Civilizational bias

Abrahamist bias

  • Political sympathies, and the victor writes history phenomenon.
  • Examples elsewhere
    • Junipero Serra canonization G2015.

Islamophilia

  • Criticizing Islam means criticizing their own Christian past - fundamental problems are the same.
  • To modern Europeans, the fundamental evils of intolerant Abrahamisms (Eg. Banu Quraiza massacre) are abstract concepts, as are Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Juno and the emperor Julian. The Aurangzebs, Mahmuds and Aladins (ie their early Christian equivalents) of Europe are about as abstract as the forgotten Roman Gods. Not so for us culturally rooted Hindus. IshAna still lives in our rage, Indra in our stength, Earth in our body and so on. I only need to travel 150 kilometers from my hometown to see temples rendered to ruins by the eununch ghAzi mallik kafur, not too much farther are Hampi and Srirangam. Similarly, one does not often find Italians being murdered or roughed up by hooligans partly motivated by Islam, but we do.

Pro-western civilizational bias.

  • Examples from history of mathematics resulting in dismissal, derision: rAma_pi_16, rAma15.
  • This was starkly evident in the early days: MT_TW.
  • “Orientalist attitude toward India that American academics have inherited from the 19th century European scholars—it’s the working principle that the “natives” are incapable of understanding their own culture as famously explained in Edward Said’s book, Orientalism.” - AR.

Area studies in USA

  • “Area Studies began after WWII as a program to encourage university-level training and research (apparently previously largely neglected) into non-Western areas of the world for the purpose of responding to the threat of communist expansion as well as the consequences of the collapse of the British empire and other colonial systems. Starting from 1956, the US government under Title Sixth of the Higher Education Act funds 125 university-based area studies units. UC Berkeley’s South Asia area studies program, for instance, receives $3.5 million/year. In its Cold War form, area studies was intended as an extension of the US foreign policy and the work of both the CIA and the State Department—this is not a conspiracy theory, but commonly acknowledged and debated among scholars themselves. Much of the study of India’s history, religion and present society takes place within South Asia area studies, with its legacy focus on politics, economics, social injustice and conflict.” - arumuganAthasvAmin.

Pro-liberal bias

  • Johannes Bronkhorst: “We should take care not to present ourselves as mere good-will ambassadors of another tradition, providing entertainment to those thus inclined. We are not, or not primarily, entertainers. We have a far more important role to play, viz., to defend the Enlightenment values that we consider vital for the society we live in. This does not mean that we, or all of us, should become politically active; we do not all have to play the hero, like Witzel. …”