I’m not familiar with Sen enough to comment on him in the sense I might of Habermas. Do you know Sen enough to say more?
thanks,
Doyle Saylor

The reasoning is similar to the feminist lament that putting women on a pedestal is also a form of oppression (wrong word?) since glorifying/romanticizing denies them equality as an equally flawed individual (ack, I need to write that better).

I think a better analogy would be the way cultural feminists have, historically, claimed that, because women are not the oppressors, then they have access to the truth in a way that men do not. Marxists see it, sometimes, as the claim that, since non-Western people are outside the circuits of capital, then they haven’t been warped and deformed — entrapped in — capitalism’s ideologies. As a consquence, they are more likely to rebel agaisnt capitalism. In some respects, Spivak is criticizing the post colonial studies group for engaging in such an analysis.

But, she doesn’t want a seesaw, I don’t think. I think she genuinely wanted to advance postcolonial studies.

Other times, it’s just silly stereotypes, and I personally haven’t seen very many positive ones advanced. Although, in the media, it’s often the black man in a buddy flick who gets to be the wise one, the down-to-earth one, the one who is family . E.g., Danny Glover’s character in Lethal Weapon who anchors the guy who runs with his emotions, the one who has flighty ideas, the one who stays single. Mel Gibson’s character gets to be ground, anchored, and have a family — whenever he feels like it. I always thought that was encapusulated nicely in the scene where Gibson does his laundry at Glover’s house, wanders to the kitchen to drink milk out of the carton.

I dont know about the crits against Vandana Shiva. I have read you talking about Arundhati Roy, though, and I always got the impression that you were criticizing her for playing off certain romaniticizing stereotypes of Indians. But, then, ASSuming isn’t always a good thing to do, huh?

The reasoning is similar to the feminist lament that putting women on a pedestal is also a form of oppression (wrong word?) since glorifying/romanticizing denies them equality as an equally flawed individual (ack, I need to write that better).

I see the point: I hate it when well-intentioned Westerners assume I am intelligent simply because I am Indian ;-). And I am only half-joking…

But that said, I hope we are heading towards a synthesis with these revisions (first reviling the natives, then glorifying them, then criticizing the glorification, etc) and not seesawing. The Western left, at least sections of it, now seems to have too intolerant a view on “romanticizing”. I am referring here to the barrage of criticism faced by someone like Vandana Shiva. But perhaps this is grist for another entry?

Well, that last bit, about not wanting to tag another culture, has it’s downsides, too. E.g., sometimes it means that the person is romanticizing other cultures: Western liberal societies suck, are alienating,etc., but dem native peeps, they know where it’s at! That can be pretty condescending, too, as you no doubt know. ;)

I’m trying to remember if it was in critiques of Levi-Strauss’s _Little Glass of Run_ that I read that.

Waiting to check out your new theme (just went over to the Lab — is that valid usage? — and was greeted with the traditional ;-) whip n’ leather theme, so I am assuming the new theme is not up yet).

Have you seen the Hemingway theme (@ WordPress.com)? I like it… its a bit buggy though and does not do blogrolls.

I’m busy modifying a theme for the blog — I love this one BTW — so I’ll link back as part of blog maintenance day today.