) attempt to deal with love, emotion, and our engagement with the wider world. Our current, popular notion of Stoicism is quite warped in relation to the ancient practice. We think of Mr. Spock as the ideal Stoic, at his best when he allows his emotions to overcome his rational mind. But this understanding, along with any sense of Gandhi as bound by any absolute standards, misses the very carefully considered analysis of emotions (including love and care) that mark these two traditions. Sorabji’s thorough, point-by-point consideration of the particulars of each position, takes us deeply into each. And, as I believe, each tradition has a rich vein of wisdom that we should mine, the book proves very worthwhile. 

In perusing the speaker list for JLF,  I came across the names of Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph, and I learned that they are retired (but very active) University of Chicago political scientists who have written very extensively about Indian politics (and whom are part-time Jaipur residents). Upon checking, I learned that my trusty Kindle could deliver Postmodern Gandhi and Other Essays: Gandhi in the World and at Home (2006) to me, and I purchased it. This book of essays considers Gandhi, his life and thought, from a number of different angles: his critique of modernity, his reception in America, the effect of Nehru’s different relation to modernity on partition, the ashram as public space, and importance of courage to Gandhi and his movement. Each essay mines its topic carefully and with revealing and insightful conclusions. By referencing political thinkers with whom I have prior acquaintance, like Reinhold Niebuhr, Hannah Arendt, and Jürgen Habermas, the Rudolphs help better situate Gandhi and his project in my existing political taxonomy. 

Perhaps the only contention I have with their work is their designation of Gandhi as postmodern. I often worry that the term “postmodern”, along with its predecessor, “modern”, is too slippery. But even setting aside that concern (which can certainly be addressed by careful acknowledgments up-front), this designation of Gandhi as postmodern seems to reach too far. One can argue more persuasively that Gandhi is pre-modern: his dedication to spinning and village life hardly smack of 19^th century ideals, not to speak of 20^th or 21^st century norms. Gandhi and those he draws upon, like Ruskin and Tolstoy, are certainly critics of modernity that demand a hearing, but none of them strike me as having provided a compelling counter-narrative (although I’m sadly not well enough acquainted with Ruskin’s work to say that with certainty). Ashrams and village life may have their place in postmodern world, but only as one alternative in plural world. People in India and around the world have voted (and are voting) with their feet by leaving villages and migrating to cities for reasons economic and cultural. While I have a homespun (khadi) vest, I don’t delude myself that I and about 1.1 billion fellow humans here in India can cloth ourselves adequately without the aid of mechanical looms. People want the benefits of economic development and of (at least some) cultural freedom that the traditional (pre-modern) Indian life that Gandhi extolled can’t provide. Indeed, I perceive the village (and villagers transplanted into Indian megacities) as a huge and difficult challenge to India, especially for young Indian women who aspire to some level of gender equality and greater personal dignity, it appears to me that the pre- modern village mentality is a mortal threat. What Gandhi did not provide, and that we must, is a way through the problems of modernity, the problems of environmental degradation, rampant consumerism, and social alienation. In their place, we are challenged to establish new forms of meaning and society consistent with Enlightenment values. Gandhi as a critic of modernity and as a philosopher of personal values holds some sway with me, but Gandhi as political visionary does not. (N.B. Gandhi’s political heir, Nehru, did India no great favors with his modernist and statist political vision.)

I’m looking forward to reading more about Gandhi and grappling with the enigma of this amazing man, and I can do so with the greater insight having read these two excellent books.

Cross-posted on Steve's View from Abroad

 

12/20: Myth and Ritual in Christianity by Alan Watts

 

    Myth and Ritual in Christianity by Alan Watts (1953). If you’ve ever attended a Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or Anglican liturgy, you may have wondered about all the ritual actions and words. What’s going on here? I’ve wondered, having grown up in the Catholic Church, especially about the complex and rich liturgy of Holy Week. Well, Alan Watts explains what’s going on, the symbolism and the metaphysics. It was hard to pick one Watts book, as I’ve read and enjoyed a number of them, but this one has been referenced many times, and therefore this one gets the nod. 

Taming the Gods

Preface: Another author from the Jaipur Literature Festival whose book I have just completed. 

Ian Buruma’s Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy onThree Continents (2010)(132 p.) is a collection of three essays about the intersection of religion and politics. One essay focuses on the U.S., one on China and Japan, and the last on Islam in Europe. Buruma draws upon a careful review of the history of all three areas to show how complex and historically rich the interaction has been between religion and politics since the advent of the modern period. In the U.S., we’ve always had a culture of highly individualistic, equalitarian Protestantism along with the more traditional denominations. In addition, the American Founders were all Enlightenment thinkers who incorporated the separation of Church and State into the Constitution and culture. Thus, while religion has to varying degrees always influenced politics, the State has remained neutral. However, as Buruma’s account makes clear, this separation seems always subject to question, especially by evangelical Christians in recent years after staying mostly away from politics after the 1920’s. I think that their influence is waning; it waxed with the G.W. Bush presidency. 

The second essay addresses the relations of politics and religion in China and Japan, and while we don’t think of either of those nations having current issues about religion and politics, Buruma recounts the history of both that reveals  very complex interactions. Indeed, issues of nationalism, Western domination, modernization, and the values of local (and often conflicting) traditions suggests that any current calm could break into a storm if conditions deteriorate too greatly in either country. The Mandate of Heaven can prove fickle. 

The third and final essay addresses the very tricky issue of Islam and Europe. We think of Europe as too cool, too sophisticated for religion, as religious practice among Christians has fallen especially in the last 30 years. But as Buruma notes, Europe has been through its religious wars and conflicts for centuries, and any lessons it can claim for tolerance and multi-culturalism have been won as much (or more) with blood as with reason. Buruma also notes that radical Islam receives its impetus from feelings of social inferiority and unhinged identities that take the issues to political and then violent extremes in some cases. Buruma discusses how different European nations (Britain, France, and the Netherlands) each address issues of Islam, and even Christianity, quite differently. Britain follows a practice of broad tolerance and even promotion of Islamic culture (which in itself remains quite varied by region of origin), while France continues a practice a strict exclusion of religion from the public sphere. The Netherlands seems to have compromised somewhere in the middle, yet all three have suffered problems, including terrorism, from radicalized Moslem, most of whom are European-born young men who feel cut adrift in the dominant culture.

Buruma does a superb job of detailing the history and challenges of each of these cases that he addresses. His take on Europe includes detailed considerations of representative figures like Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Tariq Ramadan, each of whom raises special issues based on their cultural, national, and Western identities. 

Buruma concludes (and really begins) with the idea that toleration is the key so long as all parties remain non-violent and play by the rules of peaceful, democratic discourse. Of course I can’t disagree. However, the deeper and perhaps unanswerable question remains one of how to prevent the radicalization of individuals to the point where they will murder in furtherance of their agendas.  This problem has been with us for over a century (just limiting ourselves to the resistance to modern industrial society). For all of the formal regimes we can consider, none seems perfect to address this issue, but then, perhaps none exists.

A Match Made in . . . . This World

Pico Iyer's The Open Road: The Global Journeyof the Fourteenth Dalai Lama (2008) (252 p.) proved itself the ideal read following the Jaipur Literature Festival. As readers will know from either this blog or Iowa Guru's, these two individuals were both favorites in our family. The combination of subject and author didn't disappoint. 

Pico Iyer was a teenager when his parents drug him to Dharmasala, India to meet with the Dalai Lama, at that time a young and virtually unknown figure. The Dalai Lama had fled from the Chinese occupiers of Tibet in the late 1950's, and he'd taken with him a remnant of the nation and culture that was Tibet. Iyer's early introduction to this unique personage allowed Iyer access to the Dalai Lama and his community that few in the world can match. The even better news, however, isn't just Iyer's access, but his attitude. This is not an exercise in hagiography; instead, it’s a frank treatment of the many worlds in which this ordinary, extraordinary person lives. The extraordinary aspect of the DL's life arises from the requirement of fate (or karma?) that he must exist in multiple worlds at one time. The DL is political leader of the Tibetan people (although he's attempted—unsuccessfully—to slough off this burden), while at the same time, he serves as a global figure for peace and justice, as recognized by his Nobel Peace Prize. Even as a representative for Buddhism, he must occupy two positions simultaneously. As a representative for the values of Buddhism around the world, he emphasizes our common humanity and the universal concerns that Buddhism addresses to the world at large, including those of different religions or no religion at all. On the other hand, as a leading figure of the unique tradition of Buddhism that came from Tibet, he heads a practice that maintains shamanistic and ritual elements that are truly esoteric to most people, rather bizarre. Indeed, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition splits between the shamanistic rituals that seek to probe the interior world and another aspect of the tradition that emphasizes a highly developed philosophy that thrives on language and argumentation. Imagine the DL sitting pensively (as happens) as a young monk enters into argumentation with him and steps forward in a loud voice clapping his hands in the face of this revered figure to make a point. (Check out this video, which seems tame compared to a demonstration that I saw in Macbride Hall at the UI. Iyer notes that they trash talk playing b-ball, too.)

These and the many other dualities (or multiple realities) mark the DL's existence and create and define him. Arising at 3:30 every morning and meditating for four hours, he then enters into discussions and debates with scientists, religious leaders, and ordinary people (as he did at the Jaipur Literature Festival). When one contemplates this performance, it becomes truly mind-boggling. An ordinary peasant boy becomes a world-historical figure, coming out of one of the most remote and forbidding places in the world, but a country with a culture that is deeply rich in learning and art. 

Given his own multi-polarities, I can't imagine anyone more qualified to write this book than Pico Iyer. As a global wanderer and the product of multiple cultures, Iyer appears to gain some additional insight into this extraordinary man that I wouldn’t expect from others. Iyer understands and appreciates the ordinariness of him that complement his extraordinary performances. Iyer also describes the places, persons, and issues that surround the DL in a way that deepens and situates his observations of the man himself. 

For anyone interested in the Dalai Lama, Buddhism, Tibet, or, more widely, the challenges of how someone with deep moral convictions attempts to navigate this all-too cruel world, I can't recommend this book too highly.   

Cross-blogged in Steve's View from Abroad

11/20: The Spectrum of Consciousness by Ken Wilber

  

  

   The Spectrum of Consciousness by Ken Wilber (1973). I’ve read an awfully lot by Ken Wilber, and it wasn’t easy to pick a favorite, so I went with his first book (Spectrum) rather than his magnum opus, the very large tome Sex, Ecology & Sprituality. Given that Wilber is nothing if not comprehensive, SES might have gotten the nod, but in Spectrum I encountered for the first time someone who had read just about everything that I would every want to read (and still haven’t) and who then makes some sense of it all. Although Wilber has refined and revised his perspectives , you get a sense of his youthful exuberance in writing this book. Wilber reports that he was a (typical?) Duke undergrad when he was struck by a “what’s the meaning of all this?” moment and went off in search of answers. While earning an ABD in biochemistry he ranged over thought from East and West to make some sense of it all, and this book represents his first draft. It’s really quite amazing, and it’s kept me following his work for about three decades now.

10/20: On Violence by Hannah Arendt

 

On Violence by Hannah Arendt (1968). Arendt gets a second listing in this short book. In it, Arendt further updates her unique ideas about politics and challenges Mao Zedong: political power doesn’t flow from the barrel of a gun, but from persuasion. Guns are the mark of force; politics the realm of speech. Mao is right about the role of force and coercion in our lives, but I think that Arendt right about politics. Speech is the mark of democracy and reason.

Poupouri

Good quote from Keynes courtesy of Corey Robin: 

“The study of economics does not seem to require any specialised gifts of an unusually high order. Is it not, intellectually regarded, a very easy subject compared with the higher branches of philosophy and pure science? Yet good, or even competent, economists are the rarest of birds. An easy subject, at which very few excel! The paradox finds its explanation, perhaps, in that the master-economist must possess a rare combination  of gifts. He must reach a high standard in several different directions and must combine talents not often found together. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher—in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man’s nature or his institutions must lie entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood; as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near the earth as a politician.”

—John Maynard Keynes, “Alfred Marshall,” in Essays in Biography (New York: Norton, 1963), pp. 140-141.

 Probably true of a lot of callings. 

Checking out a new blog (to me) from a Nichiren Buddhist physician Alex Likerman, who practices at the University of Chicago. What do we think? I think that David Reynolds of Playing Ball on Running Water fame came out of the tradition as well, if I recall correctly. It originates from Japan.

 I read this (quote below) on the most recent post from Ken Wilber's blogsite, which would be good news indeed. After writing an incredible amount, Wilber seemed to have stopped and concentrated on getting his message out through other media. When it comes to understanding and synthesizing vast amounts of deep thinking over distances of disciplines, eras, practices, and so on, no one beats this master of bringing it all together to make some sense of it. Anyway, here's what he wrote: 

The following are two long endnotes, and one excerpt, from my recently finished book, Sex, Karma, Creativity, which is volume 2 of the Kosmos Trilogy, whose first volume is Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.  

At this point, however, I don't see anything on Amazon. 

9/20 The Double Vision by Northrup Frye

The Double Vision: Language and Meaning in Religion by Northrup Frye (1991). Frye was one of the outstanding literary critics and scholars of the 20^th century, and he published a large number of works, including The Anatomy of Criticism, The Great Code, and Fearful Symmetry, his fascinating study of William Blake, each of which I’ve read with great pleasure and reward. However, this small book really captures what for me is most intriguing about his work, this sense of “double vision”. It’s hard to describe, but the book holds many rewards for those who plunge in to it.

Richard Nixon's 100th Birthday

One of David Levine's famous Nixon caricatures from NYRB

I just learned that we passed the 100th anniversary of the birth of Richard Nixon on January 9th. I need to remark on this. Some preliminaries: 

In 1960, I endorsed Richard Nixon for president. I was in the 2nd grade. 

In 1968, I attended the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach that nominated Richard Nixon, and I supported him that fall agains HHH. I was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school. 

In 1972 I was a sophmore in college at the University of Iowa. I could finally vote, but I couldn't vote for Richard Nixon, although an overwhelming majority of Americans did so. 

In August 1974, I married the Iowa Guru and Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace. 

I've had occasion to read about him and consider him for a long time now. He is a perplexing and almost frightening character. Along with Lyndon Johnson, he was the dominant political figure in the post-WWII era. Ronald Reagan was Nixon's political child, not his superior. 

Yet for all his Shakespearean flaws, Nixon could have been a great president. Perhaps because of, perhaps in spite of, his titanic resentments and drive to get ahead, he thought strategically. He had a tremendous political intelligence; warped, but if you look at things that he did or wanted to do, especially domestically, like a welfare reform, environmental protection, health insurance, and so on. He looks like a flaming liberal by the standards of today. But yet again, he was indifferent to many of these innovative policies. He would sacrifice about anything to keep political advantage, including principles. 

His forte, and yet the arena that brought out the worst in him, was international affairs. Viet Nam, of course. Think of the opening to China, detente with the Soviet Union, arms limitation treaties, Chile. So much, so Machiavellian. 

Two books stand out in my mind about Nixon. One that I listened to just this year and that I enjoyed immensely, Nixonland by Rick Perlstein, which uses Nixon as the lens to look at the American political, social, and cultural scene from the mid-60's to the time of Nixon's re-election in 1972. Perlstein gives us a sense of the roaring resentments that motivated Nixon, and how he played his political hand to keep arising from the political ashes to ascend to the apex that he enjoyed in 1972.    

The other book is, of course, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man by Garry Wills. This is Wills as a young man who was a working journalist as well as classics scholar in the 1960's. He'd been plucked from obscurity by William F. Buckley and trained by the the regulars at the National Review. Nixon Agonistes got Wills booted from Buckley's good graces and those of the National Review faithful, but it was worth it. The insights of Wills are amazing, as is his writing. His journalism, which he's pretty much left behind, combined with his literary knowledge, made this an exciting read when I first read it in the summer of 1975. It's still a great treatise on American politics and this amazing character of Richard Nixon. 

Happy birthday, Dick, where ever you are!