Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya: A Centenary Salute

"Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya: A Centenary Salute to Multifaceted Philosopher" by SK Pande, NewsClick, 05 Nov 2018

"A humanist, Marxist, staunch lover of reason, scientific temper and secularist to the core, Chattopadhyaya’s absence is greatly felt as secular India faces threats from Hindutva forces that strive to take the country back to the dark ages."

I have been familiar with the work of Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya (19 November 1918 – 8 May 1993) for many years. Here are a couple items on my web site:

Chattopadhyaya, Debiprasad. Indian Philosophy: A Popular Introduction (Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1972 [orig. 1964]), chapter 28: Lokayata, pp. 184-199; notes, pp. 221-223.

Chattopadhyaya, Debiprasad. “Science and Philosophy in Ancient India,” in Marxism and Indology, edited by Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya (Calcutta; New Delhi: K. P. Bagchi & Company, 1981), pp. 231-262.

And see:

Ramakrishna, G. "Some Loud Thinking About the Bhagavadgita," in Marxism and Indology, edited by Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya (Calcutta; New Delhi: K. P. Bagchi & Company, 1981), pp. 216-221.

Globalization of obscurantism (2)

I have alternated posts on this topic on this blog and on my Studies in a Dying Culture blog.  The latest post on the latter blog is:

Globalization of obscurantist philosophy

There I lay out the underlying logic of this trend, with specific current examples.

Two other principle general entry points into this topic are:

Ethnoepistemology (Studies in a Dying Culture)

Globalization of obscurantism (this blog)

The most generic keywords on which to search this topic are ‘globalization’, ‘ethnophilosophy’, ‘postmodernism’, and ‘liberalism’ or ‘neoliberalism’. But any post on non-western philosophy is likely to be relevant, the most numerous being ‘Asian philosophy’ or ‘Chinese philosophy’, but also any philosophy related to India, but see also ‘American philosophy’ and ‘Native American philosophy’. Also 'Eurocentrism' and 'pluralism' are relevant keywords.

Paul N. Siegel: The Meek and the Militant

The Meek and the Militant: Religion and Power Across the World by Paul N. Siegel (1986)

    Contents, Preface, chapters 1-3, 9

    Chapter 10: sections "The Castroites and Religion", "The Sandinistas and Religion", "Religion and the Struggle for Socialism"

No one can accomplish everything in one book, but this one is one of the best surveys of the socio-political history of religion that I have seen, from a Marxist perspective.  In this respect, it is far more comprehensive than Alexander Saxton's more recent Religion and the Human Prospect.

Part 1 sets up the philosophical and methodological approach to the analysis of religion. Siegel begins with the French Enlightenment's materialism and critique of religion. He moves on to its criticism by Marx and Engels, and their approach to religion and society. Siegel compares genuine Marxism to Modernist Christianity, agnosticism, Freud, Stalinism, and early Christianity.

Part 2 sketches the social roots and dynamics of the major Western religions, with chapters on Judaism Catholicism, Protestantism, the United States. Part 3 covers the religions of Asia and the Middle East: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.

Part 4 covers the relationship between religion and socialist movements, in Russia (Lenin and others), China, Cuba, Nicaragua, with a concluding section on "Religion and the Struggle for Socialism".

I have not read enough to comment on the entirety of the book. Sections 2 and 3 are reasonable in their ambitions to give a view of what historically and socially motivates the major players on the world scene of religion (with the exception of the New Age thought of the 20th century). Siegel's attempt at comprehensiveness will be very useful for readers, who can then proceed to fill in the details and whatever lapses there are, elsewhere.

I would like rather to concentrate on the overall perspective of the book and particularly on Part 1. Siegel's premise is that Marxists must collaborate with religious people while maintaining their independent philosophical perspective. The translation of this general principle, which I think is a no-brainer, into specific circumstances and tactics, by no means yields a clear perspective. Even dodgier, with possibly sinister implications, is Lenin's principle, indicated at the beginning and end of the book, that "the revolutionary party will subordinate the struggle against religion to the class struggle" (emphasis mine). All depends on the meaning and application of the notion "subordinate". First, there's never a uniformity of social development and action, and different individuals play different social roles at different times. It is not the business of any revolutionary organization to subordinate everyone it can get its hands on to a single action and a single goal. Furthermore, in a world degenerating into incoherence, retrogression, and unreason, there is no one movement, let alone organization, that unequivocally embodies the forces of social progress and reason. The politics that Siegel envisions is dead.

There are two other philosophical points on my agenda:

Siegel's exposition of classic dialectical materialism, while it could be worse, should not be taken as is. The notion of dialectical laws and logic touted by both Stalinists and Trotskyists remains crude and logically vulnerable.

The third and most important philosophical point, a problem in all Marxist literature on the subject, concerns the origins of religion and supernaturalism and the mechanisms of superstition and magical thinking. The Marxist insight that religion is tied to mystification and alienation with respect to nature and social relations is essential, articulated front and center in a way that is missing in the mainstream Anglo-American agitprop on the subject. However, this is only a framework from which to begin. Saxton in his unimaginative empiricism criticizes Marxian formulations, and himself attempts to fill in the gaps with evolutionary psychology and an account of the "crisis of consciousness" which engendered religion as a survival tool insulating the human species against the fear of death. The psychological mechanisms, social functions, motivations, rationalizations, social functions, and deployment of magical thinking and superstition are more variegated than the usual Marxist adumbrations and Saxton's supplementary explanation account for.

I emphasize also that a look into the intrinsic mechanisms of supernaturalist mystification should expand Marxist approaches to the subject beyond the instrumentalist attitude towards religion as either reactionary (ruling class) or emancipatory (liberation movements). The issue of social forces and the quality of life is more than what you can use.

With these reservations in mind, I hope we can prepare ourselves for the next stage in the analysis of religion.

Back to nature or the Bhagavad-Gita?

The Birth of Philosophy
Volume XXVII, No. 1, MANAS Reprint, January 2, 1974, pp. 1-5.

The "back to nature" trend that had seized a percentage of the population by the early 1970s is not considered transient here. It is questioned, however, by poet Annie Dillard, who sees nature as a monstrous scenario of proliferation, reproduction, and death. The author of this article sees this dilemma already present in the Bhagavad-Gita, and here once again we are treated to the sociopathic advice given to Arjuna by Krishna. This world view evidently is the author's "solution". Disgusting!

Globalization of obscurantism

See also my original post with comments at Freethought Forum.

Written 15 January 2007:

“The trouble with most folks ain’t so much their ignorance as knowing so many things that ain’t so.”
— Josh Billings

“Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”
—Meslier, Voltaire, Diderot?

What a world of contradictions. A world of many dead ends. Today I celebrate with anger the birthday of revolutionary Baptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr., mourn the death of jazz musician Alice Coltrane (a convert to Hinduism), and commemorate the birthday of a pioneer of freethought and the Enlightenment:

Jean Meslier (January 1664—1733): Priest, Materialist, Atheist

Here in the USA of course we are preoccupied with the threats of the Christian Right and fundamentalist Islam. More generally, we are known to complain about the Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam—and more generally still about theism. But that’s only the half of it. The rest of the world is as bankrupt as the half we know.

Some of us also have an interest in Eastern religions and mysticisms and are concerned with their validity or invalidity. Then of course there are African belief systems which outside of their areas of origin only have a significant impact on segments of the black diaspora.

It’s a world of ignorance, superstition, and savagery.

But it’s also important to note that there is a whole history of collusion of western and non-western obscurantism that began with the European penetration of China and India in the 17th century, i.e. linkages to the most reactionary inidigenous ideologies—Confucianism and Hinduism. Such collusion persists in altered forms in the present day, with Western postmodernism fueling Hindu and Confucian revivals, for example. Globalization, instead of harkening a new Enlightenment, is bringing us to the verge of a new Dark Age. The main culprits are the neoliberal economic order, neo-imperialism, and neo-fascist religious revivalism, but this barbarism carries on its work in the realms of theology and philosophy as well.

Here are a few links to show you what I mean.

First, you can keep up with other relevant writings of mine on my own blog:

Studies in a Dying Culture

The permalinks for recent entries are:

Reactionary Chinese & other wisdom in comparative perspective

The Legitimacy of Chinese Philosophy (1)

The Legitimacy of Chinese Philosophy (2)

On another front, see a blog entry from December:

The Dead End of African Philosophy: Which Way Out?

On still another, see: Swami Agehananda Bharati (1923–1991)

In December I published a review in the Indian press:
“Secularism, science and the Right”[Review of Meera Nanda, The Wrongs of the Religious Right: Reflections on Science, Secularism and Hindutva], Frontline, Volume 23, Issue 24, Dec. 02–15, 2006.

See also: Meera Nanda Online

“Fascism has awakened a sleeping world to the realities of the irrational, mystical character structure of the people of the world.”—Wilhelm Reich

Religious ideologies & the social order, secularization theory & cross-cultural studies

Written 1 January 2007:

I have learned a lot over the past few years from studies of the history of New Age thought, the western appropriation of the philosophies of India, China, and Japan, and cross-cultural studies of religion and mysticism, particularly comparing India and the West. Sources can be found at the bottom section of my atheism web guide. Let me also point out my recently published book review:

Dumain, Ralph. “Secularism, science and the Right” [Review: Nanda, Meera. The Wrongs of the Religious Right: Reflections on Science, Secularism and Hindutva. Gurgaon (Haryana), India: Three Essays Collective, July 2005. 118 pp. ISBN paper 81–88789–30–5. http://www.threeessays.com/titles.php?id=18], Frontline [India’s National Magazine from the publishers of The Hindu], Volume 23, Issue 24, Dec. 02–15, 2006.
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2324/stories/20061215000507400.htm

I experienced a sudden insight at the tail end of a four-day philosophy conference, just concluded:

The American Philosophical Association
Eastern Division One Hundred Third Annual Meeting,
Washington, DC, December 27—30, 2006
http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/divisions/eastern/

It happened during this session:

VIII-K. Special Session Arranged by the APA Committee on the Status of Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies
Topic: Tensions in the Making of “Self” Across Cultures: Some Themes Invoking Interactive Prospects

Chair: P. M. John (Westfield State College)
Speakers: David R. Schiller (Independent Scholar)
“Moral Leaders, Practical Harmonics, and Moral Delight”
Ifeanyi Menkiti (Wellesley College)
“‘I Am Because We Are’—A Traditional Answer to a Modern Question?: Reflections on the Hermeneutics of ‘Self’ in African Culture”
Brad Art (Westfield State College)
“A ‘Suffering’ Job in Search of his ‘Self’: An Existential Encounter in the Judaeo-Christian Tradition”
P. M. John (Westfield State College)
“The Samsaric, the karmic, and the Real ‘Self’ in Hinduism: From an Illusory World to the Real Brahman through a Reciprocal Karma”

The program was shuffled around a bit, but I was there for three presentations—on the cosmological and religious beliefs concerning the self in Hinduism (India), the Book of Job (Old Testament), and traditional sub-Saharan African societies. This session was absolutely fascinating, because I learned not only what was taught but something extra that was not: how to relate religious ideologies to the social structures from which they are derived. This latter element was left out of the talks entirely and I interjected it after each talk. However, the self-contained systematic presentation of each of these belief systems was highly illuminating.

The analysis of the Book of Job revealed subtleties in Old Testament Judaism I had never appreciated before, also giving me a new perspective with which to criticize it I had never dreamed of before. The treatment was so subtle and nuanced I should repeat it in detail, as there are some deep lessons to be learned about the structure and motivation of the belief system of the ancient Hebrews and their relation to their god. There was, however, no mention made of the real historical circumstances under which the Book of Job was written or was admitted into the canon.

I was always puzzled why Meera Nanda (see my book review above) treated Hinduism unfavorably in comparison to the monotheistic religions of the Middle East. Listening to the exposition this afternoon, I finally realized why Hinduism is the most horrible religion ever devised by man. Comparing these belief systems, it became clear to me that Hinduism is absolutely the worst of all of them, and I let the speaker on the subject have it with both barrels. He was not inclined to defend it, but he was unable to say anything in response. Then another member of the audience, who looked like he may have been from that part of the world, went on by citing some horrors from the Laws of Manu.

The African speaker was more general in his characterization of conceptions of the self in traditional African societies, but the organization of village life and the role of the ancestors (the deceased) gave at least a broad context to the social function of their belief systems.

You can learn a great deal from the internal conceptual structure of these world views, but you cannot truly understand them without measuring them up to the social orders they are designed to stabilize. But you must also not simply view them as irrelevant disorganized effluvia or mumbo jumbo whose content is entirely arbitrary. The key is in the interaction between the ideologies and their societies, and the role that superstition plays in the relations connecting the known and the unknown, the facts of existence and a regulative conception of Right. I’m not saying anything new, but I spontaneously realized how to apply this insight in any situation that calls for it.

And then I had another sudden insight as to just how worthless Dawkins and Dennett and Sam Harris really are in explaining anything about how ideologies are created, structured, and passed on in societies. There is nothing there. It’s as if every society that ever was is structured like a free market in which some advertising (meme) is more attractive and memorable than another. It is just that childish. Dawkins simply doesn’t have a clue. He doesn’t know anything. And he is ideologically determined in a way of which he is totally unconscious, which is just what ideology is. It’s not like I didn’t realize it before, but now it was suddenly clear as to how an approach to the subject matter must be entirely different.

And there is also a reason why the groupies of Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris are as ignorant as they are. They know they hate religion, superstition, authoritarianism, ignorance, dishonesty, hypocrisy, stupidity, and delusional thinking—which is not to be sneezed at!—but the problem is, they don’t really have a handle on anything else about society and ideas. In other words, atheists in America are just like other Americans. Maybe this should be a selling point: “We are just like you, only slightly less clueless.”

I have started out the new year reading about theories of secularization and their application to different societies and historical periods. And then it hit me that this is what we need in our milieu. This is the missing link.

As far as I can tell, we are on two different tracks that converge or diverge in confusing ways, which I will now enumerate in a simplified fashion as extremes:

(1) separation of church and state (religion and government),

(2) agitation for (a) atheism or (b) the public acceptance of atheists.

While (1) and (2b) are compatible, (1) and (2a) sometimes work at cross-purposes. When you interact with the public, do you really want to get caught up in arguing about the existence of a god when other priorities take precedence? There are of course, gradations of issues in between, from issues of secularization and reason in the public sphere to the problems of revealed religions and superstitions. This middle ground, in addition to church-state separation, is our real battlefield. The assault on “God” as an abstract concept is only of significance in (a) its conflation with specific religious systems, beliefs, and institutions, (b) its role in pseudoscience, (c) the incompatibility of the anthropomorphic attributes of God with what scientific knowledge has taught us about the universe.

In addition to all the arguments we need to muster to combat ignorance in all these areas, we need to understand more about the relation of superstitions to social forces, and thus we need to attend to comparative studies and especially theories of secularization and desecularization. For this purpose, we have to push Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Shermer out of our way, for they are not only useless but positively harmful.