1 00:00:10,400 --> 00:00:16,630 Hello and welcome to the OHP African and South Asian music series. 2 00:00:16,630 --> 00:00:23,320 Please join us to, I think, is right around the subthemes African and South Asian law speaks volumes and 3 00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:31,990 education of our public policy journalists at least the ones in 10 to 11 May 2021. 4 00:00:31,990 --> 00:00:43,240 Together, we as students, begin to acquire our traditions and studied in your American institutions by investigating and choose in a way, 5 00:00:43,240 --> 00:00:47,680 our traditions present these philosophies and beyond. 6 00:00:47,680 --> 00:01:06,110 We intend to participate. Deficits in representation and resources required to transform our minds and reputation was snatched at ethically. 7 00:01:06,110 --> 00:01:15,800 Today, I join you with fellow co-hosts America Ironheart and our honoured guests, Dr. Anna and Rembert Chen, 8 00:01:15,800 --> 00:01:24,110 Professor of religion at St. Olaf College, Dr. Brett Paris, DPhil, candidate for religious ethics at Oxford. 9 00:01:24,110 --> 00:01:31,280 And Dr. Leah McBride, a professor of philosophy at the College of Wooster. 10 00:01:31,280 --> 00:01:35,640 In this series finale episode, we intersect our journal subthemes. 11 00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:38,870 They by no means end their exploration, 12 00:01:38,870 --> 00:01:47,420 I guess like reasoning and logic to social thought and practise by reflecting on the African and South Asian philosophical traditions, 13 00:01:47,420 --> 00:01:51,980 as well as other American educational practises. 14 00:01:51,980 --> 00:01:59,630 I guess initiate the conversation with short, especially focussed talks on alleviating and fighting oppression. 15 00:01:59,630 --> 00:02:04,100 Then we collectively enquire about the role of philosophy in discerning value, 16 00:02:04,100 --> 00:02:13,460 how centralisation is considered differently across various laboratory philosophies and its relations to forms of oppression. 17 00:02:13,460 --> 00:02:22,550 And now to critically compare liberatory for us, please to consider how important or similar their laboratory orientations are. 18 00:02:22,550 --> 00:02:33,560 Despite underlying theoretical differences, we end with short reflections on what these traditions teach us about agency and education. 19 00:02:33,560 --> 00:02:46,580 We leave asking What does this philosophical conversation imply about all of our responsibilities potentials for acting ethically in the world? 20 00:02:46,580 --> 00:02:55,250 How do you connect this philosophising to your daily life and ongoing experiences? 21 00:02:55,250 --> 00:03:05,490 We are so honoured to now begin the conversation by hearing from each of our guests intern. 22 00:03:05,490 --> 00:03:13,600 So first, we're going to hear from Dr. Parris on yogic Metta Ethics, Morality and the hashtag MeToo. 23 00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:19,020 So over to you. The price. Rob, thanks very much. 24 00:03:19,020 --> 00:03:26,900 Um, so what I wanted to use my introductory spiel for was to raise three main issues that 25 00:03:26,900 --> 00:03:34,100 interest me and that I think are quite important in terms of real world outcomes. And I should start by saying that by yogic, 26 00:03:34,100 --> 00:03:40,700 I mean the various traditions that contributed to the evolution of yoga in India specifically and the Buddhist, 27 00:03:40,700 --> 00:03:44,930 the GI in the various streams of what came to be called Hinduism, 28 00:03:44,930 --> 00:03:51,080 like Patanjali is yoga, which perhaps people have heard of, but also shiv ism and shocked, 29 00:03:51,080 --> 00:04:00,800 shocked ism to the worship of Shiva and the feminine form Shakti, and also version of some and various forms of Vedanta as well. 30 00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:06,470 So Vedanta, you're having it through texts and you're punishing the backward Geeta and the Brahma suitors. 31 00:04:06,470 --> 00:04:11,600 So there's quite a variety of different streams that contributed to the evolution of yoga. 32 00:04:11,600 --> 00:04:17,750 I'm going to concentrate on one a little later, but that's what I mean by yogic. 33 00:04:17,750 --> 00:04:26,510 So the three issues I want to just throw out initially are, firstly, the philosophical underpinnings of the MeToo movement, which is, you know, 34 00:04:26,510 --> 00:04:34,430 the movement of people, particularly women speaking out against sexual assault, naming perpetrators and seeing them brought to justice. 35 00:04:34,430 --> 00:04:42,080 Secondly, is that different possible conceptions of the notion of non duality and how that can affect different ethical positions? 36 00:04:42,080 --> 00:04:52,340 And thirdly, a couple of real world examples of the ethical difficulties that particular conception or views of non duality can produce. 37 00:04:52,340 --> 00:04:59,060 So firstly, what philosophical ingredients are required for me to movement? 38 00:04:59,060 --> 00:05:08,090 And I'm focussing on MeToo, but similar questions arise for any kind of universal human rights or a coherent, 39 00:05:08,090 --> 00:05:14,470 you know, philosophical defence against Marxism, for example. But I'll focus on May two for the moment. 40 00:05:14,470 --> 00:05:19,570 So a foundational assumption of the MeToo movement is that no one should be subject to sexual assault, 41 00:05:19,570 --> 00:05:24,370 particularly rape, and that those who perpetrate such crimes should be held accountable. 42 00:05:24,370 --> 00:05:28,060 Or to put it another way, rape is wrong in inverted commas. Wrong? 43 00:05:28,060 --> 00:05:31,630 And rapists should be held to account. So obviously, there's more to it than that. 44 00:05:31,630 --> 00:05:34,120 But for our purposes, I'll leave it at that. 45 00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:40,930 So we accept that foundational ethical position that people, particularly women and children, should not be subject to rape. 46 00:05:40,930 --> 00:05:47,110 What kinds of philosophical machinery do you need under the hood to make that kind of proposition work? 47 00:05:47,110 --> 00:05:51,340 And I just suggest the following six ingredients. 48 00:05:51,340 --> 00:05:58,230 Firstly, I think you need a belief that the phenomenal world is real or venal enough to be taken seriously. 49 00:05:58,230 --> 00:06:07,800 Secondly, a belief in the individual autonomy, inherent dignity and rights of all people, so I believe that there are other people for other minds. 50 00:06:07,800 --> 00:06:15,060 It's not just a Sophistic idea that you're the only one in the universe and then there aren't other minds. 51 00:06:15,060 --> 00:06:20,220 So you need to believe you and other people with equivalent dignity and rights to yourself. 52 00:06:20,220 --> 00:06:26,280 Thirdly, I think you need a belief in the severability of essences from actions. 53 00:06:26,280 --> 00:06:37,500 So what that means is to describe an action as wrong or evil does not thereby imply the existence of an evil substance or of essentially evil people. 54 00:06:37,500 --> 00:06:44,460 In other words, to describe an action is wrong is not necessarily to buy into a dualism of good and evil substances, 55 00:06:44,460 --> 00:06:57,980 so it's possible to label was an action as wrong without thereby proposing that there's such a thing as a substantial evil substance in the universe. 56 00:06:57,980 --> 00:07:02,210 Fourthly, I think you need a belief in the possibility of moral responsibility. 57 00:07:02,210 --> 00:07:09,290 And so arguably a belief in free will or free enough will for moral responsibility. 58 00:07:09,290 --> 00:07:14,630 Fifth, the belief that certain specific actions are right and others that are wrong beyond 59 00:07:14,630 --> 00:07:20,180 whatever the law happens to say something in particular of things like rape and genocide. 60 00:07:20,180 --> 00:07:23,480 And so that arguably suggests some form of moral realism. 61 00:07:23,480 --> 00:07:30,380 I that there are certain moral facts about the universe and that used to be a deeply unfashionable position in philosophy, 62 00:07:30,380 --> 00:07:39,230 but it's making a comeback nowadays and that so that position of moral realism would be against a view such as legal positivism, 63 00:07:39,230 --> 00:07:43,790 where by definition something is only wrong if it's against the law. 64 00:07:43,790 --> 00:07:53,300 Bearing in mind that genocide was legal under Nazi law, so it's the idea that things can be wrong even if they're not illegal. 65 00:07:53,300 --> 00:08:00,320 And lastly, a belief that there is a truth to be heard and believed, which can be reliably investigated, 66 00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:08,690 so if a woman is making a claim that a particular event happened, that there is a truth to that claim that can be investigated. 67 00:08:08,690 --> 00:08:18,580 So that relates also traditions, implicit philosophy of science, you know, whether it's realist or and it also it's theory of truth. 68 00:08:18,580 --> 00:08:24,110 And so you might have the idea of a correspondence theory of truth. So what the claim? 69 00:08:24,110 --> 00:08:29,810 It's true because it corresponds to a certain set of facts about events that happened. 70 00:08:29,810 --> 00:08:34,940 Now all of these things I'm skating over quickly have entire sub fields of philosophy under them, 71 00:08:34,940 --> 00:08:39,110 and a lot of people would take issue with various aspects. But I'm just laying these out. 72 00:08:39,110 --> 00:08:46,550 There is what I believe are arguably necessary to support the MeToo movement. 73 00:08:46,550 --> 00:08:50,460 So this last one is quite important because it's proposing the idea. 74 00:08:50,460 --> 00:08:54,620 There are facts of the matter which can be reliably discovered, which make the story true. 75 00:08:54,620 --> 00:09:07,650 So it's not just competing stories. So those are a bunch of philosophical assumptions or philosophical machinery, which I think are unnecessary. 76 00:09:07,650 --> 00:09:14,590 The secondary I want to just touch on, is this the idea that there's different conceptions of the notion of non-Jew reality, 77 00:09:14,590 --> 00:09:19,990 not reality, is one of those terms that is notoriously difficult to define. 78 00:09:19,990 --> 00:09:25,540 Not least because it's defined by what it's not without saying what it is. 79 00:09:25,540 --> 00:09:30,820 So it's not duality. It posits that there's ultimately there's not two things. 80 00:09:30,820 --> 00:09:35,870 So the implication is that there's only one thing and. 81 00:09:35,870 --> 00:09:44,690 That can be a form of modernism, which means there's only one thing in the universe and certainly not many things such as pluralism and just 82 00:09:44,690 --> 00:09:51,320 the emphasis or the focus of those kinds of definitions of non duality or around the substance or being. 83 00:09:51,320 --> 00:09:58,130 So its saying is there's not two substances, there's not two kinds of being in the universe, there's only one being. 84 00:09:58,130 --> 00:10:05,660 But this focus on substance, I think, can leave us astray a little because there are other categories. 85 00:10:05,660 --> 00:10:16,440 So you might be a modernist on substance, but a pluralist on other dimensions like consciousness or relations or other kinds of categories. 86 00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:25,490 So one of the Indian traditions, called the Shevchenko, distinguished a number of different kinds of categories and substance, 87 00:10:25,490 --> 00:10:32,720 of course, but also qualities, activities, particularity and a couple of others. 88 00:10:32,720 --> 00:10:39,680 So I won't go into detail. But quite importantly, they distinguished activity or action from substance. 89 00:10:39,680 --> 00:10:47,900 So it's not necessary. So it's not necessarily the case that if you're a modest on substance, you have to be honest on action. 90 00:10:47,900 --> 00:10:57,210 You can have a plurality of actions, you can have even a plurality of consciousness as well. 91 00:10:57,210 --> 00:11:00,510 Aristotle also distinguished a whole bunch of different categories as well, 92 00:11:00,510 --> 00:11:08,040 so there's a number of different philosophical traditions in both east and west that talk about, you know, different kinds of categories. 93 00:11:08,040 --> 00:11:16,140 And I think it's important to bear those kinds of discussions in mind when we're thinking about something like non-Jew reality, 94 00:11:16,140 --> 00:11:23,820 because it it's the kind of term that is often quite a bit of arm waving in the kind of spiritual communities and so on. 95 00:11:23,820 --> 00:11:27,570 Particularly there aren't perhaps that don't have the depth of sophistication of some 96 00:11:27,570 --> 00:11:34,910 of the Indian philosophical traditions that just skate over a lot of these nuances. 97 00:11:34,910 --> 00:11:39,260 So I think one of the important questions for ethics is, you know, 98 00:11:39,260 --> 00:11:48,680 does the tradition collapse everything into substance of a pure mannerism or does it allow for distinctions between different consciousness, 99 00:11:48,680 --> 00:11:59,520 has different wills, different actions and so on that can be attributed to morally responsible beings. 100 00:11:59,520 --> 00:12:05,070 So I just want to if I have a couple more minutes, talk about, well, two or three more minutes, 101 00:12:05,070 --> 00:12:12,370 talk about some real world examples of some of the ethical difficulties that particular conceptions of use of non can produce. 102 00:12:12,370 --> 00:12:16,770 And I want to just focus on non-Jew humanistic chauvinism, 103 00:12:16,770 --> 00:12:22,350 which is one of the traditions that contribute to the evolution of yoga, particularly in its tantric aspects. 104 00:12:22,350 --> 00:12:27,750 So in monastic societies and you have a conception that the ultimate reality and everything in existence 105 00:12:27,750 --> 00:12:37,430 is Shiva Shiva is the only agent is characterised by being consciousness place of such children under. 106 00:12:37,430 --> 00:12:43,590 Liberation in this understanding is a recognition that you are sharing, so you're not becoming shiva, 107 00:12:43,590 --> 00:12:49,040 there's no process, it's just the recognition that your inherent nature is shiva. 108 00:12:49,040 --> 00:12:55,220 It's called the recognition. It's called the party of no. So in reality, there's no separate selves. 109 00:12:55,220 --> 00:13:06,630 Everything is shiva. So it is the other cells are the humans are kind of contracted forms of shiver that shiver nonetheless. 110 00:13:06,630 --> 00:13:09,600 So a person who is liberated while alive, 111 00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:18,750 quartered given Muktar or lacking all action is recognised to be that a shiver who is characterised by absolute freedom. 112 00:13:18,750 --> 00:13:28,860 Spartan three is a technical term. And so not necessarily constrained by worldly conventional understandings of morality and a practise 113 00:13:28,860 --> 00:13:34,770 traditionally involved ritual demonstrations of the rejections of duality like pure and impure. 114 00:13:34,770 --> 00:13:42,590 Right and wrong. So one consequence of the view that you have look as being Schiffer was that their actions, 115 00:13:42,590 --> 00:13:49,370 no matter how reprehensible by human standards were considered to be the actions of Shiva. 116 00:13:49,370 --> 00:13:53,180 So one famous text, um uh. 117 00:13:53,180 --> 00:14:00,380 The author writes that even the heinous crimes performed by the counties were considered by the law as it was done to him. 118 00:14:00,380 --> 00:14:07,670 Another text from the South on the Tamil Saints describes a number of the actions of given notice. 119 00:14:07,670 --> 00:14:12,500 Um, I went read out the names because they're in Tamil and I won't be able to pronounce them correctly, 120 00:14:12,500 --> 00:14:18,620 but say one of these saints, you know, kills his only son to feed a bar of a Scheiber devotee. 121 00:14:18,620 --> 00:14:24,590 Another takes to gambling to feed shive activities and other cuts off the tongues of those who despise the practise. 122 00:14:24,590 --> 00:14:31,790 The worship is another service the feet of his father, who kicked over a pile containing the milk offering for the Lord. 123 00:14:31,790 --> 00:14:39,650 Another gives his wife away and puts to the sword his relatives, who tried to prevent this apparently immoral act. 124 00:14:39,650 --> 00:14:50,300 So there's a whole bunch of stories about the lives of some of these saints you can what is and what is very interesting about them. 125 00:14:50,300 --> 00:14:55,250 I think from a philosophical point of view of these stories is that it's a kind of an 126 00:14:55,250 --> 00:15:01,430 inversion of the role of morality in seeing to it that we're used to in the West. 127 00:15:01,430 --> 00:15:07,560 We're sort of in the Western traditions and by definition, a saint is a moral person. 128 00:15:07,560 --> 00:15:13,280 You know you you don't get to be a saint without being supposedly a moral person. 129 00:15:13,280 --> 00:15:17,360 And it's a bit you remember in your Plato's, you referred to them, not you. 130 00:15:17,360 --> 00:15:20,960 It was is the good loved by the gods because it is good? 131 00:15:20,960 --> 00:15:23,570 Or is it good because it is loved by the gods? 132 00:15:23,570 --> 00:15:32,810 So here we have here is a person, a saint, because they do good things or rather is whatever they do considered good because they are a saint. 133 00:15:32,810 --> 00:15:39,470 So in some of these sub traditions that you find with a very strong view of reality? 134 00:15:39,470 --> 00:15:46,640 Certainly not all about this, some is what I'm saying that you find this kind of inversion where the actions are considered 135 00:15:46,640 --> 00:15:54,770 good in inverted commas or OK because the person doing them is considered liberated. 136 00:15:54,770 --> 00:16:01,070 It's not that what they if they do something horrendous, it kind of invalidates their claim to sainthood, 137 00:16:01,070 --> 00:16:05,390 as it would in the kind of conventional understanding what we might have in the West. 138 00:16:05,390 --> 00:16:08,990 It's the idea that they have because they liberate it, because they are given looked at. 139 00:16:08,990 --> 00:16:14,060 What they do is considered, OK, good. 140 00:16:14,060 --> 00:16:21,590 And I want to just give a very small vignette of how one example of how this has played out in Australia recently, 141 00:16:21,590 --> 00:16:28,610 um, there's a scandal at a Shiv Ashram in Mount Eliza in Melbourne with Swami Shankar Nanda. 142 00:16:28,610 --> 00:16:40,530 An American original name was Russell Krugman. And it was an ABC investigation of this tape, because like the BBC here, as a very good story, well, 143 00:16:40,530 --> 00:16:47,260 very harrowing story that came out in February, but I'll just read you a short quote from that one devotee, 144 00:16:47,260 --> 00:16:53,410 Noemi tells us when all the abuse came to light and there was a hint that it would turn lethal and go to court, 145 00:16:53,410 --> 00:16:58,450 I said to him, What are you going to say if you have to go to court? And he said a lie. 146 00:16:58,450 --> 00:17:03,250 I said, you can't lie in a court of law. And he said, my word is higher than the court of law. 147 00:17:03,250 --> 00:17:09,610 I'm God. And she says he absolutely sees himself as infallible, transcendent above the mortal realm. 148 00:17:09,610 --> 00:17:15,580 She said he sees himself as God. He sees himself as having the qualities of God omniscient, omnipresent. 149 00:17:15,580 --> 00:17:23,010 He really thinks that he's not a mere mortal like the rest of us. And that's how we were encouraged to see him as well. 150 00:17:23,010 --> 00:17:39,550 So. What's? I found interesting, but also kind of harrowing about that, um, just smoking is that, um, his claim on God, it's the mirror ethics. 151 00:17:39,550 --> 00:17:45,700 It's not. It's not really, as far as I can tell, a distortion of non-Jewish private teaching. 152 00:17:45,700 --> 00:17:53,360 Rather, it kind of unmasks. In a kind of quite blunt way, 153 00:17:53,360 --> 00:18:02,210 the conception of ultimate reality that is in that tradition that it is actually there is no good or evil at that ultimate level. 154 00:18:02,210 --> 00:18:04,310 There is no right or wrong at that ultimate level. 155 00:18:04,310 --> 00:18:15,440 And so someone who considers himself that you and Mukta would not necessarily consider themselves subject to earthly morality or norms or even laws, 156 00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:29,170 necessarily, um. There's a bunch of other things I could say, but I suppose one of the big questions I have is, uh, can you get a coherent, 157 00:18:29,170 --> 00:18:39,940 philosophical, um, support for the MeToo movement out of modernism and a very strong view of non duality? 158 00:18:39,940 --> 00:18:43,660 And I I suspect you can um, you platonic. 159 00:18:43,660 --> 00:18:51,070 Spinoza had monastic ethics in the West. But I think perhaps it depends, crucially on the conception of non duality. 160 00:18:51,070 --> 00:18:57,640 And you know, does it include the idea of the good or love in the conception of ultimate reality? 161 00:18:57,640 --> 00:19:05,220 Or is it morally neutral? Is everything just the play of Shiva as it is in non-Jewish societies and. 162 00:19:05,220 --> 00:19:11,310 And is moral realism necessary to support a robust cross-cultural ethics of human rights? 163 00:19:11,310 --> 00:19:15,870 Me too, and a defence against Nazis, and those are the questions I have. 164 00:19:15,870 --> 00:19:22,540 So thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Perez. 165 00:19:22,540 --> 00:19:31,200 Now we'll hear from Dr. Robuchon on challenges of trust and a Hindu response. 166 00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:39,900 Thank you very much, and it's good to be with all of you today and especially to join my colleagues, 167 00:19:39,900 --> 00:19:49,290 Dr. McBride and Dr. Paris stopped by thank you very much for your opening words and raises many interesting questions for me, 168 00:19:49,290 --> 00:20:00,240 since I also work on non-intuitive tradition that up, particularly the shenker tradition, but perhaps later on. 169 00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:01,590 And I think, you know, 170 00:20:01,590 --> 00:20:12,030 one of my one of the principal concerns of my work is to derive a liberation theology that takes the world very seriously from that worldview. 171 00:20:12,030 --> 00:20:16,800 So I think the questions you raise are really very important and significant. 172 00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:18,390 And perhaps, you know, 173 00:20:18,390 --> 00:20:31,560 I'll try to show later on how I do my own work with the way the tradition to derive a concern for human suffering in this world. 174 00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:37,280 But let me just, you know, comment on the. 175 00:20:37,280 --> 00:20:47,390 On the topic, of course, because again, I'm arguing and about dismantling costs from a non-edible perspective. 176 00:20:47,390 --> 00:20:53,810 So in these remarks, these remarks are very basic minor concern. 177 00:20:53,810 --> 00:21:05,310 In this opening statement with tracing the origins of the caste system because there are many theories. 178 00:21:05,310 --> 00:21:17,310 You know, most of them are speculative, inconclusive, whatever might have been its historical origin or or intent, if I may put it in that way. 179 00:21:17,310 --> 00:21:24,550 The reality is that the caste system evolves like like racism. 180 00:21:24,550 --> 00:21:40,930 Into a hierarchical and unequal ordering of society into four groups differentiated in this case on the basis of ritual purity and under occupation. 181 00:21:40,930 --> 00:21:48,310 So at the top of the if we think of a pyramid at the top of the social order order, the teachers, you know, 182 00:21:48,310 --> 00:21:59,310 the Brahmins, priests and custodians of sacred knowledge and ritual on following the the Brahmins order, 183 00:21:59,310 --> 00:22:11,350 the Warriors, the political leaders in Sanskrit, the chartreuse defenders of the community, so-called guarantors of political order and stability. 184 00:22:11,350 --> 00:22:16,570 And then next comes the vices of the merchants and farmers, 185 00:22:16,570 --> 00:22:28,810 generators and distributors of wealth and and their should leaders who are the labourers and servants of the first three groups. 186 00:22:28,810 --> 00:22:34,840 So these first three groups are referred to as the twice born in Sanskrit. 187 00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:46,330 They are the witches since day alone, entitled to the right of initiation into the study of the of the Vedas. 188 00:22:46,330 --> 00:23:01,150 But most tragically of all, is that this system led to the creation of a large group of so-called outcasts or untouchables as precio, 189 00:23:01,150 --> 00:23:11,810 who were considered ritually impure, unequal and denied all privileges and rights belonging to members of the the folk. 190 00:23:11,810 --> 00:23:27,820 So even within the forecast, you had hierarchy, but the untouchables were outside of the system in entirely so similar to raise caste. 191 00:23:27,820 --> 00:23:40,180 As is obvious from what I've already said, it is a hierarchical or graded ordering of human beings based on notions of purity and impurity. 192 00:23:40,180 --> 00:23:49,450 Those in the upper, especially the first three groups, ascribed greater purity and those outside the fulfil order. 193 00:23:49,450 --> 00:23:58,930 I am pure and capable of polluting others by physical contact, and hence we have the wood untouchable. 194 00:23:58,930 --> 00:24:08,410 Or, as I said, in Sanskrit, for those who are not to be touched or to be touched by so that a person's place 195 00:24:08,410 --> 00:24:15,280 in the order is determined by but and thus both caste and race in this sense, 196 00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:19,560 inherited. As the system developed, 197 00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:31,860 it became more and more complex rules and rituals evolved to prohibit and to limit relationships and conduct between pure and simple groups. 198 00:24:31,860 --> 00:24:41,160 These included such rules as those governing commensal or eating restrictions. 199 00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:49,500 Generally, food may be accepted from and shared with members of one's own caste or a higher cost. 200 00:24:49,500 --> 00:24:53,610 Contact was also controlled by and dogging me restrictions, 201 00:24:53,610 --> 00:25:01,770 which limited marriage to partners within the cast and by physical segregation in local communities. 202 00:25:01,770 --> 00:25:07,230 One is born into a cast, as I said, as one is born into a so-called race. 203 00:25:07,230 --> 00:25:12,030 These are all constructed categories. I'm just using the terminology. 204 00:25:12,030 --> 00:25:24,910 Although there is change in contemporary Hindu world with access to education and economic opportunities and agitation by lower costs. 205 00:25:24,910 --> 00:25:29,460 It is also is it still true that but. 206 00:25:29,460 --> 00:25:41,330 Continues to significantly determine opportunities and just define boundaries for human achievement and human potentiality. 207 00:25:41,330 --> 00:25:43,710 And it is a fact that, you know, 208 00:25:43,710 --> 00:25:53,760 economic success doesn't alter one standing in this hierarchy because it's based fundamentally on notions of purity and 209 00:25:53,760 --> 00:26:03,630 impurity and in ways that are similar to the legitimisation of racial hierarchies with appeals to biblical tradition, 210 00:26:03,630 --> 00:26:12,250 like the story of how in the Bible it was used to, you know, stereotype Africans in Hindi. 211 00:26:12,250 --> 00:26:15,930 In the case of the Hindu tradition, appeals were made to Kaaba. 212 00:26:15,930 --> 00:26:22,230 The doctrine of karma was rigidly interpreted, trying to explain all events in the present life, 213 00:26:22,230 --> 00:26:30,300 including one status in the caste system as having causes that may be traced to actions performed in previous life. 214 00:26:30,300 --> 00:26:41,940 So escape from both in the lower caste becomes possible only by reverting to a higher cost in such a system, as you can imagine. 215 00:26:41,940 --> 00:26:47,040 And this connects a little bit of what Dr. Pirates' was saying. 216 00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:50,330 There is no injustice in the social order. 217 00:26:50,330 --> 00:27:03,380 Suffering is justified as a consequence, all suffering is deserved and justified as a consequence of past life actions, a very rigid interpretation. 218 00:27:03,380 --> 00:27:14,270 But that's not all that cast is. The fact is that exploitation of labour and limited access to material resources were greater. 219 00:27:14,270 --> 00:27:24,320 As one went down the cost hierarchy, so purity and impurity distinctions were employed to assign places in the social order, 220 00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:36,530 create boundaries and to exploit the legacy of unequal access to and distribution of material resources continues. 221 00:27:36,530 --> 00:27:44,390 One recent study shows that despite some improvement in income levels amongst all Indians, 222 00:27:44,390 --> 00:27:58,910 poverty is still highly concentrated amongst traditionally disadvantaged outcast groups such as Dalits and and indigenous communities or devices. 223 00:27:58,910 --> 00:28:05,180 So I'm focussing on cost as having two significant shared features. 224 00:28:05,180 --> 00:28:10,430 I think these are also features of of racialized social systems. 225 00:28:10,430 --> 00:28:17,240 The first is the assignment of human beings into unequal categories race or caste, 226 00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:23,810 and secondly is the assignment of material and other benefits on the basis of those categories. 227 00:28:23,810 --> 00:28:31,100 So a meaningful Hindu theology of religion, which is a liberation sign, which is, 228 00:28:31,100 --> 00:28:38,080 you know, one of the central concerns of my own work must address both of these. 229 00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:46,870 So for me, the question is whether the Hindu tradition and in my case, the non developed tradition, which is the tradition I work with, 230 00:28:46,870 --> 00:28:58,420 offers what I would call theological grounds for contesting human hierarchies of inequality and affirming the equal dignity of all beings. 231 00:28:58,420 --> 00:29:06,340 Issues that were raised by Dr Look, the pirates. I do believe that such teachings are available in the Hindu tradition, in fact. 232 00:29:06,340 --> 00:29:18,160 Dr Ambedkar, who was a great opponent, of course, and probably who was the most vocal analyst of caste injustice himself, 233 00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:28,690 felt that there were teachings he didn't feel that the Hindu tradition had the will to to reform itself on the basis of such available teachings. 234 00:29:28,690 --> 00:29:38,170 But I think and also here, I will just briefly mention two of those what I consider to be in accord theological 235 00:29:38,170 --> 00:29:50,380 claims of the tradition that stand in contradiction to this kind of hierarchy. 236 00:29:50,380 --> 00:29:54,540 Hindu traditions, including the one that I am committed to and the one that I studied, 237 00:29:54,540 --> 00:30:01,630 the great tradition they affirm without reservation the equal presence of the infinite, 238 00:30:01,630 --> 00:30:09,400 and in this case we speak of of Brahman as present equally in everything everything is in Brahman. 239 00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:15,530 Bremen's and Bronwyn is everything. Brahman has ultimate value. 240 00:30:15,530 --> 00:30:20,980 It's not limited by, you know, nation, gender, ethnicity, age. 241 00:30:20,980 --> 00:30:25,690 Such teachings are also found in texts like the The Book with Geeta. 242 00:30:25,690 --> 00:30:34,900 I want to argue, as I do in my own work, that such as such a theological claim, as you know, 243 00:30:34,900 --> 00:30:40,960 similar to different but similar to Imago Day in the Christian tradition, for example, 244 00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:48,460 is the can be and ought to be the source of the inherent dignity and equal worth of every human being and can be of 245 00:30:48,460 --> 00:30:59,380 a fundamental antidote to caste or to deny or to any system that denies the personhood and dignity of of of others. 246 00:30:59,380 --> 00:31:07,770 We can't give our support or assent to any social order system based on human inequality and dignity. 247 00:31:07,770 --> 00:31:13,300 And the second issue that I mentioned, which is the social, 248 00:31:13,300 --> 00:31:24,290 the unjust social structures where we have the assignment of different material benefits, there's a direct relationship. 249 00:31:24,290 --> 00:31:32,670 I mean that we can see between regarding some bodies as more worthy than others and unequal access to goods and opportunities. 250 00:31:32,670 --> 00:31:37,780 I think we have an important obligation in this matter since, you know, 251 00:31:37,780 --> 00:31:46,960 interpretations of the Hindu tradition have contributed to this kind of unequal economic and social order. 252 00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:56,200 What I think we need is. An expansive understanding of both suffering and liberation. 253 00:31:56,200 --> 00:32:02,530 In the Hindu tradition, there are no good theological reasons why we must ignore the suffering of human beings, 254 00:32:02,530 --> 00:32:10,870 although I admit that this has happened, but I don't think there are any good theological reasons to ignore the suffering of human beings when they 255 00:32:10,870 --> 00:32:22,300 lack opportunities or when they suffer because of of caste or race to obtain the necessities for dignified. 256 00:32:22,300 --> 00:32:31,950 Living or when suffering is inflict inflicted through oppression and on its material. 257 00:32:31,950 --> 00:32:33,030 Legacy. 258 00:32:33,030 --> 00:32:44,340 So I think those are the two principal challenges, and I I'll stop here and then, you know, we can continue sort of unpacking this food as we discuss. 259 00:32:44,340 --> 00:32:48,550 Thank you. Thank you so much again. 260 00:32:48,550 --> 00:32:58,540 Yeah, that's going to be so much to unpack. So next, we'll hear from Dr McBride on modern European colonialism, imperialism, 261 00:32:58,540 --> 00:33:03,790 fresh domination and oppression as a way to connect South Asian struggles to send its 262 00:33:03,790 --> 00:33:09,250 ripples and move to decolonised expand and to the dominant educational practises. 263 00:33:09,250 --> 00:33:15,010 And kind of these go ahead. 264 00:33:15,010 --> 00:33:16,690 Thank you so much. 265 00:33:16,690 --> 00:33:26,020 I appreciate everything that everyone involved has done, especially I want to thank Alice Hank for inviting me and showing interest in my work. 266 00:33:26,020 --> 00:33:33,040 It's great to be a part of this. First, I wanted to sort of introduce just where I start. 267 00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:40,960 So I'm a naturalist, a fellow blessed, an organic being with limitations, and in my work, 268 00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:46,570 I like to put that up front and recognise the limitations as a human being. 269 00:33:46,570 --> 00:33:51,730 My epistemology and how far I can speculate is limited. 270 00:33:51,730 --> 00:34:02,520 I clearly work from a Western tradition, but I have spent some time studying South Asian philosophies and thought and so. 271 00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:11,170 I look forward to this exchange today, and I also hope to bring some other ideas so. 272 00:34:11,170 --> 00:34:16,600 The two pieces that I really wanted to hit on today are colonialism and oppression. 273 00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:22,720 So first, I want to just talk a bit about colonialism. 274 00:34:22,720 --> 00:34:32,140 So during the 15th century, ship sailed from various Western European ports to establish new colonies to find mountains of gold, 275 00:34:32,140 --> 00:34:40,910 to find a faster route to India, maybe to acquire land and material resources to spread Christianity. 276 00:34:40,910 --> 00:34:50,480 ET cetera, et cetera. There are various reasons these Europeans went around the world trying to set up colonies the Portuguese, the Spanish, 277 00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:59,870 the Dutch, the French and the British were the forerunners, establishing footholds in Africa, Asia and the Americas. 278 00:34:59,870 --> 00:35:08,820 So. One thing I want to establish is that this is a particular type of colonialism that arises out of Europe. 279 00:35:08,820 --> 00:35:17,730 There are other types. And one thing I don't want to say and I don't want to suggest, is that there is only one project. 280 00:35:17,730 --> 00:35:28,500 I think each of these groups and even within these nation states, there were different colonial projects at work. 281 00:35:28,500 --> 00:35:40,440 I have argued that each instantiation view of modern colonialism seems to evoke a teleological system prescribing spiritual and material development. 282 00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:52,130 That is, the colonial projects arising out of Western Europe. Post 14 92 were designed to accomplish an ultimate end a telos of sorts. 283 00:35:52,130 --> 00:35:59,400 That is to serve the imperial and economic interests of colonisers. 284 00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:16,140 So the way I think of it, colonialism was met and designed to do these sorts of things to develop a certain type of person or maybe subject, 285 00:36:16,140 --> 00:36:22,140 and to create wealth and honour prestige for your people. 286 00:36:22,140 --> 00:36:31,680 The Crown. This is met the triangular Atlantic slave trade, the destruction of India's indigenous populations, 287 00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:37,890 the plunder and degradation of environments in the global south. Settler colonialism. 288 00:36:37,890 --> 00:36:48,840 The proliferation of industrialisation. And the prioritisation of high yields and the accumulation of capital. 289 00:36:48,840 --> 00:37:04,620 So at very least, given this European form of colonialism, there has to be a spread of techno industrial capitalism. 290 00:37:04,620 --> 00:37:17,580 I think it's worth noting that we still largely speak these languages that arose from these colonies, right from these particular imperial powers. 291 00:37:17,580 --> 00:37:26,280 It's worth noting that a lot of our canons in education are still steeped in those traditions. 292 00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:30,180 The Europeans are seen as the cannon bearers. 293 00:37:30,180 --> 00:37:37,230 It's worth noting that in the western tradition, European scholars and scholarship still dominate the canon. 294 00:37:37,230 --> 00:37:44,790 This, I would suggest, is a legacy of modern European colonialism and euro American imperialism. 295 00:37:44,790 --> 00:37:56,970 This may help us to make interesting connexions or analogies between South Asian struggles, African descended struggles and indigenous struggles. 296 00:37:56,970 --> 00:38:09,090 Additionally, this helps us to understand, at least in the West, how Euro American hegemonic techno industrial order of things is so pervasive. 297 00:38:09,090 --> 00:38:14,430 Now I want to talk a bit about oppression, so my oppression. 298 00:38:14,430 --> 00:38:20,490 I refer to a system of interrelated barriers and forces that conspire to reduce, 299 00:38:20,490 --> 00:38:28,260 immobilise and mould people who are assigned to a denigrated group and thereby render 300 00:38:28,260 --> 00:38:35,130 subordinate sorry and thereby thereby render that group subordinate to another group, 301 00:38:35,130 --> 00:38:46,110 a dominant group. So notice that this conception of oppression does not merely pick out harmful or offensive terms or words. 302 00:38:46,110 --> 00:38:57,810 It picks out structures and institutions that bind, reduce and subordinate people, particularly those assigned to these denigrated populations. 303 00:38:57,810 --> 00:39:01,920 Additionally, this notion of oppression extends to various types of oppression. 304 00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:14,160 So you could have race-based repression, sex based oppression, gender based oppression, class based, caste based, etc., etc. 305 00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:25,800 So ultimately, I'm hoping that this helps us to think more broadly about the various ways that colonialism and oppression 306 00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:33,540 might draw some connexions or at very least analogies between the various struggles that we might see. 307 00:39:33,540 --> 00:39:38,310 My work largely addresses the various ways oppression manifests. 308 00:39:38,310 --> 00:39:45,210 It works to conjure the notions that allow agents to imagine new ways of being. 309 00:39:45,210 --> 00:39:51,870 The hope is that very least on some occasions, we can break with tradition. 310 00:39:51,870 --> 00:40:00,240 We can set up new value systems, we can construct new, new ways and new notions of who we are. 311 00:40:00,240 --> 00:40:10,840 And that's largely what I mean by interacting revolution of values. 312 00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:18,260 And there. Thank you so much, everyone. 313 00:40:18,260 --> 00:40:30,190 We we have questions, obviously, and there are lots of relations between what you're saying, but maybe actually before we start is are there any? 314 00:40:30,190 --> 00:40:42,430 Relations that our guests would like to identify or ask about from each of them. 315 00:40:42,430 --> 00:40:54,270 Before we get going. From what we have prepared, and if not, we could just get going. 316 00:40:54,270 --> 00:40:58,860 Okay. Hopefully, they'll come up. 317 00:40:58,860 --> 00:41:08,460 So our first question. First topic for pets, we have a few topics to address is the role of philosophy in discerning value. 318 00:41:08,460 --> 00:41:17,790 So based on your writings, it seems that one world class you can play is to use reasoning to investigate received traditions, 319 00:41:17,790 --> 00:41:28,410 philosophy or otherwise in order to clarify how and where oppressive opinions, actions and structures actually rise to passport rose. 320 00:41:28,410 --> 00:41:37,320 Qualities and rules, descriptions and possibilities match the values and principles of reaching worldviews or taint them, 321 00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:45,480 as well as to question whether we want to hold particular values to trace historical custom and compare this with other traditions, 322 00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:48,810 theoretical and practical principles for tenants. 323 00:41:48,810 --> 00:41:59,700 We can see this in Dr. Ambitions analysis of Hinduism embarrassment, pride, suggestion of how communities can overcome an oppressive categorisation, 324 00:41:59,700 --> 00:42:08,220 and then Dr. Paris's demonstration of what sorts of metaphysical stances might such in and around the disbelief and oppression of women. 325 00:42:08,220 --> 00:42:15,720 Could you talk about collectively more about how, through philosophy, 326 00:42:15,720 --> 00:42:22,590 we can elucidate the often overlooked connexions between logical reasoning or metaphysics? 327 00:42:22,590 --> 00:42:25,620 They're not necessarily the same. Some might think they are. 328 00:42:25,620 --> 00:42:30,900 We've talked in other essays in this series about how sometimes the views might be questioned. 329 00:42:30,900 --> 00:42:38,100 The notion of metaphysics will require a biased understanding of metaphysics. 330 00:42:38,100 --> 00:42:49,140 So between logical reasoning, metaphysics, historical and social circumstances and custom and then ethics and values specifically are abstractly 331 00:42:49,140 --> 00:42:56,370 and how this sort of elucidation of Connexions can help us choose amongst values and act accordingly. 332 00:42:56,370 --> 00:43:03,370 They, of course, might give more depth later, but just to start the conversation. 333 00:43:03,370 --> 00:43:09,880 I wonder I wonder if I could offer something initially. One of the. 334 00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:15,280 The things that I've been reflecting a lot on lately, like being immersed in better ethics, 335 00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:21,100 and so a lot of these difficult questions, it's the it's almost a, I suppose, 336 00:43:21,100 --> 00:43:29,050 a metaphor philosophical question, and that is there's almost an assumption right out of the gate that your discussion of value, 337 00:43:29,050 --> 00:43:33,580 it's and so it's all about your intellectual argument. 338 00:43:33,580 --> 00:43:39,910 And if you can't be a form of coherent intellectual argument, why something is the case, then that's not the case here, this kind of thing. 339 00:43:39,910 --> 00:43:45,460 So it's very much a privileging of a particular methodology in a particular way of knowing. 340 00:43:45,460 --> 00:43:51,880 And it's really become quite interested in, you know, the whole sub field. 341 00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:58,660 You know, of cognition, of embodied cognition, and it's saying that we don't know only through our intellect, 342 00:43:58,660 --> 00:44:03,130 you know, there are other ways we know things through our embodied ness and our bodies. 343 00:44:03,130 --> 00:44:08,800 And I am wondering about the application of something like that to ethics. 344 00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:19,930 You know, you there. I think there are visceral reactions we have to certain things we may see, which we know in our bones are wrong. 345 00:44:19,930 --> 00:44:24,910 That is, you know, whatever words you want to use, you're disgusting, repulsive, reprehensible. 346 00:44:24,910 --> 00:44:31,780 Whatever it is, you know that something is not right when you see a certain thing and it's not necessarily an intellectual thing. 347 00:44:31,780 --> 00:44:37,760 It may be embodied cognition that intuit's. 348 00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:41,510 A moral reality about the world or the universe. 349 00:44:41,510 --> 00:44:49,760 So I suppose, yeah, I just want to offer that at the at the beginning that, um, that the I suppose in terms of the role of philosophy, 350 00:44:49,760 --> 00:45:00,420 discerning value, it perhaps the methodology of philosophy that needs to be questioned as well. 351 00:45:00,420 --> 00:45:08,780 I mean, if in fact, you may have on that on perhaps bridging different traditions earlier in our series, you listen to doctors as a whole. 352 00:45:08,780 --> 00:45:13,680 You recently published an article that talks about different ways of knowing 353 00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:19,980 and let conceptual versus propositional content that comes from what you say. 354 00:45:19,980 --> 00:45:29,460 I think one thing we've discussed a lot that's missing from our European tradition that we're taught in our schools is a de-emphasis of practise. 355 00:45:29,460 --> 00:45:34,800 And so that's often like logic, reasoning, action gap. 356 00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:41,580 And obviously, when we're discussing philosophies of liberation and motivations, we're concerned about how we connect those things. 357 00:45:41,580 --> 00:45:52,410 But perhaps like I study Buddhist philosophy, those are more often just interconnected and obviously separate at all. 358 00:45:52,410 --> 00:46:01,380 And so. I'm concerned to question that as well as do we need some doctor, I'm not sure and talks about this, 359 00:46:01,380 --> 00:46:08,910 do we need like a theological grounding to get value systems going through into the world where those things already exist? 360 00:46:08,910 --> 00:46:15,630 Like how do we just send them and then discerning them? How do we then choose when we find different options? 361 00:46:15,630 --> 00:46:25,780 Or how do we live with the different options? And I'd love to hear what you have to say on that. 362 00:46:25,780 --> 00:46:37,630 I would. I would want to, you know, respond to the excellent series of questions that you, you know, you articulated for us. 363 00:46:37,630 --> 00:46:46,180 By, you know, coming back to the question of who speaks for tradition, who wins, who's interpreting, 364 00:46:46,180 --> 00:46:54,290 what are the sources of power in a tradition, how does the read of the tradition, you know, determine what the tradition means. 365 00:46:54,290 --> 00:47:04,710 So let me. Let me, for example, illustrate this with, you know, the Hindu tradition again, especially the non-Jewish tradition. 366 00:47:04,710 --> 00:47:12,300 So the most prominent interpreters of non dual. 367 00:47:12,300 --> 00:47:24,090 Hinduism all the way to tradition as we we speak of it historically and even right on to the present day. 368 00:47:24,090 --> 00:47:33,630 People who, you know, renounce science or in Sanskrit, they are seniors and they have embraced monasticism. 369 00:47:33,630 --> 00:47:38,670 And you know, we often don't think of what. 370 00:47:38,670 --> 00:47:47,520 Entering into monasticism, more seniors in the Hindu tradition means for the identity of the reader. 371 00:47:47,520 --> 00:47:56,880 And let me explain a little bit. So when one entered into this monastic order, the order of seniors, one was. 372 00:47:56,880 --> 00:48:03,450 One would be exempt from all traditional ritual obligations that, you know, 373 00:48:03,450 --> 00:48:10,860 a Hindu would normally perform at dawn and dusk and semi-annually and annually on all of that. 374 00:48:10,860 --> 00:48:17,790 You know, rituals performed on the occasion of birth and that you're you're completely freed from such obligations, 375 00:48:17,790 --> 00:48:26,160 but you also freed from all social obligations, obligations that are associated with work. 376 00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:33,360 You know, marriage is dissolved. You're free from contractual debts, you distribute your your property. 377 00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:42,870 In fact, there is a very close resemblance between the rituals of debt that are performed in someone, you know, departs this body. 378 00:48:42,870 --> 00:48:50,130 And those are those that are performed to enter into the stage of monasticism or to become a Sonja's. 379 00:48:50,130 --> 00:48:59,130 So they would include themselves in the traditional obligations made to the departed ancestors and and so on, 380 00:48:59,130 --> 00:49:11,070 so that the renounce is occupies a kind of a liminal status between life and death. 381 00:49:11,070 --> 00:49:16,400 No, no connexion between family and community taking a new name. 382 00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:26,070 And so that's the reason I am mentioning that is that the identity of the reader as renoncer as radical renouncing in 383 00:49:26,070 --> 00:49:37,450 the sense that I am trying to describe with a with an exclusive interest in reading this text with a very narrow. 384 00:49:37,450 --> 00:49:48,580 Lens of liberation suddenly informs the reading and significant informed reading reading in significant ways, 385 00:49:48,580 --> 00:49:59,740 because this former disassociation from social from the social world and community I think has 386 00:49:59,740 --> 00:50:06,400 and I see has very profound implications for how the text is read and interpreted every now. 387 00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:11,230 And so it's without social ties, it's likely to have little or no interest. 388 00:50:11,230 --> 00:50:21,920 And in fact, they have little or no interest in the ways in which material, social, historical and other factors influence the formation of a text. 389 00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:30,050 This these kinds of questions are not interest them. This is a this is this is outside of the purview of their reading. 390 00:50:30,050 --> 00:50:41,410 They did tend to treat the texts as a historical source of source of knowledge, little interest in the historical formation of the texts. 391 00:50:41,410 --> 00:50:49,570 And then you add to that. The lens of enunciation and the lack of interest in social reality as a reader, 392 00:50:49,570 --> 00:50:57,570 and you add to that now, the fact that the renoncer is also likely to be upper crust. 393 00:50:57,570 --> 00:51:02,490 So the other announcer who has no interest in social reality and who comes from the 394 00:51:02,490 --> 00:51:07,580 upper class because eligibility to read the text was also traditionally interpreted, 395 00:51:07,580 --> 00:51:12,330 it interpreted on the basis of caste. Right. 396 00:51:12,330 --> 00:51:19,830 So within the confines of this social religious system, readership was limited to male members. 397 00:51:19,830 --> 00:51:28,500 So again, you have a patriarchal system, male members of the of the upper caste women should dress and I don't even have to say, 398 00:51:28,500 --> 00:51:31,170 you know, untouchables, but we'll exclude it. 399 00:51:31,170 --> 00:51:44,370 So a male reader with an upper caste lineage who is a renowned so is unlikely to problematic his social hierarchy or injustice. 400 00:51:44,370 --> 00:51:51,300 So even someone like, you know, who comes on the spiritual lineage that I belong to, Schenker. 401 00:51:51,300 --> 00:51:59,160 You know, one of the greatest non-Jewish teachers and I mean a voluminous commentator and open it ships, he argues, 402 00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:07,470 even even even as the announcer argues against, you know, readers who don't come from the Brahmin cost the should read. 403 00:52:07,470 --> 00:52:14,820 For example, he says, has no right to study the Vedas and of course, includes women in that. 404 00:52:14,820 --> 00:52:19,950 So let me, you know, I can go on, but let me make one final point on this, 405 00:52:19,950 --> 00:52:25,230 because if the traditional renounce has no interest in the social formation of the sacred, 406 00:52:25,230 --> 00:52:33,150 text reads it in a historical way and is disconnected from social interests and social reality. 407 00:52:33,150 --> 00:52:39,420 He goes This meal is is similarly indifferent to the social implications of the text, 408 00:52:39,420 --> 00:52:43,740 not only the lack of interest in the social reformation historical formation of the text, 409 00:52:43,740 --> 00:52:55,590 but it's not asking questions about the social implications of the of the text, the relevance of religious teachings for for economy, 410 00:52:55,590 --> 00:53:04,800 law or social gender relationship, its exclusive narrow lens of personal liberation. 411 00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:14,900 I think that's a. You know, who is the reader and what are the power structures within which this text I read is a very significant issue in the 412 00:53:14,900 --> 00:53:26,180 Hindu tradition and goes to a lot of the questions that I think were raised by Dr. Powers earlier earlier on about, 413 00:53:26,180 --> 00:53:32,030 you know, personal autonomy, dignity world is real. 414 00:53:32,030 --> 00:53:37,250 You know, actions some actions, you know, intrinsically right or wrong. 415 00:53:37,250 --> 00:53:45,410 So I just I just want to inject that into the to the discussion about, you know, who speaks for tradition. 416 00:53:45,410 --> 00:53:51,500 This has a lot to do with how that tradition is interpreted and what it means. 417 00:53:51,500 --> 00:54:02,040 Thank you. If I can ask a question sort of just leading on from that, it's got really, really interesting point. 418 00:54:02,040 --> 00:54:09,380 Dr. Mogajane And I guess, yeah, in terms of this question of whether of how we can use philosophy to discern value, 419 00:54:09,380 --> 00:54:14,570 I'm kind of interested in sort of pushing that point that you made. I guess I'm just curious, 420 00:54:14,570 --> 00:54:22,910 kind of like how postmodern it is your sort of hermeneutics when it comes to approaching these texts in like this issue of who's 421 00:54:22,910 --> 00:54:29,480 reading a text you've highlighted as as really important when it comes to the ethical content that we draw from these texts. 422 00:54:29,480 --> 00:54:35,870 But I guess I'm curious as to to where you see the ethical impetus as sort of coming from? 423 00:54:35,870 --> 00:54:40,820 Is it essentially in the text or is it essentially in the reader so like? 424 00:54:40,820 --> 00:54:49,700 Is the point that that Shanker, as or interpreters of the appointee shots who have justify its cost hierarchy? 425 00:54:49,700 --> 00:54:50,960 Are they getting the texts wrong? 426 00:54:50,960 --> 00:54:58,310 Are they getting the one issue to them or is it simply a fact of these one shows themselves don't have an essential meaning. 427 00:54:58,310 --> 00:55:05,480 They don't have essential ethical content, and it's just we need a liberation reading of these texts. 428 00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:09,830 These texts need to be read by certain people from press groups who could offer their own perspective. 429 00:55:09,830 --> 00:55:15,800 So I guess I wonder that I think that might touch on the issue of of of where we're discerning value 430 00:55:15,800 --> 00:55:21,710 and whether it's coming from us as readers or whether it's coming from the sources that we're looking. 431 00:55:21,710 --> 00:55:27,200 Can I add on as well, I think this perhaps relates back to how you already think that you're 432 00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:33,950 encountering the world and that might be worthwhile discussing at the same time, 433 00:55:33,950 --> 00:55:39,020 like if you already think there's some direction given, 434 00:55:39,020 --> 00:55:47,540 say in like revelation about the way that the world is and where value comes from versus if you don't have that 435 00:55:47,540 --> 00:55:56,960 orientation or you don't have a reason to know value discrepancies because it doesn't pose an obstacle to you. 436 00:55:56,960 --> 00:56:04,960 So it just doesn't come up that there is a discrepancy. Do you have anything to say about that and. 437 00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:12,780 In relation to this question, because I think the line of centralisation this is we write this down later, 438 00:56:12,780 --> 00:56:21,410 but I think that runs through all these questions and very different takes on that, and I think they're quite nuanced but really important. 439 00:56:21,410 --> 00:56:32,470 Put the differences that arise or even similarities. Should I respond a little bit or I don't want to dominate or anything, you know, so. 440 00:56:32,470 --> 00:56:37,750 But I can give a quick response to Amir's questions. 441 00:56:37,750 --> 00:56:46,120 I mean, thank you. I again, you know, I'll try to answer from my own location in this in this matter. 442 00:56:46,120 --> 00:56:54,370 I don't think, you know, it's one or the other. You know that the meaning or the essential values are coming from the text or the person. 443 00:56:54,370 --> 00:56:59,430 And I think it's a more complex relationship between text and person. 444 00:56:59,430 --> 00:57:06,980 And I say that because, you know, I am very much aware a mirror that. 445 00:57:06,980 --> 00:57:15,350 I am reading these texts and I am developing a theology of liberation from the pernicious tactics 446 00:57:15,350 --> 00:57:23,000 because also of who I am as a reader and I am not a renouncing and I am a father and my husband. 447 00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:29,660 I'm a I'm, you know, I'm a teacher. I'm very involved in my community and my society. 448 00:57:29,660 --> 00:57:34,850 I want to know how these texts can enrich the meaning of what of what I am doing, 449 00:57:34,850 --> 00:57:40,960 how this text can be a source of values, as you put it, and meaning for my. 450 00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:51,240 My work also, I mean, I bring. My reading of people like Ambedkar has deep critiques of the Hindu tradition. 451 00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:56,880 I bring my reading of black liberation and Latin Latin-American liberation. 452 00:57:56,880 --> 00:58:00,390 Theologians of was opened my eyes, you know, 453 00:58:00,390 --> 00:58:07,020 two ways of thinking about the tradition to my reading of the of the text, but I don't think I would not do. 454 00:58:07,020 --> 00:58:11,520 What I say is a complex conversation with the text because I don't think it was only, you know, 455 00:58:11,520 --> 00:58:20,850 I am bringing an imposing a view on the text because I must also look at if I am to be a faithful Hindu theologian, 456 00:58:20,850 --> 00:58:25,280 I must have some grounding the tradition for articulating what I what I do. 457 00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:30,840 I construct my liberation theology, so it must have an authenticity in this. 458 00:58:30,840 --> 00:58:33,660 In the authoritative sources that I am, I am dealing with. 459 00:58:33,660 --> 00:58:40,620 And I think that I close by just saying that when I read these texts, and especially when I read side by side, 460 00:58:40,620 --> 00:58:47,370 you know, with the classical commentaries of Schrenker, I am seen, you know, clearly how. 461 00:58:47,370 --> 00:58:55,080 Verses that resonate with me. You know, he will quickly gloss over because of his renouncing lens. 462 00:58:55,080 --> 00:58:59,580 You know, I would say, Oh, wow, this is speaking this has social implications. 463 00:58:59,580 --> 00:59:08,470 This has implications for for contesting hierarchy and on those kinds of Sankara doesn't seek to draw that out because that doesn't interest you. 464 00:59:08,470 --> 00:59:17,860 So I think the Texas rich and I'm coming bring in eyes, the eyes of my own personal journey as well to the text, 465 00:59:17,860 --> 00:59:23,770 and in that conversation, I think creative theology develops. 466 00:59:23,770 --> 00:59:31,370 I mean. Yeah, I thank you know, I think that's that's really fascinating and that complicated relationship, I think is is. 467 00:59:31,370 --> 00:59:35,390 Yeah, where I would sort of try and argue for two. 468 00:59:35,390 --> 00:59:39,290 So I yeah, I think that's really interesting. Thank you. So. 469 00:59:39,290 --> 00:59:52,940 So one thing I wanted to bring up this is something I think I heard it and Dr Paris's early remarks about realism and there needs to be truth. 470 00:59:52,940 --> 01:00:03,180 If we start in the Vedic tradition, if we start with a necessary realism, does this come? 471 01:00:03,180 --> 01:00:12,390 Straightforwardly, with the truth of the virus, does it come straight forward with the Upanishads are true. 472 01:00:12,390 --> 01:00:21,690 And so when you have someone like Imbed Carr who says that we need to do away with the authority of the Scriptures? 473 01:00:21,690 --> 01:00:29,220 That seems to be rebelling straight against this, right? I think the Buddhist tradition has been doing this for a long time. 474 01:00:29,220 --> 01:00:35,160 And so I want to hear more about the necessity of realism or what. 475 01:00:35,160 --> 01:00:42,510 How far are we going to take the realism that that we're describing to? 476 01:00:42,510 --> 01:00:52,440 I wonder if I can respond to that, actually with some of Dr. Abidjan's own words, if I if I may rummage on, 477 01:00:52,440 --> 01:00:58,890 I've read a couple of your books about the World View and the Hindu theology of liberation, which I congratulate you on. 478 01:00:58,890 --> 01:01:09,500 I thought both terrific books, but I just relating both to Mitt Romney's question about hermeneutics and Dr McBride's question about realism. 479 01:01:09,500 --> 01:01:14,460 I found the if I could just read a couple of paragraphs from your page hundred eighty four. 480 01:01:14,460 --> 01:01:22,470 I found this a fairly interesting and insightful way of dealing with both scripture and empirical reality in the world. 481 01:01:22,470 --> 01:01:31,590 You say, according to scripture, is not authoritative if it reveals anything that is contradicted by the evidence of other valid sources of knowledge. 482 01:01:31,590 --> 01:01:39,870 And it is clear that the fundamental premises of the hierarchical ordering of human beings is amplified by caste have no empirical justification. 483 01:01:39,870 --> 01:01:46,890 From an old white perspective, it is not good enough to cite scripture verses to justify social systems for each verse. 484 01:01:46,890 --> 01:01:54,870 I think we are obliged following the definition of the scripture as a source of valid knowledge per month to ask at least two sets of questions first. 485 01:01:54,870 --> 01:02:02,250 Does the passage reveal something that cannot be known otherwise? If so, what is it and why cannot be known otherwise in relation to caste? 486 01:02:02,250 --> 01:02:07,140 We must ask what specifically does the scripture reveal that is not otherwise knowable? 487 01:02:07,140 --> 01:02:12,030 Second, does the test contradict anything known to other valid sources? 488 01:02:12,030 --> 01:02:15,330 If it does, it is not an authoritative revelation. 489 01:02:15,330 --> 01:02:22,110 The fundamental assumptions of caste are refuted empirically and so cannot be justified by an appeal to scripture. 490 01:02:22,110 --> 01:02:26,430 In this page, hundred eighty four of the can do theology of liberation. 491 01:02:26,430 --> 01:02:31,740 I thought that passage was very interesting because it it it speaks to the issue of hermeneutics. 492 01:02:31,740 --> 01:02:40,110 It speaks to the issue of how to balance, uh, I, uh, contenders for truth from different sources. 493 01:02:40,110 --> 01:02:45,530 But it also doesn't negate the idea of realism because it seems to positive hermeneutics where it is. 494 01:02:45,530 --> 01:02:54,870 Um, I suppose a progressive groping towards truth, you know, and that if the empirical reality we find um contradicts the scripture, 495 01:02:54,870 --> 01:02:59,380 then so much the worse for the scripture, which I thought was a very interesting approach. 496 01:02:59,380 --> 01:03:09,650 And I thank you for it. Could I ask for a clarification in this conversation as well, because I think that might. 497 01:03:09,650 --> 01:03:12,290 And a lot of the traditions that I discuss this as well. 498 01:03:12,290 --> 01:03:23,180 The difference between saying there's a matter of fact at one point in time another and also saying that realism is necessary or believing in realism, 499 01:03:23,180 --> 01:03:31,460 they might be like a conception of consensus and or someone thinking that there is a 500 01:03:31,460 --> 01:03:37,160 way the world really is that we can state in words or that we can't state in words. 501 01:03:37,160 --> 01:03:46,110 And I think that my son might not be important difference because I think philosophies or theologies of liberation can be derived from both. 502 01:03:46,110 --> 01:03:50,870 And I don't know whether that's important, then that there is a difference or we have a common goal, 503 01:03:50,870 --> 01:03:56,800 but it's important to discern the differences between those and. 504 01:03:56,800 --> 01:04:03,730 And that's something that I was really interested to see if he took out more because I can't tell if there there's a 505 01:04:03,730 --> 01:04:18,480 discrepancy in evaluation and values that could detract from what seems to be a common goal and common values of celebration. 506 01:04:18,480 --> 01:04:23,340 I could just say I see a little bit. I'm trying to make sure I get your point. 507 01:04:23,340 --> 01:04:29,520 Could you could you just go on a little bit more for my, for my sake, I like to. 508 01:04:29,520 --> 01:04:44,570 Understand the question that. Right. So I think the question is is in part that there seem to be I'm kind of proud and we feed my questions together. 509 01:04:44,570 --> 01:04:53,690 Overarching similarities like there's a similar goal is horizons of liberation for all beings, 510 01:04:53,690 --> 01:04:57,000 but they might be quantified or understood in different ways. 511 01:04:57,000 --> 01:05:05,360 So I think that's an important distinction. And also where that goal comes from and the dynamics of the methodology of getting there can also differ. 512 01:05:05,360 --> 01:05:11,330 And this stuff's important and how important is that when we say we have this common goal, 513 01:05:11,330 --> 01:05:21,050 how how common actually is it and how important is it that those values might come from different places? 514 01:05:21,050 --> 01:05:26,240 And is that justified? What do we do with that? 515 01:05:26,240 --> 01:05:35,150 And I think that's an important in that to work if we believe in more realism or ontological realism or not, 516 01:05:35,150 --> 01:05:46,390 or if that can be matters of facts that we agree upon, which are necessarily grounded in ontological realism and. 517 01:05:46,390 --> 01:05:53,820 Also arise, and if I'm thinking about traditions, like I would say, like the much out Mecca, 518 01:05:53,820 --> 01:05:58,390 I might say at some point it's useful to have consensus on matters of facts, 519 01:05:58,390 --> 01:06:07,750 but they can be transformed and even light by your heart, as someone might say about to. 520 01:06:07,750 --> 01:06:18,700 But then, on the other hand, that can seem very similar to theologies, another even just philosophy that believe in realism, an untouchable grounding. 521 01:06:18,700 --> 01:06:24,370 And I was wondering if we could pick apart this differences because it seems like value comes from a different place. 522 01:06:24,370 --> 01:06:37,660 And I'm not sure if it leads us to the same place or a different place in terms of liberation and if that's important or ethics. 523 01:06:37,660 --> 01:06:49,420 I was quite intrigued, you know, where where Dr. Powers started with the MeToo movement and then he listed, I don't know. 524 01:06:49,420 --> 01:06:56,500 It was taking some notes and then I lost my numbering six or seven requirements. 525 01:06:56,500 --> 01:07:03,520 You know, for for a meaningful response how you could justify, you know, 526 01:07:03,520 --> 01:07:14,410 that kind of argument for accountability and to to to argue against sexual assault. 527 01:07:14,410 --> 01:07:25,720 And as far as that common, the question of, you know, the common values that you're mentioning is what was interesting in his list that he gave. 528 01:07:25,720 --> 01:07:29,260 I was as I was listening, I say, you know, this is like this. 529 01:07:29,260 --> 01:07:38,860 This list corresponds very well to what I am. What I seen as a requirement for meaningful Hindu theology of liberation in the sense that. 530 01:07:38,860 --> 01:07:46,300 And I would say, I can't I can't construct a Hindu theology of liberation in the absence of a value for the world. 531 01:07:46,300 --> 01:07:52,720 And this is art and the quality of human existence on theologically and unethical. 532 01:07:52,720 --> 01:07:56,950 It becomes a fundamental requisite to do that. 533 01:07:56,950 --> 01:08:03,880 I can't. I can't construct a Hindu theology of liberation without an understanding of the 534 01:08:03,880 --> 01:08:12,280 meaning of liberation or moksha that we don't understand the meaning of shared values. 535 01:08:12,280 --> 01:08:21,670 Life in this world and not not sees, you know, sees liberation as escape from some sort of escape from this, from this world. 536 01:08:21,670 --> 01:08:28,210 Or it is not possible for me to construct a Hindu theology of liberation without detailing the 537 01:08:28,210 --> 01:08:34,240 ethical implications of of liberation for the transformation of human relationships in this world. 538 01:08:34,240 --> 01:08:42,670 Again, this goes contrary to the certain trends in the tradition because. 539 01:08:42,670 --> 01:08:45,550 You know, where, where human relationships are. 540 01:08:45,550 --> 01:08:55,630 The wrong answer is someone who has several human relationships has no human relationships, a one at one level, 541 01:08:55,630 --> 01:09:05,950 but I can't see how I can do Hindu theology of liberation without speaking about the implications of moksha for human relationships in this, 542 01:09:05,950 --> 01:09:13,720 in this in this world or without again, you know, another with expanding. 543 01:09:13,720 --> 01:09:23,890 You know, you have very few. The traditional understanding of liberation is based on a on a very spiritual eyes understanding of human suffering. 544 01:09:23,890 --> 01:09:26,500 I don't see that that doesn't have vitality, 545 01:09:26,500 --> 01:09:38,860 but I can't do it without expanding an understanding of suffering to include when human beings are lacking or access to health care, 546 01:09:38,860 --> 01:09:44,960 to decent work, to freedom from social injustice. 547 01:09:44,960 --> 01:09:58,720 And and so on. I can't do it without, as he put it, in our affirming the equal woods and dignity of all human of all human beings. 548 01:09:58,720 --> 01:10:07,720 So those are, for me, fundamental common. I don't know, I mean, I would be interested to see what Dr McBride would say about that. 549 01:10:07,720 --> 01:10:10,960 But I found I would I would agree with your listeners, 550 01:10:10,960 --> 01:10:18,760 so many in so many ways as prerequisites for my own work constructing a theology of liberation from the non-Jew. 551 01:10:18,760 --> 01:10:28,050 All the data were I found at least to be very, very interesting. 552 01:10:28,050 --> 01:10:33,510 So, so if I hear Alice Hanks question correctly. 553 01:10:33,510 --> 01:10:43,790 Well, one thing that might occur to ask is, can someone who is a non duplass began to work together for liberation? 554 01:10:43,790 --> 01:10:55,170 With a Buddhist or someone who Yahya or someone from some other school of thought. 555 01:10:55,170 --> 01:11:05,700 Or do we have to be within the same school of thought, the same theology to work together towards liberation? 556 01:11:05,700 --> 01:11:19,350 And I think I hear you saying that you are open to that and your critique of the caste system seems to challenge at least some of the traditions, so. 557 01:11:19,350 --> 01:11:28,080 Alison, you can correct me if I'm misinterpreting. No, you are absolutely right and you're right in hearing me in the way that you heard me, 558 01:11:28,080 --> 01:11:38,940 I want to say yes, yes, yes to in spite of, you know, this in spite of our different places of meaning. 559 01:11:38,940 --> 01:11:49,680 I think my own, you know, my own reading of liberation theology in the Buddhist tradition, in the Christian tradition, especially. 560 01:11:49,680 --> 01:12:00,300 And Elizabeth, I read also about attempts to construct liberation theology in Islam, which foragers Isaac and others. 561 01:12:00,300 --> 01:12:04,230 I think that we start from different places of meaning, but we do. 562 01:12:04,230 --> 01:12:19,230 I think there was some important consensus about about what the values that inform and inspire the work that we want to do together. 563 01:12:19,230 --> 01:12:25,380 And I think that's not a small matter. I think that that's very significant. 564 01:12:25,380 --> 01:12:37,350 Yeah, I'm wondering if maybe this is correct for me from reading your works and maybe from reading some more and then look. 565 01:12:37,350 --> 01:12:40,290 Is that we might be able to separate? And I wonder, 566 01:12:40,290 --> 01:12:48,600 you take from this what we think truth is or the types of truthful looking from the types of values may maybe there's 567 01:12:48,600 --> 01:12:56,520 a similar sociological scientific orientation of values that doesn't have to align with what we think she lies. 568 01:12:56,520 --> 01:13:02,850 And the debate but philosophical, otherwise reasoning debate might be able to, 569 01:13:02,850 --> 01:13:11,280 in that orientation, work together towards that value rather than that truth. 570 01:13:11,280 --> 01:13:16,350 But I'm curious about to the extent that that is possible or problematic or not. 571 01:13:16,350 --> 01:13:21,710 And. And I wonder what insights you'd have to share. 572 01:13:21,710 --> 01:13:31,430 Maybe I can do this to Dr. Fried because it seems like we've been talking about conceptions of personhood, 573 01:13:31,430 --> 01:13:41,090 which I believe is one of the points in interactions ethics that he talks about that allow us to 574 01:13:41,090 --> 01:13:49,460 stand up against or critique oppression and where that comes from and how different they may be, 575 01:13:49,460 --> 01:13:58,690 where there has to be restricted to persons. And also a question of. 576 01:13:58,690 --> 01:14:06,070 Well, I think brings back to the doctor power is that as well, if it has to be rooted in knowledge or something else, 577 01:14:06,070 --> 01:14:16,120 such as compassion and how much that relates to a way of knowing or if it's not even knowing that. 578 01:14:16,120 --> 01:14:23,790 That's two questions at once, and you ask that either, and he takes on the fact. 579 01:14:23,790 --> 01:14:32,460 So the way that that I use personhood and humanity, I think those are the two that I use. 580 01:14:32,460 --> 01:14:40,390 I get those from Leonard Harris. Of course, you should read his work if you haven't. 581 01:14:40,390 --> 01:14:46,040 What I'm leaning on heavily here is this idea that. 582 01:14:46,040 --> 01:14:59,340 Oppressed groups, racialized groups. Typically are denigrated, they are subordinate, subordinated, they are made lesser. 583 01:14:59,340 --> 01:15:04,250 So the values that are attached to them typically are lesser, right? 584 01:15:04,250 --> 01:15:19,260 So three fifths a person you can talk about. The ways that, you know, certain types of bodies are just seen as. 585 01:15:19,260 --> 01:15:27,030 You know, you could just use them and trash them or thrown away. 586 01:15:27,030 --> 01:15:34,140 Personhood is supposed to bring our attention to this idea that the as a person, as a human being, as part of the human community, 587 01:15:34,140 --> 01:15:36,210 and we can just talk about, broadly speaking, 588 01:15:36,210 --> 01:15:44,970 that we should be afforded certain dignities and certain types of value that all human beings are afforded. 589 01:15:44,970 --> 01:15:54,880 What I hear you asking is, so how do we know when someone is a person or not or who or what is to be counted as a person? 590 01:15:54,880 --> 01:15:58,240 These are tough questions, 591 01:15:58,240 --> 01:16:07,870 but I think what I'm really we're working on at least the works I've been writing recently is talking about human populations, 592 01:16:07,870 --> 01:16:11,590 particularly the oppressed who haven't been afforded full dignity, 593 01:16:11,590 --> 01:16:19,660 who haven't been given full access to those things that make a healthy life possible. 594 01:16:19,660 --> 01:16:30,190 So if you could say more about the question or which direction we want to go, I'm willing to talk more. 595 01:16:30,190 --> 01:16:32,170 I can't I can maybe say, what's your point? 596 01:16:32,170 --> 01:16:45,010 So I'm curious about the focus on humanity, because then I think that might change some of the conceptions of values such as like environmental value. 597 01:16:45,010 --> 01:16:54,310 Is that like a corollary to human values or is there something more inherent value and or in our? 598 01:16:54,310 --> 01:17:04,540 Attitudes towards the environment and justice and human needs for sentient beings, for example, as a broader conception, 599 01:17:04,540 --> 01:17:11,330 which you could say person to that so you could say spies on animals that you could say any foreign extension, 600 01:17:11,330 --> 01:17:20,620 so you could say at any price to humans. So that's perhaps where attitudes come in. 601 01:17:20,620 --> 01:17:27,940 And I'm curious about this selections and where they come from again and in all your 602 01:17:27,940 --> 01:17:37,240 world views or traditions that you're speaking for and what the takes are that. 603 01:17:37,240 --> 01:17:48,120 Yeah, so. Again, I have been working on anthropologists, right, so the types of creatures we are. 604 01:17:48,120 --> 01:17:54,680 But I definitely think that and I've seen this in at very least other countries where. 605 01:17:54,680 --> 01:18:02,090 The notion of who a person is has been extended to other mammals, 606 01:18:02,090 --> 01:18:10,310 and I could see how and why we would we would extend these sorts of dignities to other creatures. 607 01:18:10,310 --> 01:18:15,830 The thing beyond this that I would consider is that we can start to talk about our communities and 608 01:18:15,830 --> 01:18:27,100 the relations we have with the various communities and change and alter who and how we relate to. 609 01:18:27,100 --> 01:18:34,880 And the various ways that we treat the environment. So I'm not. 610 01:18:34,880 --> 01:18:40,200 Sort of. Only concerned with human beings. 611 01:18:40,200 --> 01:18:43,970 But if I'm talking about. 612 01:18:43,970 --> 01:18:54,770 Attaining human rights, if I'm worried about racialized populations who still suffer from colonisation, who still suffer from racialisation. 613 01:18:54,770 --> 01:19:03,620 That was the focus when I was working on. I will add that lots of the people that I study and work with are vegetarian or vegan. 614 01:19:03,620 --> 01:19:09,860 And so I understand the argumentation and I understand where this could go. 615 01:19:09,860 --> 01:19:16,940 And so I'm not against taking it that far or taking those directions, but. 616 01:19:16,940 --> 01:19:25,730 I really have been working with this set of problems. 617 01:19:25,730 --> 01:19:37,150 I wonder if anyone else has comments on this, given your traditions or background and what led you to take that action? 618 01:19:37,150 --> 01:19:42,640 So, Alice, what I would add to what Dr. MacGregor said is that. 619 01:19:42,640 --> 01:19:53,350 You know, again, coming to the opening shows a good guitar, clearly, you know, the discussion there was not about, 620 01:19:53,350 --> 01:19:57,760 you know, who is a person, that's not the terminology that was was used, right? 621 01:19:57,760 --> 01:20:05,420 They were not wrestling with that kind of terminology, but what is what is absolutely clear to me, 622 01:20:05,420 --> 01:20:14,210 and it's a point that, you know, the doctor on Beat Cancer and The Punisher also is that. 623 01:20:14,210 --> 01:20:22,540 The teaching that. At the most fundamental level of. 624 01:20:22,540 --> 01:20:33,550 My being or at the most fundamental level of any sentient being, let me use your terminology expanded in that way, Alice, 625 01:20:33,550 --> 01:20:44,470 is this ultimate reality and in a way, you know, you have this famous statement in the channel logo it Ted Thomas, you are that that is what you. 626 01:20:44,470 --> 01:20:48,640 You are not constitutes your the ground of all. 627 01:20:48,640 --> 01:20:53,050 You no sense mental, intellectual, physical activities. 628 01:20:53,050 --> 01:20:57,820 That's what you that's what you are that teaching clearly in. 629 01:20:57,820 --> 01:21:05,500 The Punisher was imparted with the aim of. 630 01:21:05,500 --> 01:21:13,970 Helping, helping the listener to learn how to rejoice in that and that discovery. 631 01:21:13,970 --> 01:21:20,320 It that's what, you know, to own oneself, to own the fullness of one's own being. 632 01:21:20,320 --> 01:21:23,060 Enjoy. Right. 633 01:21:23,060 --> 01:21:36,130 Tough in a sense, you can say, to affirm one's own value as a sentient being by discovering what one truly is overcoming a vigil or or ignorance. 634 01:21:36,130 --> 01:21:44,400 What Dr. Ambedkar said in one of his important essays is that. 635 01:21:44,400 --> 01:21:49,800 That truth is not an individual truth that extends to all beings. 636 01:21:49,800 --> 01:21:54,870 What I what I'm affirming about my own value, if I embrace that, I am Brahman. 637 01:21:54,870 --> 01:21:59,760 The humble mass me, as you say in Sanskrit is also has to go along with that, Tomasi. 638 01:21:59,760 --> 01:22:09,900 And you are that. I am that. But you are that if I am of being of value, that value extends to every other living, living being. 639 01:22:09,900 --> 01:22:15,520 And I think. That that has ethical implications. 640 01:22:15,520 --> 01:22:25,480 I think that that has ethical implications. He was trying to push the Hindu tradition to do to be explicit about about those ethical implications and. 641 01:22:25,480 --> 01:22:33,790 One of the important observations he made about Shankar is, as you know, Shankar had this teaching, but he was not asking himself. 642 01:22:33,790 --> 01:22:38,110 And again, that's why I came to the renowned CEOs around this lens. 643 01:22:38,110 --> 01:22:41,950 He was not asking himself about the social significance. 644 01:22:41,950 --> 01:22:50,770 Because, you know, he was you had those interpretations that's sought to explain the world away and not to give significance to the world. 645 01:22:50,770 --> 01:22:55,210 So he had a wonderful teaching about human dignity. 646 01:22:55,210 --> 01:23:04,670 And, you know, and equal value, but never applied it to the social realm and he felt. 647 01:23:04,670 --> 01:23:12,750 Though there was no will to do it also within the Hindu tradition, because it r teaching was, was was, you know, empowered. 648 01:23:12,750 --> 01:23:23,350 Some. So didn't they had no incentive to dismantle a system that empowered them? 649 01:23:23,350 --> 01:23:30,780 Which, you know, this is why he converted, and I said I was, you know, I was born a Hindu, I had no choice. 650 01:23:30,780 --> 01:23:39,180 But I will not die Hindu. I don't know, six months or so before he died, he converted to Buddhism. 651 01:23:39,180 --> 01:23:48,370 As an act of protest against a tradition that oppressed his, his his community. 652 01:23:48,370 --> 01:23:55,360 I might ask a question if that's if that's okay, I mean, I'm just very I'm really interested in this, 653 01:23:55,360 --> 01:23:58,900 this question of personhood itself when it comes to ethics. 654 01:23:58,900 --> 01:24:08,460 And I just I just wonder. Where you think I guess this question would probably be directed more to Dr. Powers and Dr. Robertson, 655 01:24:08,460 --> 01:24:17,700 but where you think compassion lies in this question of compassion is the role of suffering when it comes to this question. 656 01:24:17,700 --> 01:24:24,330 Because because it seems to me that perhaps as as Dr. Pius was suggesting that the teaching that everything is from, 657 01:24:24,330 --> 01:24:33,030 one might be able to sort of undermine the importance of significance of the sufferings of individual people. 658 01:24:33,030 --> 01:24:42,000 So. Does suffering then have to sort of have you can have Roman as a positive value, but suffering has to be an absolute negative value. 659 01:24:42,000 --> 01:24:47,340 And it seems to me that the Buddhist tradition as a kind of similar ethical way of thinking in that 660 01:24:47,340 --> 01:24:54,600 it denies the reality of individual selves and then argues that suffering is an absolute value. 661 01:24:54,600 --> 01:25:06,340 And so then or ethical actions should be directed towards suffering wherever and whenever it occurs, regardless of in which kind of cells it does. 662 01:25:06,340 --> 01:25:14,430 And so do you. Do you need that same logic? Do you think in in these non-Jewish or Hindu systems that that you work on? 663 01:25:14,430 --> 01:25:26,850 Or could you somehow not have suffering as having as an essential role and still have positive ethical value? 664 01:25:26,850 --> 01:25:31,680 In fact, if I can offer some reflections or thoughts, I think I mean, 665 01:25:31,680 --> 01:25:38,070 the role of suffering is is crucial in this and how that suffering is recognised and dealt with. 666 01:25:38,070 --> 01:25:43,680 And Dr. Robert John touched on something which I think was very important in his initial comments, 667 01:25:43,680 --> 01:25:49,540 and that is the idea of undeserved suffering and whether undeserved suffering. 668 01:25:49,540 --> 01:25:56,110 Even exists in the in the conceptual framework of a tradition, now some traditions here with the very, very strong view of karma. 669 01:25:56,110 --> 01:26:04,810 There is no such thing as undeserved suffering. So the kind of philosophical lens through which these things are viewed is is 670 01:26:04,810 --> 01:26:11,020 really critical in terms of how it interacts with the values that it cultivates. 671 01:26:11,020 --> 01:26:17,380 So that tradition may cultivate compassion very strongly in the individual practitioner. 672 01:26:17,380 --> 01:26:27,100 But the tradition may also be kind of hyper individualistic in the sense that it's all about that person's personal liberation and their side, 673 01:26:27,100 --> 01:26:31,540 and of their practise and their cultivation of liberation. 674 01:26:31,540 --> 01:26:37,550 It may cultivate compassion in a context where it doesn't take the reality of the world seriously. 675 01:26:37,550 --> 01:26:45,730 Perhaps it views the world as illusion. That's some of the European traditions did not all by any means, but some. 676 01:26:45,730 --> 01:26:55,660 Um, and in that context, you may be compassionate towards any being something that happens to wander across your path. 677 01:26:55,660 --> 01:27:03,930 But I don't think you're going to get that kind of. Robust philosophy of science out of a tradition like that or philosophy of social 678 01:27:03,930 --> 01:27:08,190 science that takes seriously structural racism or sexism or climate change, 679 01:27:08,190 --> 01:27:17,940 or, you know, so. So these the way the tradition, its philosophy of the world affects its philosophy of physical and social sciences, 680 01:27:17,940 --> 01:27:29,250 which in turn affects the scope of its ethics, the scope of the extension of those values and the application of those values. 681 01:27:29,250 --> 01:27:42,200 Perhaps it doesn't quite get to your question, but. Maybe could come back if I have not touched on it adequately. 682 01:27:42,200 --> 01:27:50,330 And just building, I'm here and what? What Bret said. 683 01:27:50,330 --> 01:28:01,520 First of all, to acknowledge that the question that you raised because certainly think a lot of varieties of non-eurozone moderator would say, 684 01:28:01,520 --> 01:28:08,900 you know that to speak of compassion is rooted in the dualistic view, you know? 685 01:28:08,900 --> 01:28:20,340 You know, one way it would sort of represent the ultimate the culmination of what it means to be non non idealists or non-journalists awakening as. 686 01:28:20,340 --> 01:28:23,520 And one sees Bronwen alone, one sees nothing else. 687 01:28:23,520 --> 01:28:33,180 So if you see suffering, you're seeing something other than Berman and therefore you're still in the realm of of ignorance. 688 01:28:33,180 --> 01:28:44,520 But that's one on one. While it is, I agree on this and it comes back to see and everything other than pre-eminence as illusory and uncertain. 689 01:28:44,520 --> 01:28:51,330 That's one way of reading the traditional, I assume, the human eye contest, that reading of the of the tradition. 690 01:28:51,330 --> 01:28:56,330 I think that. That, you know, we have to ask ourselves what really constitutes an undue reason, 691 01:28:56,330 --> 01:28:59,240 which is something that, you know, Brett was raising at the beginning, 692 01:28:59,240 --> 01:29:08,520 talking about many, many kinds of man dualism, what really constitutes non-Jews and what what is at the core of non dualism? 693 01:29:08,520 --> 01:29:14,470 And I, I do not at all see. 694 01:29:14,470 --> 01:29:21,490 Compassion as a practise of compassion is somehow incompatible with a non duellist viewpoint, 695 01:29:21,490 --> 01:29:26,260 of course, that will take a lot of explaining, explaining to do. 696 01:29:26,260 --> 01:29:39,780 And again, you know. But spoke also of deliberative person that given Muktar and they are they are, for me, enough texts that. 697 01:29:39,780 --> 01:29:47,400 Also can also speak of the Jeevan Mukta as a person of compassion that I would lift up. 698 01:29:47,400 --> 01:29:51,390 I think again, it's not being unfaithful to the tradition. 699 01:29:51,390 --> 01:30:01,450 I think traditions are rich and diverse and I think but, but that's also an important strand of that, of that of that tradition to see the. 700 01:30:01,450 --> 01:30:08,980 The ultimate expression of wisdom in the non-fuel tradition is not only knowledge of the ISM, 701 01:30:08,980 --> 01:30:18,790 but its expression and in compassion, which, you know, I mean India's intersection with Buddhism corona. 702 01:30:18,790 --> 01:30:26,420 And so on. So I think that. Such things can be reconciled immediately. 703 01:30:26,420 --> 01:30:33,370 A lot of interpretative medical work is necessary, but for me, it's it's important. 704 01:30:33,370 --> 01:30:39,610 I was I to make a very quick qualification, just responding to Doctor Dr. Robert Jones Point Yards. 705 01:30:39,610 --> 01:30:45,400 I certainly would not want to give the impression that in the little vignette I gave of developed 706 01:30:45,400 --> 01:30:51,760 as at the start that that there was any necessary connexion to immorality or anything like that. 707 01:30:51,760 --> 01:30:55,810 And of course, you know there many, many, many great great saints, I suppose. 708 01:30:55,810 --> 01:31:01,630 And what what really seems to matter in terms of the different traditions the various streams is, 709 01:31:01,630 --> 01:31:12,580 is whether there is a, you know, a and necessary connexion between the ethics, compassion and liberation or not. 710 01:31:12,580 --> 01:31:17,950 And in some traditions, there is most certainly and in others there doesn't seem to be. 711 01:31:17,950 --> 01:31:20,590 And that's and that's why it's I think it's quite important, 712 01:31:20,590 --> 01:31:28,900 particularly for young people or students or whether you're pursuing different traditions or gurus to really get to sort of look under the hood, 713 01:31:28,900 --> 01:31:36,900 so to speak, at some of these traditions and what the actual teachings are, because then they're quite different in various. 714 01:31:36,900 --> 01:31:40,210 Yeah. Now, I didn't hear you saying that. Not at all. 715 01:31:40,210 --> 01:31:44,400 I mean, you still spoke of diverse non-ideal tradition and you made it. 716 01:31:44,400 --> 01:31:52,280 I think you made a very important point that you do have all sorts of justifications of certain kinds of immoral. 717 01:31:52,280 --> 01:31:58,630 What I would speak of as immoral behaviour by appearance to certain interpretations of the advantage. 718 01:31:58,630 --> 01:32:05,520 You give an example from Australia, but there have been many other examples where, you know, clearly abusive behaviour, 719 01:32:05,520 --> 01:32:12,690 sexual and otherwise is justified by saying that the GRU is operating at a higher level of of morality that the 720 01:32:12,690 --> 01:32:19,530 student who is exploited does just does not understand how this is all meant for his and especially for her own good. 721 01:32:19,530 --> 01:32:24,450 Far too many. And sometimes it's called your crazy wisdom, you know? Yeah. 722 01:32:24,450 --> 01:32:36,090 Could I use this, I'm aware of time to study transition to our final topic, which has to do is kind of like liberation education. 723 01:32:36,090 --> 01:32:49,020 And I think I'm going to use this notion of compassion is coming up and how it's connected to wisdom and on a personal note relating it to this, 724 01:32:49,020 --> 01:32:59,100 like I had been curious about compassion, innovative to in a project that I did in comparison to Buddhism because it's so obviously connected. 725 01:32:59,100 --> 01:33:05,220 I had many people talking about this and it basically down to a relation to conceptions of personhood in the South. 726 01:33:05,220 --> 01:33:18,490 And I found your endocrine ructions where it's really useful when you talked about how it might be rooted in being able to say like. 727 01:33:18,490 --> 01:33:22,690 I am Brahman, but not the anti Brahman is me like it. 728 01:33:22,690 --> 01:33:32,140 The grounding and the direction of that phrase is important, but I think that does kind of lead us to different, maybe even ideas of compassion. 729 01:33:32,140 --> 01:33:36,270 The conceptions of compassion exist and. 730 01:33:36,270 --> 01:33:47,100 I think this raises the notion of the teacher an interpretation, and this is clearly rooted, though, in logic or metaphysics or reasoning. 731 01:33:47,100 --> 01:33:58,080 I'm curious in Dr McBride's work as well, and such as ethics he talks about, sometimes it's appropriate and sometimes it's not to act compassionately. 732 01:33:58,080 --> 01:34:08,190 And that caught my eye, and I'm not sure if that's a different notion of compassion or not and what you might have to say in this document, right? 733 01:34:08,190 --> 01:34:14,040 And I'm just going to use this as a segue to talk about the role of having this 734 01:34:14,040 --> 01:34:21,300 discussion and narrating a tradition as teachers and other educational development, 735 01:34:21,300 --> 01:34:26,040 which I mentioned might start with you and Dr. FrightFest, 736 01:34:26,040 --> 01:34:32,500 because these are the ones we seem to be talking about just taking like it's fundamental, but then you talk about it just being optional. 737 01:34:32,500 --> 01:34:40,820 So and these guys? Sure. So. 738 01:34:40,820 --> 01:34:49,950 In the form of ethics that I develop insurrectionist ethics, one of the claims is that. 739 01:34:49,950 --> 01:35:01,950 In this type of thought, in this ethical position, those who evinced this view. 740 01:35:01,950 --> 01:35:15,990 Would be open to would be. They would advocate for certain virtues that typically don't fall within the typical conventional conception of virtues. 741 01:35:15,990 --> 01:35:22,610 And so. Insurrection, his virtues might be things like. 742 01:35:22,610 --> 01:35:32,850 Aggressiveness, tenacity, guile, poke, nasty anger. 743 01:35:32,850 --> 01:35:40,440 And so when I raised this sort of issue, many people have bad responses because what they assume then, 744 01:35:40,440 --> 01:35:44,760 is that I am anti the conventional virtues, right? 745 01:35:44,760 --> 01:35:54,360 So love and compassion and being calm and serene and open minded. 746 01:35:54,360 --> 01:36:02,850 These are another set of virtues that people typically adhere to, or at least hold on as these are virtues. 747 01:36:02,850 --> 01:36:07,590 And so one thing I'm doing in insurrections ethics is actually advocating this. 748 01:36:07,590 --> 01:36:12,900 This one said what I'm calling insurrectionist virtues or character traits. 749 01:36:12,900 --> 01:36:13,440 But what? 750 01:36:13,440 --> 01:36:24,630 I think what Alice Heck is picking up on this and I'm not saying you can't compassion are that you can't love people or that you can't be open minded. 751 01:36:24,630 --> 01:36:31,950 But this is where this whole thing comes back together that when you're an oppressed group to force an oppressed 752 01:36:31,950 --> 01:36:42,030 person to only stick to love and compassion and being passion and being passive and quiet and calm and civil, 753 01:36:42,030 --> 01:36:47,440 that keeps an oppressed person or oppressed group in their place. 754 01:36:47,440 --> 01:36:57,030 It it, in many cases will not even allow them to consider pushing back or to resist the oppression. 755 01:36:57,030 --> 01:37:04,830 And so my position is that, yes, I want to hold up these other virtues, 756 01:37:04,830 --> 01:37:09,990 but I also see various ways that compassion could be good for every human being, 757 01:37:09,990 --> 01:37:15,330 particularly even if you're an oppressed person in a position where you have other 758 01:37:15,330 --> 01:37:20,220 folks out there who are also oppressed who might not be in your exact group, 759 01:37:20,220 --> 01:37:23,340 you might need compassion to understand their hardship. 760 01:37:23,340 --> 01:37:31,320 You might need to understand where they're coming from and how you can work together to build coalitions to fight against oppression. 761 01:37:31,320 --> 01:37:38,610 And so I think in many cases, compassion is going to play hand-in-hand with some of these insurrections things, 762 01:37:38,610 --> 01:37:47,420 but not you're not forced to extend it to everyone. Or at least not in the same way. 763 01:37:47,420 --> 01:37:53,490 Thank you. I mean, it seems like what this enables is. 764 01:37:53,490 --> 01:38:09,790 Agency and making a choice about how to act and when and what roles you can play for your goal. 765 01:38:09,790 --> 01:38:15,910 But education and talking about traditionally the resources available, material, 766 01:38:15,910 --> 01:38:25,440 spiritual play a large role in this as we will fight to put on and use interpreting the world gurus. 767 01:38:25,440 --> 01:38:33,860 Darrell, whose teaching philosophy in contemporary academia and other traditions. 768 01:38:33,860 --> 01:38:40,940 I could open this up to general questions or comments or appropriate to the context on 769 01:38:40,940 --> 01:38:46,300 perhaps the necessity of reinterpreting traditions with new applications at some point. 770 01:38:46,300 --> 01:38:49,070 I think Dr, I'm about to touch on that, 771 01:38:49,070 --> 01:39:00,470 but that's why I might be necessary in relation to IS speaking and reinterpreting are basically down to an application to social concerns. 772 01:39:00,470 --> 01:39:03,290 And if anyone wants to talk about that, 773 01:39:03,290 --> 01:39:11,240 that that we welcome also concrete steps that students can take in the classroom to help with those material changes 774 01:39:11,240 --> 01:39:18,890 or they need certain institutions and align with the values that we're talking about that come from these traditions. 775 01:39:18,890 --> 01:39:29,570 Any comments or welcome? I think we can make these kind of final remarks and to or not, whatever you like, basically get. 776 01:39:29,570 --> 01:39:37,910 I wonder if I can just make a very quick comment. Building on Dr. McBride's comments about the relationship between compassion and 777 01:39:37,910 --> 01:39:43,280 fighting oppression and and it also builds on curmudgeons notions of non duality, 778 01:39:43,280 --> 01:39:45,830 is fostering understandings of connexion and so on as well. 779 01:39:45,830 --> 01:39:55,490 I think one way that compassion can be a great aid in dealing with oppression is perhaps enabling. 780 01:39:55,490 --> 01:40:03,710 Understanding of the brokenness of the oppressor and what it brutalisation, they may have been through senior, 781 01:40:03,710 --> 01:40:10,760 they're not so different from us, so it can help prevent the kind of demonisation and othering of the oppressor as well. 782 01:40:10,760 --> 01:40:25,150 And and that can potentially open up skilful pathways of dealing with them in more constructively, perhaps. 783 01:40:25,150 --> 01:40:36,420 Alex, I agree with my colleagues in both of the comments, I think, you know, doctor, my first comment about the way in which, you know, 784 01:40:36,420 --> 01:40:44,160 compassion could be utilised to control oppressed people hypocritically, you know, 785 01:40:44,160 --> 01:40:51,810 lifted up to to prevent them from seeing or protesting against unjust conditions. 786 01:40:51,810 --> 01:41:03,030 I think that's very that's very important. And, you know, I come back with a final remark again. 787 01:41:03,030 --> 01:41:10,040 You know, the record guitar twice. Uses an important. 788 01:41:10,040 --> 01:41:16,210 Expression to describe the attitude of the liberated person towards the world. 789 01:41:16,210 --> 01:41:22,870 And. The expression is sort of a good hitter to. 790 01:41:22,870 --> 01:41:30,940 One who delights or finds joy in the flourishing of all beings sort of abhorred the idea 791 01:41:30,940 --> 01:41:37,930 that I thought means to delight one who delights in the flourishing of all beings. 792 01:41:37,930 --> 01:41:43,120 And as I think, you know, text like does have to be pushed. What does it mean? 793 01:41:43,120 --> 01:41:48,610 You know, what does it mean when we live in oppressive conditions? What are we obligated? 794 01:41:48,610 --> 01:41:55,870 How does that take? What are the obligations of a text like that that summons us to delight in the flourishing of all beings? 795 01:41:55,870 --> 01:42:03,160 What you know earlier, unless you raise a question about practise and knowledge, the dichotomy you know what, 796 01:42:03,160 --> 01:42:11,120 what, what social practises, you know, will such a text demand of us all again? 797 01:42:11,120 --> 01:42:20,620 In the book, What gets, you know, the the the yogi the highest yogi is is described as hot. 798 01:42:20,620 --> 01:42:31,510 All me in some sort of a trance to come. Why you the come is the one who identifies with the others in joy and in sorrow. 799 01:42:31,510 --> 01:42:37,590 The highest, you know, what does it mean to identify with another in suffering? 800 01:42:37,590 --> 01:42:44,220 And later text, you get that very beautiful definition of compassion from in the 16th century. 801 01:42:44,220 --> 01:42:50,640 He was not an unduly, although he was very much learnt about an idealist theology of just one. 802 01:42:50,640 --> 01:42:58,950 CDC defines compassion as burrard-lucas Dukurs Kazuko as suffering when others suffer and 803 01:42:58,950 --> 01:43:05,070 delighting the suffering and the suffering of the other and delight in the joy of the other. 804 01:43:05,070 --> 01:43:10,380 Burrard-lucas Duka Sooka Sooka When an aura is happy, I I am. 805 01:43:10,380 --> 01:43:22,590 I find joy. When another suffers, I suffer. And how do we we tease out the social implications of those kinds of texts. 806 01:43:22,590 --> 01:43:29,570 And I remember Martin Luther King. Paid a very high tribute to Gandhi. 807 01:43:29,570 --> 01:43:40,090 Maybe too much. But he said he said that Gandhi was the first person in history to I'm not quoting him directly. 808 01:43:40,090 --> 01:43:48,910 First person in history to transform the love ethic of Jesus into a method of social resistance. 809 01:43:48,910 --> 01:43:57,160 Now it was he felt that Canada did something with Jesus's love teaching and made in terms of drawing out its social implication, 810 01:43:57,160 --> 01:44:03,770 the social implications of of love and especially making it a method of protest. 811 01:44:03,770 --> 01:44:07,690 I think this goes to, you know, Dr McBride's point. 812 01:44:07,690 --> 01:44:12,620 Love can become a method of protest, and it also goes to, I think finally with the Dr. Paracelsss Point, 813 01:44:12,620 --> 01:44:20,840 which I like very much, that, you know, when we bring to our understanding of injustice, 814 01:44:20,840 --> 01:44:32,750 the the the thing that ultimately all of this thing, all of this is rooted in the fundamental ignorance of modern nature of of of of of reality, 815 01:44:32,750 --> 01:44:37,970 nature of self and not only oneself, but itself of all. 816 01:44:37,970 --> 01:44:47,000 When we look at the fundamental cause of suffering in a video, then we can also find we can also resist the oppressor, 817 01:44:47,000 --> 01:44:56,240 but do so with love and compassion because we understand that there is a better way of being a better way of flourishing for all beings, 818 01:44:56,240 --> 01:45:03,350 oppressor and oppressed. So I think that would be my my last point on this. 819 01:45:03,350 --> 01:45:07,760 If we had done, I just, you know, I'm grateful for this opportunity. I'm happy to meet. 820 01:45:07,760 --> 01:45:18,940 If I were Bretton Bradley and and Amir and young and others, thank you very much for convening and inviting me to participate in this discussion. 821 01:45:18,940 --> 01:45:25,220 Thank you so much. Dogshit variety of any final remarks as well. 822 01:45:25,220 --> 01:45:30,670 I do. So. 823 01:45:30,670 --> 01:45:42,430 I guess when we come to education, one of the things that's helped me immensely and changed the way I see the world are being exposed to things, 824 01:45:42,430 --> 01:45:51,620 ideas, authors that I hadn't prior. And so we need to find ways to read these authors in these texts. 825 01:45:51,620 --> 01:46:01,900 There are authors out there that will shake us up, that are rebellious, that are outside of our framework. 826 01:46:01,900 --> 01:46:08,710 We need new concepts, new descriptions. There are options out there. 827 01:46:08,710 --> 01:46:19,500 I'm almost certain of this, there are options out there that we won't see until we leave our intervening background assumptions. 828 01:46:19,500 --> 01:46:28,470 And so I think one of the things we have to do is to spread the word we need to read more widely. 829 01:46:28,470 --> 01:46:33,810 We need to continuously be critical of our own background. 830 01:46:33,810 --> 01:46:43,180 Assumptions are on a PC demand. And I would I would finish with with something from Dr. King. 831 01:46:43,180 --> 01:46:50,550 It's worth noting that Martin Luther King Jr. calls for a genuine revolution of values. 832 01:46:50,550 --> 01:47:00,030 He writes, Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world. 833 01:47:00,030 --> 01:47:08,380 Declare an eternal opposition to poverty, racism and militarism. 834 01:47:08,380 --> 01:47:16,880 Well, thank you. I think there's lots to think about, and I could ask a lot more questions. 835 01:47:16,880 --> 01:47:22,870 Again, it says anything else and wants to say to you, welcome. 836 01:47:22,870 --> 01:47:32,560 But if not, I'd like to ask you all so much, I think such an important topic and you all kind of like examples. 837 01:47:32,560 --> 01:47:37,990 I think of the practise of philosophy and what it can teach us about the very topics we've been discussing. 838 01:47:37,990 --> 01:47:46,210 So thank you for your work. Well, generally, we'll share more resources that this was the final episode. 839 01:47:46,210 --> 01:47:51,370 So hopefully of these people on a good reflection point about how to think about how 840 01:47:51,370 --> 01:47:57,910 to proceed with their own engagement with listening to this episode and beyond. 841 01:47:57,910 --> 01:48:04,010 And they're in the air with even things like. I'm nothing more than just yet. 842 01:48:04,010 --> 01:48:11,460 Thank you so much for having this discussion and taking this time, and there's a lot of things that have been raised and more avenues to pursue. 843 01:48:11,460 --> 01:48:20,160 But I think the things that have been said are useful and kind of affirming as well of the possibilities of liberation from different viewpoints, 844 01:48:20,160 --> 01:48:25,470 which I think is really important. So thank you so much and it's nice to meet you. Thank you. 845 01:48:25,470 --> 01:48:29,620 Maybe we'll meeting in person someday. That would be wonderful. 846 01:48:29,620 --> 01:48:36,340 And thank you all for organising a very wonderful Jemmy Kimmel. 847 01:48:36,340 --> 01:48:50,780 I'm just calling President Craig. 848 01:48:50,780 --> 01:49:00,140 Thank you for making room for the possibility of strengthening or contesting our interpretive frameworks and not a consideration. 849 01:49:00,140 --> 01:49:06,420 Maybe that's the entire BPP de Chelsea podcast teams. 850 01:49:06,420 --> 01:49:13,060 With your crying with you, we find you next, possibly next Wednesday. 851 01:49:13,060 --> 01:49:25,669 Pecks you that.