“Benign neglect”
Yet another lens commonly used in approaches to people of alternate
religions or cultures is one that can be euphemistically called “benign
neglect.” This is an approach that assumes one can live in one’s own world
and let the “others” live in theirs. This may be the most common approach
in the American and European attitudes toward India. After all, in American
schools, a student is lucky in the course of twelve years of schooling to have
had more than three to five hours of study on India. American history is
presumed to have started in Greece and Rome, worked its way through
Europe, and culminated in North America. Further, many religious persons
and communities, whether in India or in the United States, tend to live,
think, and interact socially within religious enclaves. Many undergraduates
still receive baccalaureate degrees without ever having studied seriously a
culture outside their own.
There are a number of reasons why “benign neglect” is no longer a viable
option (if indeed it ever was). For one thing, Hindus, Muslims, and
Buddhists are no longer exotic objects existing on the opposite side of the
world; nor are Christians and Jews to be found only in “the West.” All are
neighbors living in cities of North America and Europe and on every
populated continent. A globalized world makes it no longer possible to
ignore people who may be different. Indeed, to paraphrase James Baldwin,
“to ignore a person is to think of him/her as dead.” In that sense, to avoid
study of any culture or peoples becomes a form of psychic or academic
genocide. Further, one does not understand oneself without the context
of difference: self-understanding is enriched, perhaps even made possible,
only in the context of understanding others. Moreover, people who do not
make an effort to understand another’s point of view are destined eternally
to be “victims” – victims, that is, of any demagogue who wants to characterize,
stereotype, or demonize the other.
Violence in the name of religion has become commonplace in today’s
world. Many factors go into these eruptions – economic disparity, political
marginalization, the quest for ethnic territory or personal space; cynical
exploitation by the powerful; and many other factors. But invariably in the
mix is a basic ignorance – ignorance of the religious and cultural values
of others as well as an ignorance of the finitude and limitations of one’s own
religious commitments.
The study of the religions of India is an invitation to a pilgrimage – a
pilgrimage of understanding a rich, multifaceted, complex universe as well
as a pilgrimage to self-understanding. For as we let “India” ask its questions
of us, we find we are constantly in need of rethinking our answers and
refocusing our lenses.
On Wearing Good Lenses 9