Thesis Outline for: BEING DIFFERENT, by Rajiv Malhotra

E Being Different or Getting Digested?
Ch 1: Difference 1 Digestible Difference
  • That which can be resolved by one appropriating from the other
  • Example: Inculturation
2 Non-Digestible Difference
  • Mutual contradiction, hence cannot be resolved by appropriation
  • Example: Status of Jesus in Islam vs. Christianity
  • Example: Karma-Reincarnation vs. Nicene Creed (core Christian belief)
3 Poison Pill
  • Dangerous to the host if swallowed
  • Example: Yoga undermines History-Centrism of Nicene Creed
B Western Religions are History-Centric
Chapter 2: History-Centrism 1 What is History-Centrism?
  • God’s Truth accessible only via unique lineage of prophets
  • This history is exclusive, literal, absolute and universal
  • Non-negotiable because it is from God
  • All other accounts of history of God’s interventions must be falsified (or else there will be chaos)
2 Implications
  • One History, One Truth, One Institution to control it and spread it uniformly; dissent is dangerous and chaotic
  • Source of exclusivism, expansionism, religious conflicts
  • Religion = History Club = Centralized authority and control
3 Secular versions (Hegel’s influence)
  • Grand Narrative of America, Founding Fathers, Manifest Destiny
  • Tens of thousands of historical societies across USA
D Embodied Knowing: Dharmic alternative to History-Centrism
Ch 2: Embodied Knowing 1 Definition of Embodied Knowing
  • Each human has the innate potential to achieve the highest state of consciousness without recourse to any historical events
  • This is because the human being is inherently divine and not a separate essence from God
2 Implications
  • No limit to number of enlightened masters, hence no exclusive prophets
  • New enlightened masters refresh old canons, challenge central institutions
  • Pluralism galore: Open Source architecture of knowledge
  • Creative experimentation, no finality, closure or imperialism
  A Indians’ ability to deal with “chaos” compared to westerners
Chapter 3: Order and Chaos 1 Personal lived experience in western businesses for 40 years
  •  Indians’ greater comfort with complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity,
    improvisation, blurred boundaries, inter-connectedness
  • Westerners’ greater need for control, yes/no, true/false, predictable scenarios
  • Useful study for business dealings
2 Andrew Rotter (and others’) research on US government views of Indian leaders during Cold War
  • Polytheism causes multiple truth, leading to moral ambiguity, “wooly headed”
  • Non-alignment is proof of cognitive deficiency of reality
  • Hence an unreliable ally
3 Article in Scientific American on Asian/Western cognition
  • Asians more perceptive of complex inter-relationships
4 My formal study of classical Indian and Western metaphysics to find root causes
  • Biblical absolutism of binary opposites; chaos = evil
  • Aristotelian Law of Excluded Middle
  • Indian narratives like samudra manthan, inherent uncertainty, improvisation in music/dance/cuisine, balance of opposites in Ayurveda, banyan tree motif of inter-dependency, acceptance of “is-ness”
  • Immense Indian creativity, adaptability, ability to absorb what’s new
5 Impact on American history
  • “Frontier” between Civilization (order) and Natives (savagery, disorder)
  • American Exceptionalism, march of civilization and “development”
6 Civilizational metaphors Forest (Indian) and Desert (Western)
C Nature of Unity: Integral or Synthetic?
Chpt 3: Integral /Synthetic 1 Dharmic idea of Integral Unity
  • No “thing” exists separately by itself; (Brahman in Hinduism, Dependent Co-arising in Buddhism); Unity in Diversity
2 Biblical synthetic unity
  • Separate essences of: God/humans; one soul from another; God/Cosmos; humans/cosmos
3 Secular: Aristotle to Descartes
  • Inherent self-existence of “building blocks”
  • Intellectual project is to create unity out of part = synthesis
  • Hellenism vs. Hebraism; Science vs. Religion; Colonial appropriations
4 Implications for West Artificial unity always at risk of filing apart; need for control, aggression.
5 Implications for dharma
  • Comfort with diversity, “chaos” because unity is inherent in existence
F Non-Translatable Sanskrit Mantras
Ch 5: Sanskrit 1 Unique claim of Sanskrit
  • Vibrations, not merely meaning; each vibration has a defined effect
  • One vibration cannot be substituted for another; hence non-translatability
2 Sanskrit protects dharma from digestion
  • When fully translated, dharma dissolves as subset of Judeo-Christianity
  • Add certain Sanskrit words into English: potential as poison pills
  • Sanskrit influence on pan-Asian Sanskriti
3 Examples of non-translatables
  • Numerous mis-translations explained in the book
G Challenging Western Universalism
6: Western Universalism 1 Definition
  • Use of west’s historical experiences, ideas and assumptions as basis for a universal standard on which all civilizations are mapped and judged
  • Went hand in hand with conquests, genocides and colonization
  • Implicit today in language, worldviews, “development”, institutions
2 Major challenges
  • Islamic Universalism and Confucian Universalism
  • Postmodern critiques within the west
3 Expanding Western Universalism by digesting others
  • Book explains Hegel and colonialists using Indology to appropriate and construct notions of European selfhood, while trashing the source
H Purva Paksha: Reversing the Gaze Upon the West
Conclusion Definition
  • Understanding the other authentically, with mutual respect
  • Responding/evaluating through our own siddhanta/lens
Indians gazing at others
  • Traditionally a central part of education, research
  • Inadequate purva paksha of the west
  • Postcolonialist gaze at west is not based on Indian siddhanta
Necessary today
  • Undermines the fashionable teaching of “sameness”
  • Helps us understand “who we are” on own terms
  • Helps resist being digested into western civilization as junior partner
  • Dharmic Univeralism deserves a seat at the table