Sacred Spiritual Ecologies

About the Speaker

Prasenjit Duara is the Oscar Tang Chair of East Asian Studies at Duke University. He received his PhD in Chinese history from Harvard University. He was Professor and chair of History and East Asian Studies at University of Chicago (1991-2008) and Raffles Professor and Director of Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore (2008-2015). His latest book is The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future (Cambridge 2014). He was awarded the doctor philosophiae honoris causa from the University of Oslo in 2017. He is the incoming President of American Assn of Asian Studies and Kothari Chair of Democracy, CSDS, Delhi.

Abstract

The crisis of global modernity has been produced by human overreach that was founded upon a paradigm of national modernization. Today, three global changes: the rise of non-western powers, the crisis of environmental sustainability and the loss of authoritative sources of transcendence – the ideals, principles and ethics once found in religions -- define our condition. The physical salvation of the world is becoming the transcendent goal of our times, transcending national sovereignty. The foundations of sovereignty can no longer be sought in tunnelled histories of nations; we are recognizing that histories have always been circulatory and the planet is a collective responsibility.

I re-consider the values and resources in Asian traditions—particularly of China and India-- that Max Weber found wanting in their capacity to achieve modernity. Several traditions in Asia, particularly in environmentally marginalized local communities offer different ways of understanding the relationship between the personal, ecological and universal. The idea of transcendence in these communities is more dialogical than radical or dualistic: separating God or the human subject from nature. Transnational civil society, NGOS, quasi-governmental and inter-governmental agencies committed to to the inviolability or sacrality of the ‘commons’ are finding common cause with these communities struggling to survive.

Report

Among the challenges that confront us today, the most global and imminent can be said to be climate change, ecological depletion, and suchlike environmental challenges. The state that we have reached today goes back far to not just economic and social formations but the essential principles and ideological frameworks that govern industrial modernity. Modernity not just venerates consumption divorced from necessity and revere gigantism but also invites competition to be the catalyst for change. Such a secular modernity must be held culprit – argued Dr. Duara. He also makes charges against nationalism for making consumption a matter of pride in contemporary world citizenry. How then must one break from this mould? If the root of the problem lay in ideology and notional paradigms, so must the solutions. In this particular way the speaker reminded me of Max Weber’s understanding of history – ideas first, economies next.

Professor Prasenjit finds hope in the ‘Transcendental’. The transcendental, he defines as a philosophy which rises above the absolute present to envision an overarching truth. And the invention of the transcendental has happened over phases throughout history – the most famous moment being as Karl Jaspers called it the “Axial Age” when Confucianism and Taoism in China; Vedanta, Buddhism, and Jainism in India; Greek naturalism and Judaism all crystallised in the middle of the first millennium BCE with little influence from one another. This notion of Axial Age, Dr. Duara seeks to free from our linear understanding of time.

Therefore axial ages are not fixed in say mid first millennium BCE or mid second millennium CE but continuous. They may arise anywhere at any moment. In fact he goes further to say that it is the small societies that experience the mircolevel axial ages. Therefore new worldviews must be drawn from these small societies. If anything this talk had to be titled ‘Small is beautiful’. If anyone the speaker was echoing the prophetic words of EF Schumacher. The examples – Buddhism and Gandhi which the latter uses in arguing his thesis are picked up by Prof. Prasenjit.

Another voice that was resurrected in my memory as I listened to the talk was that of Felix Padel who compares the tyrannies of globalized modernity and the ‘primitive societies’ of India. The former he argues had much to learn from the latter.

One more useful point there was that of the shifts he wishes to see in our epistemic frameworks. History can no longer be seen linear. MLK had much to learn for example from Gandhi who adopted the earlier American transcendentalists as his Gurus who in turn celebrated Raja Rammohun Roy. It was as if history was a wave rather than as a smooth stream. These connections might not just warn us about the threats of accelerated industrialization but also make us more informed heirs and stewards to the world.

By Revanth Ukkalam, Undergraduate Batch of 2020