Source: TW
One sees that same cavalier attitude among some Ācāryas in respect of anti-Hindu threats in Academia. Recall a video where an Ācārya tries to joke:
“Who is this Sheldon Bālak? I need to do Sandhyāvandana!”
I didn’t think it was funny. I found it naive & unhelpful.
Unhelpful assumptions:
- Our adversaries’ religions are completely empty & stupid. No, they aren’t. It’s fine for an outburst. But not a serious response:
- “All we need to do is to send our traditional Ācāryas to debate with academia.” Sorry to pour cold water but NO. They are not prepared; not in your wildest dreams.
- Traditional scholarship is still plagued by blind denialism of academia & this most pernicious idea that all answers are already there in tradition. Not all but many of them are like this. Apparently, we don’t have to conceptualize new frameworks or arguments. One can see this stagnation in many of the heavily touted examples of “traditional intellectual response”. You “list” a rival’s positions, then state your traditional position (as if the world should just take it for granted), discuss staple examples from old Mīmāmsā texts in Skt for 45 minutes. Which of his substantive theses did you effectively demolish? Only Īśvara knows.
- Which brings to my last point—Discourse in Skt is not going to solve problems. Thinking so means you are so caught up in the form & appearance that you have missed the substance.
Without making genuine effort to understand the other’s position & its nuances, without accepting the hard truth that traditional intellectual frameworks do need a significant upgrade today (as they did throughout history), traditional scholarship has very little future.