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Apologia Report 18:6 (1,142)
February 6, 2013
Subject - Yoga: Is Patanjali rolling in his grave?
In this issue:
EDUCATION - over-liberalizing the already-liberal arts
THE LOST GENDERATION? - the collegiate search for "identity as distinct from sexual orientation"
MYSTICISM - new text apparently fails to acknowledge its inherent spiritual dangers
YOGA - secular academic names the "best books" on the subject
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EDUCATION
"Man, Sex, God, and Yale" by Nathan Harden -- "In 1951, William F. Buckley, Jr., a graduate of Yale the year before, published his first book, God & Man at Yale [1]. ...
"Rather than functioning as an open forum for ideas, his book argued, Yale was waging open war upon the faith and principles of its alumni and parents." His book "argued for a connection between the cause of religious faith on the one hand, and the cause of free market economics on the other. [T]here are things happening at Yale today that Buckley could scarcely have even imagined in 1951.
"There is clearly a radical sexual agenda at work at Yale today. Professors and administrators who came of age during the sexual revolution are busily indoctrinating students into a culture of promiscuity. In fact, Yale pioneered the hosting of a campus 'Sex Week' - a festival of sleaze, porn, and debauchery, dressed up as sex education. ...
"Yale as an institution no longer understands the substantive meaning of academic freedom - which requires the ability to distinguish art from pornography, not to mention right from wrong....
"Yale abandoned the principle of human rights - the very principle that allows diverse individuals, including those of different faiths, to coexist peacefully. ...
"Unfortunately, what's happening at Yale is indicative of what is occurring at colleges and universities across the country. ... Our universities have lost touch with the purpose of liberal arts education, the pursuit of truth. ...
"To the extent that Yale and schools like it succeed in producing leaders who subscribe to the ideology of moral relativism - and who thus see no moral distinction between America and its enemies - we will likely be disabused of this false sense of security all too soon." Imprimis, Jan '13, pp1-4. <www.ow.ly/hmyBk>
This article constitutes a summary of Harden's recent book Sex and God at Yale: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad [2].
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THE LOST GENDERATION?
"Generation LGBTQIA" by Michael Schulman -- "If the gay-rights movement today seems to revolve around same-sex marriage, this generation is seeking something more radical: an upending of gender roles beyond the binary of male/female. The core question isn't whom they love, but who they are - that is, identity as distinct from sexual orientation. ...
"Part of the solution has been to add more letters, and in recent years the post-post-post-gay-rights banner has gotten significantly longer, some might say unwieldy. The emerging rubric is 'L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.,' which stands for different things, depending on whom you ask.
"'Q' can mean 'questioning' or 'queer,' an umbrella term itself, formerly derogatory before it was appropriated by gay activists in the 1990s. 'I' is for 'intersex,' someone whose anatomy is not exclusively male or female. And 'A' stands for 'ally' (a friend of the cause) or 'asexual,' characterized by the absence of sexual attraction. ...
"More and more colleges, mostly in the Northeast, are catering to gender-nonconforming students." Schulman gives examples. Then he writes, "But even these measures cannot keep pace with the demands of incoming students, who are challenging the curriculum much as gay activists did in the '80s and '90s. Rather than protest the lack of gay studies classes, they are critiquing existing ones for being too narrow. ...
"As liberated gay men in the 1970s once baffled their pre-Stonewall forebears, the new gender outlaws, to borrow a phrase from the transgender writer Kate Bornstein, may soon be running ideological circles around their elders.
"Still, the alphabet soup of L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. may be difficult to sustain. 'In the next 10 or 20 years, the various categories heaped under the umbrella of L.G.B.T. will become quite quotidian,' Professor [Jack] Halberstam said." Schulman notes a student who announces to a group seeking to resolve the confusion: "'We have our lesbians, our gays,' he said, before adding, 'bisexual, transsexual, queer, homosexual, asexual.' He took a breath and continued. 'Pansexual. Omnisexual. Trisexual. Agender. Bi-gender. Third gender. Transgender. Transvestite. Intersexual. Two-spirit. Hijra. Polyamorous.'
"By now, the list had turned into free verse. He ended: 'Undecided. Questioning. Other. Human.'
"The room burst into applause." New York Times, Jan 9 '13, <www.ow.ly/hmFOy>.
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MYSTICISM
Answering the Contemplative Call: First Steps on the Mystical Path, by Carl McColman [3] -- our nomination for the year's most deserving of a "BUYER BEWARE" cover sticker: "In this book, aimed both at beginners and those hoping to steer their faith in a more contemplative direction, McColman ... acts as guide and companion on the journey to becoming a Christian mystic. 'A mystic,' writes McColman, 'is simply a man or woman in love with God, and the Church is hungry for such people.' McColman fleshes out the 'spiritual journey' metaphor, using it in robust ways to describe preparing for and embarking on the mystical path. The book is divided into three parts - recognizing the call, preparing for the journey, and setting out on the adventure. Although McColman covers well-trodden ground - and perhaps overuses the word 'silly' in the first part of the book - his apt choice of quotations and stories from Christian mystics (including the Desert Fathers, Julian of Norwich, and Thomas Merton) and his strong final section make the book an informative and worthwhile read." Publishers Weekly, Jan #2 '13.
For a contrasting view, see Faith Misguided: Exposing the Dangers of Mysticism, by Arthur L. Johnson [4] (desperately in want of an update, or something better from someone else).
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YOGA
The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America, by Stefanie Syman [5] -- more evidence to suggest that Syman's work is gaining stature. Reviewer Thomas A. Forsthoefel (Merchurst College) reports that this study is "a compelling account of the complex social and philosophical interface that resulted from the introduction of yoga in America, beginning with the Transcendentalist musings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and especially since the showstopping lectures of Swami Vivekananda at the World's Parliament of Religions in 1893."
The lag time between the publication of a book and the eventuality that an academic journal finally runs a review of it may be frustrating. However, as this item shows, a good review makes use of that interval to survey related material. "Numerous books on yoga have been published in recent years, and some of the best - e.g., Christopher Chappell's Yoga and the Luminous [6] and Stephen Phillips' Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth [7] - have been written by scholars not just sympathetic to yoga but endowed with considerable expertise in Indian philosophy and Sanskrit. Syman is neither a trained philospher nor a Sanskritist, yet her study, richly episodic, offers key snapshots both of the sweep of yoga's evolution in America and of the lives of key figures in that evolution, some of whom were quirky, charismatic, passionate, industrious, and certainly enamored with 'Eastern mysticism.' ...
Syman "also has keen sociological intuitions concerning yoga's acculturation, though she tends to refrain from judgment, unlike one of my students who insisted that yoga in America shouldn't be called yoga, but 'asana practice,' because it is void of the deeper assumptions driving classical yoga. ... Still, the book stays within itself, registering the historical mechanics by which a particular metaphysic is drained of its cosmic scope and philosophical virility by competition in the global marketplace of ideas. To illustrate this kind of philosophical emasculation: spam filtered into my email inbox as I finished reading Syman's book; an ad from Victoria's Secret flashed, 'Yoga Tops and Pants in Perfect Mix and Match: Your Yoga Class Will Admire Your Coordination." Patanjali must be rolling in his grave." Nova Religio, 16:2 - 2012, pp109-110.
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of 'Academic Freedom' by William F. Buckley Jr. (Regnery, 50th ed., 1986, paperback, 240 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/8abngo5>
2 - Sex and God at Yale: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad, by Nathan Harden (Thomas Dunne, 2012, hardcover, 320 pages) <www.ow.ly/hmzDP>
3 - Answering the Contemplative Call: First Steps on the Mystical Path, by Carl McColman (Hampton Roads, 2013, paperback, 192 pages) <www.http://ow.ly/hmBpM>
4 - Faith Misguided: Exposing the Dangers of Mysticism, by Arthur L. Johnson (Moody, 1988, paperback, 156 pages) <www.ow.ly/hmDkY>
5 - The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America, by Stefanie Syman (Farrar, S & G, 2010, hardcover, 400 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/28yygyh>
6 - Yoga and the Luminous: Patañjali's Spiritual Path to Freedom, by Christopher Key Chapple (SUNY Prs, 2012, paperback, 322 pages) <www.ow.ly/hmuuh>
7 - Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy, by Stephen Phillips (Columbia Univ Prs, 2009, paperback, 368 pages) <www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0231144857/apologiareport>
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