He defines liberals as being wary of the preservation of institutions and the basis of their being sources of social hierarchy, inequality on gender race etc. and thus in favor of scrapping existing institutions or revamping them. And conservatives generally as the opposite. The rest of his paper depends on this definition of the liberal and conservative attitudes towards institutions- it’s at this point that I think his paper could warrant serious criticism in his evaluation of liberal and conservative attitudes towards institutions. He believes that this difference in vantage points contributes to the current polarization, zero-sum attitude in politics.

However, flawed as it might be (which I think is fair grounds for criticizing the article), its on this definition that his argument commences-BUT this isn’t what people here are contesting, what people are saying is that its his misunderstanding of Hinduism and essentially being an orientalist that irks them.

c) Guy picks conservatives as the Vaishnavites and liberals as the Shaivites

So, based on the idea of preserving our current institutions and strengthening them as they are he uses the Vishnu, not necessarily as a deity, but simply as a metaphor for this.

Likewise he uses shiva, being symbolic of the idea of change, used to represent the idea of scrapping or revamping current institutions to reflect the current, changing values and ideas of society.

This is where the big contention is-are Shiva and Vishnu as metaphors completely inappropriate? I don’t think they are.

SP, you as well as others say he just doesn’t understand any Hindu philosophy-that destroyer/preserver simply represents a cosmological distinction-and its at this point where I think you need take some time and study more than the introductory hindu mythologies like the epics and puranas. Shaivite and Vaishnavite theologies both have the physical concepts of creation/preservation/destruction, but it very much serves as the philosophical foundations for both. The Upanishads themselves provide the foundation for this concept. The idea of Maya which is important for both schools lies in the recognition of transience, Shaivites do place more emphasis on the idea of impermanence and the inevitability of change from both a values/morality and material standpoint. There aren’t saying there isn’t a need for order in the world, but that unyielding attachments to institutions can lead to bad results.

Likewise, the Vaishnav schools of thought place the idea of upholding an eternal dharma, as North Indian hindu types are always trying to call “sanatana dharma” Vaishnavite schools do place more of an emphasis on Vishnu reestablishing dharma. Like I said before, I don’t think its a coincidence that Vaishnavites even in their philosophy place more literal meaning on mythological epics like the Ramayan where righteousness is established and preserved (I think its interesting that even where Shaivism was more popular, monarchs in south india and southeast asia, such as in thailand, cambodia, indonesia etc still used the paraphernalia of Vishnu as their own symbols-symbols that represented the ongoing continuity of the king’s institutions incidentally-Garuda still remains the national symbols of Thailand and Indonesia).

So based on how Vaishnavite/Shaivite philosophies developed, I don’t think he’s out there in using shiva and vishnu as as metaphors-just don’t think of them as deities.

“d) Guy says “if only we could just make our politics more Hindu, as defined by complementarity of preservation and destruction, we could fix our two-party system;” goes on to talk about civility, play nice, no ad hominem insults, hardly referencing Hinduism beyond a very generalized principle, in short, using the idea of Vishnu and Shiva as a sort of cool rhetorical flourish from the “ancient East” when he’s really just talking about well-worn ideas of “getting along.”

His idea of getting along is based on the idea of reconciling the attachment and preservation of institutions with their being dissolved or changed entirely. His point is that within a democracy, different institutions work best when strengthened, but that they should also be reflective of changing social values/mores, demographics etc. you’re playing a game of semantics. Hairsplitting over the word “hindu” he’s not claiming or even implying that this is all of hindu philosophy or even that he’s advocating hinduism in its entirety-he’s just invoking the philosophical idea of preservation/change which is addressed in practically every hindu philosophy. some shaivite schools are more or less obsessed with this idea from a philosophical standpoint.

“Jumps from general religious ideas to a discussion of American politics without making any connections about how religion influences political behaviour, just implies “we’re too Manichean and we should be more Hindu”"

This isn’t about presenting some monolithic religious tradition-and I’ll agree he’s terrible with his semantics-but from what I understand the only “hindu” thing he’s advocating is the idea that we shouldn’t necessarily have a complete overhaul of our current institutions but that there still is a need for change to accomodate changing societal interests and composition.

“e) he kind of forgets that there’s loads of good vs evil battles in the epics, eternal gods vs demons stuff, and plenty of Hindu thought that could be used to argue quite the opposite of what he’s suggesting is “Hindu”"

and you forget that mythology is just simple didactism to encourage devotion- how do you explain duality of good and evil to a five year old? Puranas are not meant literally, nor do most, if any, advocate them as the source of philosophy. And if you’re reading the Mahabharata as representing the dichotomy of good/evil than you need to do a more thorough analysis than just Pandavas=good, Kauravas=bad. The Upanishads mention the manifestation of the Gunas in all beings, all three are manifest at any given and the amounts fluctuate-doesn’t really work if you believe in a total dichotomy. No swami would ever place anything from the puranas over anything from the upanishads, or even the old commentaries of the gurus and acharyas from within their own traditions.

“f) also, the grand principles of preservation-destruction have been part of Hindu culture for millenia but as philosophy/theology,”

yes, VERY much as the philosophical basis for various theologies-for example, it is the basis of ALL shaivite philosophy, particularly in South india, which is the stronghold of shaivism. Vaishnavism also acknowledges its importance, but generally has more of a bhakti/or karma yoga slant to it.

“and if it were so easy to just apply them as a mantra, why hasn’t it happened before? Because politics is much more complex than that, and because the trinity is a way of ordering and explaining the world, more cosmology than practical philosophy.”

Read comments above on its philosophical basis various hindu philosophies. If he got his ideas from Hinduism 101 as you put it, then you must’ve straight failed the damn course.

As for your second point, A) he doesn’t say its easy or that it can be implemented immediately, but to try and bring it somewhat into your perspective and not see everything as a zero-sum game.

g) At the end of the day, he seems interested in the Wisdom of the Ancient East in a pretty simplistic way and as a magic solution for the Ills of the Modern West; doesn’t really care to see Ancient East as a political system, just a set of classical ideas.

I agree with you one point, maybe two- he shouldn’t have labelled the whole thing as “Hinduism” and wisdom of the ancient east is a bit OTT. The second, where I might agree with you is in his defintion of liberals and conservatives and how they view societal institutions. But judging from your first reply, while you probably disagree with his definition as well, this isn’t what riled you up over the article.

Where I strongly disagree with you and what essentially spurred this entire argument is that preservation/change is not a basis of various hindu philosophies/ theologies and that he’s entirely incorrect in his usage of Shiva and Vishnu as metaphors. Based on how HE’S defining liberals and conservatives, I don’t think it is. And since he using only one hindu principle, I don’t think that warrants any examination of hinduism in India’s politics or nepal’s for that matter-in fact its entirely outside the scope of the argument. You argue that hinduism cannot be divorced at all from how its currently practiced. Well then, currently practiced by whom, based on whose understanding. Or are you the all knowing Swami who’s going to lay down those conditions for us?

It’s not his responsibility to write according to your personal views of hinduism-if he wanted to make a point, perhaps he shouldn’t have used the idea of Shiva and Vishnu at all, people have strong opinions about other religions, and you probably started off defensive as soon as you read the first paragraph.

a) The guy sees a problem with polarization and hostility between Republicans and Democrats in Congress b) Guy picks large, abstract idea of preservation/destruction from Hinduism, contrasts it to Manichean thinking (says that American politics is currently closer to manichean) c) Guy picks conservatives as the Vaishnavites and liberals as the Shaivites d) Guy says “if only we could just make our politics more Hindu, as defined by complementarity of preservation and destruction, we could fix our two-party system;” goes on to talk about civility, play nice, no ad hominem insults, hardly referencing Hinduism beyond a very generalized principle, in short, using the idea of Vishnu and Shiva as a sort of cool rhetorical flourish from the “ancient East” when he’s really just talking about well-worn ideas of “getting along.” Jumps from general religious ideas to a discussion of American politics without making any connections about how religion influences political behaviour, just implies “we’re too Manichean and we should be more Hindu” e) he kind of forgets that there’s loads of good vs evil battles in the epics, eternal gods vs demons stuff, and plenty of Hindu thought that could be used to argue quite the opposite of what he’s suggesting is “Hindu” f) also, the grand principles of preservation-destruction have been part of Hindu culture for millenia but as philosophy/theology, and if it were so easy to just apply them as a mantra, why hasn’t it happened before? Because politics is much more complex than that, and because the trinity is a way of ordering and explaining the world, more cosmology than practical philosophy. g) At the end of the day, he seems interested in the Wisdom of the Ancient East in a pretty simplistic way and as a magic solution for the Ills of the Modern West; doesn’t really care to see Ancient East as a political system, just a set of classical ideas.

The mirror image, I think, would be if someone said (as some have historically) that the problem with India’s politics is that it’s too amoral, and that’s because of the relativism of dharma and how it’s tied to social position, and if only we could apply the more manichean principles of right and wrong, perhaps derived from Christianity, we’d have less corruption. Imagine proposing that Indian politics needs to be “more Christian” – wouldn’t many Americans fall off their chairs laughing?

Kali represents the eternal principle in nature. She is traditionally pictured as a four-armed woman, standing on the form of the God Shiva or the Infinite, because nature or the phenomenal world is rooted in the Noumenon. The four arms symbolize cardinal attributes, two beneficent, two destructive, indicating the essential duality of matter or creation.

Its from the footnotes of Autobiography of a Yogi.

I am going to go out on a limb and say “Manichean religion of ancient Persia” is better for our Congress.

Your assumptions about “insecure brown people” who just want to put down the great religion or talk about social evils or whatever are misplaced; you may have an ongoing imaginary battle with social critics of Hinduism, but this is not one of those battles.

Clarify something, are you saying that a) his conception of the idea of “Shiva” and what It/he represents were flawed or b) that quote mischaracterizes RFK. If its the latter, then that’s one thing. But no one, other than saying its “obvious” can seem to explain how he misunderstood Shaivite theology or symbolism of Shiva.

i don’t think so. Rather that he got it wrong — RFK is not Shiva-equivalent– and was published spouting nonsense about something he misunderstood while seeming to be clever.

Ok, first off, this isn’t some “minor” element of modern/popular Hinduism. The concepts of the trimurti and the simultaneous creation, destruction, and preservation are common throughout different Hindu schools of thought-which major Hindu schools of thought have no concept of this? Or are you going to invoke the Lokayatas now?

And this is the part that I find particularly amusing, how does this conflict with the Gita or the epics? Or are you now suggesting that hindus are mistaken for believing in the trimurti and the Gita? In fact, the idea of creation, preservation and destruction as something ongoing is fairly evident in the Mahabharatam especially when read alongside the Gita. Are you even familiar with any of the epics?

“He also extrapolates from a philosophical opposition (which is arguably not even distinctively Hindu, but is found in most phil/religious traditions) to a particular political context in a rather clumsy way,

I disagree. Which religious tradition emphasizes the idea of transience and the simultaneous need for order more than various hindu schools? And the idea of using Vishnu as a metaphor for preserving our current institutions and Shiva as destroying, recreating them isn’t so out of whack with exclusivist Vaishnavite and Shaivite schools of thought, particularly those originating in the southern India. Both schools do retain the idea of preservation/destruction/creation, they emphasize different aspects. To me, its not just a matter of convienience that Vaishnavites, hold the ramayana so dear, when it celebrates the preservation of “good” institutions in the world-the upholding of dharma if you will, and Shaivites are perpetually obsessed with the idea of change, transcience and the idea of creation/preservation/destruction with their vibhuti and Nataraja.

“implies that “hindu politics” is defined by an idealized, pared-down complementarity of destruction-preservation (which neatly dovetails into the American liberal/conservative dichotomy) and takes this basic principle and essentializes it to imply that Hindus are less combative politically because of it. He seems more concerned with the idealized “classical” vision of Hinduism than with the reality of it in the political process, either in India or in Nepal. That’s what orientalists do, use “classical” or scriptural sources to essentialize a culture and assume it is governed wholly by these essential principles. I can’t take that seriously at all. “

If this was an LSAT question, your whole chunk of reasoning would have “outside the scope” of the argument. Reread the article, he never does any of what your implying. He even uses quotations at one point around the word “hindu” to emphasize he only means the idea of preservation/destruction, not everything else that comes along with it. Nor does he ever, even once say that Hindus in politics today are less combative because of anything. He’s not talking about hindus in politics, in India, or Nepal or Mauritius or wherever. He’s not talking about hindu culture either. He’s only talking about one principle aspect-but that aspect is very much at the heart of most Hindu schools of thought.

But to some extent, now I can finally understand where you real objection over this article is coming from. It mentioned hinduism, and didn’t mention the injustices of caste, widow burning, child marriage etc. and the burning of Gujarat…therefore this can’t really be a hindu concept at all. because those things, without any philosophical components are the REAL hinduism right?

You probably freaked out as soon as you read “Shiva” and “Vishnu” and didn’t see a critique of Hindutva or Modi or whatever else.

Get over yourselves-the article is just saying that this aspect of Hindu philosophy could be beneficial to incorporate in the political thinking. In no way is it implying that Hinduism is a positive thing, or that politics in India and Nepal are anything to follow as examples.

You can rest easy. btw, did you ever attend one of those YSS seminars?

What’s annoying about this guy’s writing on this issue is not that he’s a white man (I have little use for authenticity/identity politics so popular in the US), but that he’s feeding a particularly silly, superficial understanding of Hinduism with little basis in reality, and he can get away with it because his audience presumably knows little about the actual political mobilizations of Hinduism. The message that this conveys is that whatever the Western market wants to find in Hinduism = “hinduism,” and yet he doesn’t say “here are the lessons I take for politics from these Hindu principles” – no, he authoritatively says this is “Hindu” politics, as if he can speak for the entirety of Hinduism from his Cliff Notes reading of its godhead.