Sonia Sikka

Liberalism, Multiculturalism, and the Case for Public Religion

Liberalism, as a political paradigm, is committed to maintaining a stance of neutrality toward religion(s), along with other comprehensive systems of belief. Multiculturalism is premised on the view that the political policies of internally diverse nations should respect the beliefs and practices of the various cultural, ethnic, and religious groups of which those nations are composed. Sometimes synthesized, sometimes standing in tension, these two political frameworks share a common goal of minimizing conflict while respecting diversity. Although this goal is, in principle, laudable, I argue in this article that the operation of liberal and multiculturalist forms of public reasoning inadvertently diminishes critical reflection and revision in the area of religion, with potentially dangerous consequences both for the health of religion and for social stability. Measures to counter these dangers, I propose, include a relaxation of the restrictive rules that define liberal public reason, and education about religion in schools.

NIETSCHE'S CONTRIBUTION TO A PHENOMENOLOGY OF INTOXICATION

Through a reading of Nietzsches texts, primarily of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, this article develops a phenomenological description of the variety of intoxication exemplified in conditions of drunkenness, or in states of emotional excess. It treats Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a literary expression of such intoxication, arguing against attempts to find a coherent narrative structure and clear authorial voice behind this texts apparent disorder. Having isolated the intoxicated characteristics of Thus Spoke Zarathustra - its hyperbolic rhetoric and emotions, its lack of balance, its injustice, its shifting and conflicting moods, and its self-contradictions - I then offer an interpretation of the work, and by extension of intoxication itself, in terms of Nietzsches model of the self as a dynamic multiplicity of forces. At the same time, I argue for a multiple and dynamic conception of personality in general.

Selfless Care? Heidegger and anattā

This chapter asks whether and in what sense(s) the un-self-centred way of being that Heidegger develops in his later writings under the description Gelassenheit parallels the Buddhist doctrine of anattā. The term Gelassenheit is adopted from Meister Eckhart, for whom it meant a relinquishing of the appropriating desire that constitutes the ordinary self. It does not per se involve a denial of the reality of the individual self in every respect. Yet Heidegger’s thought, both early and late, has been compared with Buddhist positions both because of its critique of the Cartesian notion of the self as an underlying substance, and because Gelassenheit as a way of being seems similar to Buddhist ideals of liberation that rest on seeing through the fiction of the self. At the same time, though, one should notice that Heidegger came to affirm the idea of Gelassenheit through a critical confrontation with Nietzsche, who denies the ultimate reality of the self as a single entity but nonetheless affirms the value of assertive will to power, an ideal that is the opposite of Buddhist selflessness. An exploration of these themes through a comparative focus on Heidegger and anattā helps to identify various senses in which the self could be said to “be” or exist. It also raises questions about the relation between metaphysical views on this subject and existential, ethical or soteriological ideals.

Dwelling with Beauty

Criticizing the interpretation of beauty as a form of disinterested contemplation, Nietzsche famously cites Stendahl’s statement that beauty is “a promise of happiness.” In the context of his own philosophy, however, the promise is a lie, as beauty speaks of stability and perfection in a world that is constantly changing and very far from perfect. This sense that beauty falsifies continues to be reflected in the suspicion of beauty that informs so much of the theory and practice of art within the ethos of late modernity. Representations of beauty are thought to obscure the human condition, and may also function as repressive political tools, painting the idylls of privileged classes while dulling sensitivity and resistance to injustice.

Journeys That Go Nowhere: Eurocentric Prejudice and the Refusal to Hear

This chapter draws attention to a parallel between European reactions to travel and ethnographic literature about “Other” people in the eighteenth century and similar themes in contemporary Western discourses. It points out that in earlier centuries European travellers to Asia and Africa often painted surprisingly positive portraits of the cultures they encountered, while criticising the assumptions and behaviour of their own nations, but that such perspectives were deliberately marginalised. The assertion of Eurosupremacism that this marginalisation reveals is still with us. A striking example can be seen in some of the changes made to Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat, Pray, Love, in the film version starring Julia Roberts. These changes project audiences who will be pleased by narratives affirming the moral superiority of their culture over that of nations like India and Bali, and pleased also by the sensation of rescuing helpless women oppressed by the cruel patriarchal practices of these unenlightened nations.

Introduction: A Journey to Elsewhere

The aim of this volume is to consider the phenomenon of yoga travel to India as an instance of a broader genre of ‘spiritual travel’ involving journeys to places ‘elsewhere’, which are imagined to offer the possibility of profound personal transformation. These imaginings are tied up in a continuation of the exoticisation of the East, but are not limited to that. We identified themes of authenticity, suffering, space, material markers, and the idea of the ‘spiritual’, to name a few, in our observations of this phenomenon. Our wish was to produce a volume that not only reflected our shared time together during the two-day workshop ‘A Journey to Elsewhere: Spiritual Travel and the Quest for Authenticity’, but also highlighted the insights our disciplinary expertise brought to the conversation.

On The Truth of Beauty: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Keats

This article is concerned with the validity of what I term the “metaphysico-religious” interpretation of beauty. This term is intended to cover descriptions and interpretations of beauty which suggest that it indicates: 1) a connectedness of man with nature, of natural things with one another, and/or of man with man in and through some encompassing ground or unity; and, 2) the existence of another and better world, a transcendent reality in which the negative elements of factual existence are somehow cancelled or redeemed. With this interpretation of beauty, and the experiences that lie behind it, at issue, the article considers a number of positions on the relation between beauty and reality. First, it takes up Nietzsches view of this relation, and the assessment of the metaphysico-religious interpretation entailed by that view. It then examines Heideggers reflections on the same topic, including his reading of Nietzsche on art. Formulated in confrontation with Nietzsche, these reflections offer a valuable counterpoint to Nietzsches position. Finally, it brings Nietzsches position into confrontation with that of Keats, as one representative of the Romantic tradition, within which the metaphysico-religious interpretation of beauty is posed and problematized in an interesting way.