Ex- Academics & Anti Intellectualism

“The God in the Judaic Christian civilisation has been bifurcated. The laymen are always laymen and they either believe in an external God or believe in a Science that tries to understand an objective reality. They find it difficult to believe in an external objectivity or an objective reality unlike in the case of an external God and the belief in an objective reality has been left to the western scientists. The laymen have been left with a belief in a western science that is supposed to be objective and true.”
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(March 04, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) For the benefit of the readers of the "Midweek Review" let me repeat excerpts from Dr. Peter Schalk's article to the "Circle Digest". Dr. Schalk in his eagerness to defend Dr. Seneviratne's book which he thought was reviewed by me had said: 'I have a folder on my harddesk called "Sinhala ethnonationalists". There, I keep the writings of Sinhala ethnonationalists for the future. I have to objectify them sometimes for my research. Several of them are ex-academics and they behave like ex-academics. One of them is the Sinhala extremist Nalin de Silva. He has now reviewed a book written by H L Seneviratne .......... Nalin de Silva has got space for long articles in The Island beginning from March 14th, 21st-etc (Midweek) on Internet to give air to his hate, frustration and anti-intellectualism. ......... He takes in Islam and the Old Testament for which he has no predisposition to handle.'

Dr. Schalk describes me as an ex academic and says that I behave like an ex academic. He then proceeds to talk of my anti-intellectualism. All these in addition to his usual verbiage, ethnonationalist , Sinhala extremist etc. The concept Ethnonationalism is contradictory and as I said last week it only reveals the bankruptcy of those western academics who are involved with conceptualising. To Dr. Schalk anybody who opposes Tamil racism and campaigns for the recognition of the significance of the Sinhala language, history, culture and nation in this country is a Sinhala extremist. As I have said on many occasions the so-called ethnic problem in this country is due nothing but to Tamil racism that from the nineteenth century has refused stubbornly to recognise the significance of Sinhalathva in Sri Lanka.


I do not know in which sense Dr. Schalk uses the word ex-academic. It is true that at present I am not in the service of any one of the universities in Sri Lanka but that does not make me an ex-academic. Perhaps Dr. Schalk thinks that I am an ex academic as I do not subscribe to the western academic traditions. If that is the case then Dr. Schalk is a cultural imperialist in the sense that only western academics are identified as academics. Academic, like everything else in the academic world, including that of the postmodernists, is a concept defined in the west for us. All that we have to do is to learn their definitions and theories. As far as I am concerned there could be academics with various cultural backgrounds. Western academics are different from eastern academics just as much western music is different from Raghadari or Karnatic music. When Dr. Schalk talked about ex academics he has not distinguished between western academics and eastern academics and it is very clear from his writings that by an academic he understands a western academic true to his training in the western Judaic Christian cultural tradition that imposes its hegemony over the others. Most of our "academics" in Sri Lanka cannot think of themselves as eastern academics as they have been brainwashed by people like Dr. Schalk in the west. However, I became an ex-western academic, while I was teaching in the University of Colombo when I became involved with the Jathika Chinthanaya. One who breaks away from the western Judaic or Yudev Chinthanaya (I am afraid there is no suitable word in English for Chinthanaya - it cannot be translated as thought - it is more deeper and general than paradigm or episteme) ceases to become a western academic. However I am now an Eastern academic and in particular a Sinhala Buddhist academic engaged in research and teaching, though not in western Christian institutions. Though I am an ex western academic it is wrong to say that I am an ex academic. When the then vice chancellor of the University of Colombo, questioned me as to why I was teaching Jathika Chinthanaya I had to reply that if others had the freedom to teach vijathika chinthanaya I should have the liberty to teach Jathika Chinthanaya also, especially in Sri Lanka, in addition to giving the vijathika chinthana point of view. Unlike the western academics who give only the version or versions based on Yudev Chinthanaya, I have given and will continue to give not only the Sinhala Buddhist theories (and Eastern versions in general) but the western theories as well.

The western academics give the impression that they follow a so-called objective scientific methodology. The western social scientists more than their counterparts in the faculties based on western natural science take great pains to state the methodology that they adopt. There are western philosophers like Dr. Paul Feyerabend who have argued that there is no scientific method in the so-called natural sciences (western) not to mention the western social sciences. His book "Against Method" is a pioneering work along this theme and in a later work "Farewell to Reason" he has developed his arguments further.

The western natural scientists as well as the social scientists do not follow a so-called scientific method and their theories are accepted not because of rational arguments and agreements with observations. As Dr. Feyeraband has shown even Galileo, the so-called father of experimental sciences in the west had hoodwinked his peers. It was not with rational arguments or agreements with experiments that Galileo was able to "convince" the others but with "tricks". Newton's gravitational theory was accepted though there was evidence that contradicted the theory. The planets do not move around the sun in fixed ellipses as Newton's theory predicted (or postdicted). The "ellipses" themselves rotate (in fact the paths of the planets are not closed curves) but the western scientific community did not hesitate to accept the gravitational theory as formulated by Newton. ( In a review of a recent book, Newton's Tyranny: The Suppressed Scientific Discoveries of Stephen Gray and John Flamsteed by David Clark and Stephen P. H. Clark, published in the New Scientist under the tittle "Bad Apple", Dr. Allan Chapman mentions that Robert Hook had a stake in formulating the inverse square law) When the western scientific community accepted Einstein's general theory of relativity there was hardly any experimental (or observational) evidence in support of the theory.

Western academic tradition is part and parcel of the western Judaic Christian culture and the "status" it enjoys today in the entire world is due to the hegemony of the western culture especially in the universities and the other research institutions, and is not due to any specific methodology. However, in order to hide that fact they have created a myth of methodology. As far as western natural science is concerned there is a tendency to produce theories and concepts that are as far as possible consistent with "facts". The "facts" are also theory laden, and the theories, concepts and facts combine to form sub systems of knowledge. Western social sciences are far behind the western natural sciences, in this regard, and thus they even have theories on praxis having not understood the relationship between theory and experiments in the western natural sciences. It is through those inadequate and biased theories in western social sciences that people like Dr. Schalk want us to see the world, including the so-called ethnic problem in Sri Lanka.

The Yudev Chinthanaya, which the western academic tradition is based on, is restricted to the two valued formal logic of Aristotle. The Yudev Chinthanaya is also reductionist, and believes in an objectivity or an external objective world independent of the mind. The western culture that is based on the Yudev Chinthanaya may have displaced the God. However, the western Judaic Christian civilisation has not displaced belief. Instead of an external God now they have an external objectivity or objective reality and the belief in a God has been replaced by a belief in an (objective) western science with the western scientists (including doctors engineers and other professionals based on western science based technologies) replacing the priests in the Christian religions. If the priests were in between the God and the laymen, now the western scientists are in between the external objectivity or objective reality and the laymen. The God in the Judaic Christian civilisation has been bifurcated. The laymen are always laymen and they either believe in an external God or believe in a Science that tries to understand an objective reality. They find it difficult to believe in an external objectivity or an objective reality unlike in the case of an external God and the belief in an objective reality has been left to the western scientists. The laymen have been left with a belief in a western science that is supposed to be objective and true.

Even in the west people like Dr. Feyerabend questioned the so-called objectivity, rationality etc., of science. Quantum Physics has challenged the Newtonian world view and with that the entire western science enterprise is being critically examined by some in the west itself. Very often they are called anti-science academics and their attitude towards western science is branded as anti-intellectualism. The west also has a habit of calling anything that is not compatible with their "rationalism", mysticism. We in Asia should not be guided by the definitions and categories of the western academics. It is time we ended the monopoly of the westerners in constructing knowledge.

The easterners, especially the South Asians have their own logics and we should not be afraid to get back to these rich logical systems. The westerners may brand us as ex-academics, anti-intellectuals, mystics and what not, but we should not be bothered with this western academic thuggery. The west could not understand the great Tamil and South Asian mathematician Srinivasan Ramanujan who did not feel at home with the concept of a proof in western mathematics. The ancient mathematics in Bharat was different from the western mathematics which is a linear system based on definitions, formal logic and so-called proofs. Even in the west there are intutionists and others who are not happy with this formal system.

Brig. B. Munasinghe writing to the “The Island,” Colombo based daily on 2001 had wanted to find out how the ancient Sinhalas measured atomic radii etc. The Sinhalas, Tamils and the South Asians in general would have had their own methods of constructing knowledge. The word used in Sinhala for academic studies is adhyayana, which has a Sanskrit origin. In ancient Bharat, adhyayana was used in opposition to dhyana which was also considered to be a method of gaining (constructing) knowledge. In fact in early periods adhyayanikas were not rated high as dhyanikas and it is quite possible that the dhyanikas were responsible for most of the knowledge that was created in ancient Bharat. The present day western academics would call these dhyanikas mystics but that should not deter us, meaning the Sinhalas, Tamils and the others in South Asia in investigating into these South Asian, shall I say Sansaric, dhyanika and adhyayanika ways of creating knowledge. It is becoming increasingly clear unless we create our own systems of knowledge there would be no end to us being manipulated by Solheims and Schalks. Solheims and Schalks have no love for the Tamils but for themselves and for their Judaic Christian civilisation.

Finally Dr. Schalk says that I have no predisposition to handle the Old Testament and the Koran. What does he mean by this? Does he want me to get a degree in Theology from a western Christian university before I quote from the Old Testament. This is nothing but western Judaic Christian academic arrogance. Dr. Schalk who quotes from Mahavansa, and Buddhist texts questions my qualifications to quote from the Old Testament. I must inform him that I have studied the Old Testament and more than one hundred years ago a Bhikku by the name of Ven. Mohottiwatte Gunananda Thero quoted extensively from the Old Testament and if Dr.Schalk is interested in testing my knowledge of the Old Testament I would only be delighted to organise another Panadura Vadaya (debate), where his knowledge of the Buddhist texts would also be tested.