‘Kathikā’

‘Kathika’ Study Circle – Statement in Sinhala

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Let us recognize the Tamil “national sentiment”!
Let us build trust and unity among all communities
An open letter to the President and the All Party Conference

by ‘Kathika’ Study Circle

I

In the bid to find a solution to the terrorist war waged by the LTTE to establish a separate state, the Sri Lankan government, along with most political organizations and analysts in the South is focused on conducting negotiations with the LTTE to find a political solution.

The point they all seem to have forgotten is that it is the Tamil “national sentiment” that has enabled the LTTE to become the “sole representative” of the Tamil people, even though they engage in terrorism. We wish to remind Sri Lanka that it may be worthwhile for all of us who have aspirations for long-term peace and unity in our society to take this point into consideration.

We believe that the point we make here is confirmed by that the fact that many Left and democratically oriented Tamil individuals and members of political groups who have roots in the North and the East and who were against the terrorist and fascist policies of the LTTE and therefore became victims of the LTTE’s oppression and intimidation, have today come to consider their hostility towards the LTTE as secondary to that against the Sri Lankan government which they have come to perceive as the number one enemy of the Tamil people.

( This change occurs at a time when the voice of the Sri Lankan Tamils and other groups and organizations living outside the North and the East have risen against the LTTE demanding democracy and human rights in a more determined and organized manner,. This paradox, however, needs to be discussed separately.)

We refer to the “national sentiment” here in the sense of the sentiment sustained by a given human community by the motive to conserve and flourish one’s language and culture, considering them as having an identity unique to the community. It is conceded that if the said community collectively lives in a certain contiguous land area it should have the political freedom within that geographical area to organize activities necessary to achieve the said objective. However, it is not simply accepted that the said political freedom necessarily takes the structural form of a pre-given formula. The belief that a given community is automatically entitled to a “nation state” of its own simply because they have articulated a “national sentiment,” is such a pre-given formula.

The modern concept of the nation state assumes that the “nation” consists of a homogenous ethnic group. It authenticates one ethnic community excluding other communities and cultures from the state. Therefore, it becomes racist, in the face of a multi-cultural society and a world. In this sense, if we call the Sri Lankan nation Sinhala, then we encounter the racist threat of excluding from the state the other ethnic groups, which are not Sinhala. On the other hand, to argue that the LTTE has the right to secede from Sri Lanka and establish a Tamil nation state subject to the authority of the Northern Tamil community, is to collaborate in the racist policy of excluding the Tamils of the East, and the Muslims and Sinhalese of the North and the East from the said Tamil state. Hence, our efforts need not be diverted towards the futile task of establishing a modern “nation state” in a pluralist society. On the other hand, it is equally or more futile to encourage all cultures within a country with their own identities to carve out a “nation state” each in their own respective territories.

This political right of a community to take decisions within the territory it collectively resides in, to conserve and flourish its language and culture can be called the “right to self-determination.” However, this right again is not a pre-determined, absolute, abstract right but only a right to self determination that can be won and sustained with the concurrence of the other ethnic communities in the larger community. Thus it is not a right that materializes spontaneously simply because a given section of people decide to take up arms.

Even though Chandrika Kumaratunga, in her election campaign preceding her being initially elected the President, manifested her sensitivity toward the Tamil “national sentiment,” soon after her ascendancy to the Presidency she forgot her promise and gave priority to negotiations with the LTTE. Other than that, all the other governments in power gave priority to present a political solution to the LTTE. Giving priority to the LTTE in this manner, in favour or against, has been generally the practice of all political parties and organizations whether they happen to be nationalist, leftist or otherwise, and even if they were not part of the government in power.

In this practice, what the successive Sri Lankan governments and political parties and organizations in the South manifest is, as they constantly state, that they believe the present war is a problem related to “sharing of power.” Hence, the solution is to find ways to “share power.” It need not be emphasized that in the final resolution of political conflicts stemming from “national sentiment,” matters related to political freedom and rights come to the forefront. However, the point that is eluding our memory by now is, that before being interpreted as a problem of “sharing power,” this emerged as a problem related to human affairs, to lack of mutual trust and recognition between Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities; an attitudinal problem related to how we treat each other as human communities. As seen from the perspective of the Tamil people, it was identified as a problem related to a lack of recognition of and respect for Tamil people’s identity shown by the Sinhala dominated Sri Lankan governments. The prevailing perception among Tamil people is that, it was and has been a problem related to the inability of Tamil people to trust that Sinhala dominated governments will do justice by them.

Pleasing the LTTE and building trust between all ethnic communities

Therefore, our suggestion is that in seeking a political solution, the object of the Sri Lankan government and the All Party Conference should be not to strive to please the LTTE but to build mutual trust and unity between Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim communities. It is our suggestion that the first step towards achieving this objective is recognizing and accepting Tamil “national sentiment” as a social phenomenon.

It can be said that in general all Sri Lankan citizens are already assured a right to act to preserve and flourish one’s own language and culture. However, what is manifested in the “national sentiment” found among the Tamil people residing in the Northern and the Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka, is that, as they live as a community in the geographical areas they reside in, they wish that the Sri Lankan political structure be re-fashioned in a manner that facilitates the collective enjoyment of the above right specifically in the areas they live in. If this is what is meant by the term “autonomy” or the “self-rule” in this regard, no one inspired by a “national sentiment” can take it to be an unfair demand.

Therefore, we wish to suggest that as a prelude to re-structuring the Sri Lankan polity to accommodate the wishes of the Tamil community for “autonomy,” the Sri Lankan government with the concurrence of all political parties and political organizations, and with the approval of the Sri Lankan public, officially, at the state level, should declare, that it accepts as a state policy, that the Tamil people living in the Northern and the Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka, and the Muslim people living in the Eastern province have a right to preserve and flourish their languages and cultures, and that the related political discussions need to take place in a manner that represent all relevant communities and views, finally to be ratified by the Sri Lankan public.

It is only then that the real discussions on this conflict can earnestly begin between all the relevant communities.

II

Language and Culture: Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim relations

The Sinhalese who, subject to the domination of the imperialist, colonial powers, were without a voice of their own for a couple of centuries, have, in the aftermath of independence, been making an effort to revive their language and culture, and to rehabilitate and conserve their economy. If the seeds of Tamil “national sentiment” were germinated within the belief that took hold of a section of the Tamil people that the superior place enjoyed by them until then in the colonial period was denied to them by the rise of “national sentiment” among the Sinhala people, for it to develop to the level of a “national sentiment,” the feeling that they must strive to preserve and flourish Tamil language as its very existence was perceived to have been threatened, must have become a widespread belief among the Tamil people. Otherwise, can we hold that the Tamil “national sentiment” is only a product of a sense of arrogance instilled in Tamil people’s hearts over a period of time by the politicians? For how long can such a false “national sentiment” persist as the basis of a political movement? We are also aware that there was a cultural revival within the Tamil community during the anti-colonial struggle in Sri Lanka, and in the post-Independence period.

Sri Lankan Tamils share a common language from which they derive their name. Their culture is neither Sinhala nor Muslim. While all these cultures undoubtedly have mutually influenced themselves, each of them has basic characteristics unique to it. While it is possible that the Tamils or Muslims living in areas where a majority is Sinhalese and somewhat closely associate with them would be more influenced by the Sinhala Buddhist culture and thus possibly contributing to the formation of their habits and characteristics, the Tamils living mostly among the Tamils of the North and the East would not strongly feel the influence of Sinhala Buddhist culture. The culture of Tamils living in the North and the East, insofar as it does not come into close interaction with the Sinhala culture, can be said to have developed preserving characteristics unique to itself, distancing itself from the Sinhala culture.

If the Sri Lankan Tamils have developed a culture unique to themselves, then, the Sinhalese driven by their own “national sentiment” should not find it difficult to understand the possibility for the rise of patriotism among the Tamils to preserve and flourish their culture, believing that it has come under threat. As humans live in language, if they cannot attend to matters crucial to their lives in a language they can fully comprehend, then it is bound to generate a strong sense of alienation.

The everyday language of Muslims of Sri Lanka is Tamil. But, their culture is not Tamil. Similarly, we could assume that even Sri Lankan Malay and Burgher communities, despite the fact that they mostly live in the midst of Sinhala society, have key cultural characteristics and habits unique to them.

Is the Tamil culture homogenous?

Tamil is the common language of the Tamil and Muslim people living in the Northern and the Eastern provinces as well as the up-country areas and the rest of the country. Of this Tamil speaking community, except the Muslims, the Tamils in general could be said to share a common culture. However, it is not an absolutely homogenous culture.

Firstly, there are cultural differences between the Tamils of the North and the East, and those of the up-country areas. The latter do not perceive themselves as an integral part of the former. Secondly, there is a difference between the people residing in the two provinces, the North and the East. The majority of people living in the North are Tamils. While the majority in the East is also Tamil, it is no secret that they show a strong dislike to come under the political domination of the Tamils of the North. Muslims in the East, on their part, strongly resist the idea of coming under the domination of the Tamils – even those of the East itself. Therefore, the right to live within one’s own language and culture, safeguarding one’s independent identity, needs to be defended, not only for the Tamils in the East, but also for the Muslims and the Sinhalese living there.

Hence, between the Tamil and Muslim people who talk the same common language, as well as between the Tamils of the Northern and the Eastern provinces who may appear to share a common culture, there are bound to be strong differences with regard to the political measures that need to be taken in order to preserve their language and culture.

What is at dispute here is not that the Tamil or Muslim people have a right to preserve and flourish their language and culture in the territories where they are a majority. Rather the quarrel is about, how to implement the right of one community without excluding the other communities, living not only in a given territory, but anywhere in the island. Then only that other communities can give their consent to such measures..

Tamil and Sinhala “national sentiments” need to recognize each other

Moreover, in taking the steps necessary to implement such political measures, the views of the Sinhala community awakened with strong “national sentiment” of their own with regard to how such measures affect the preservation and flourishing of their own language and culture, also need to be considered. Just as much as the Sinhala “national sentiment” needs to understand the Tamil “national sentiment” it should happen in the opposite direction as well.

Therefore, if this re-structuring is to be fruitful in the long run, it should have the collective agreement of all communities involved, and the concurrence of the entire Sri Lankan public.

A strong fear has arisen among the Sinhalese that if the recognition of the cultural identity of Tamil people and creating a political space to enable them to take measures towards its flourishing go against preserving the integrity of the whole country, it will deprive the Sinhalese their own right to preserve their language and culture. Sinhalese believe that such a fear is justified by the direct intervention of foreign governments and international agencies in the political process of Sri Lanka due to LTTE’s actions.

Therefore, the practical problem of creating a separate state within this small country does not lie only in having the possibility of a constant border war. A separate state would throw open the country as a battleground for regional and international political power struggles. The political system that comes into being in the North can immensely influence the South. Our recent history attests to that the people in the South sooner or later strongly reject any dictatorial tendencies whether they come in the guise of liberal democracy and market economy or socialism, or even Sinhala “national sentiment.”

“Nation State” or “Republic”?

Therefore, the Sinhalese who are motivated by the “national sentiment” can be said to believe that the political measures the Tamil and Muslim people take to preserve their language and culture should be taken in a manner so that the democratic conventions presently existing in Sri Lankan society be preserved at least at the same level; that the foreign powers will not be allowed to use Sri Lanka as a ground for their political power struggles; that the resources on this tiny island will be available for all its citizens to enjoy equally; that ethnic communities in Sri Lanka would not become enemies and be at war with each other eternally.

Therefore, the efforts to find a solution to this conflict, have to be resolved through political discussions that need to be conducted in an open and friendly manner, that builds trust among all relevant parties; it cannot be resolved by the military might of any of the parties involved or with the help of pre-fabricated theories and formulas.

The rights that can come into effect between humans are those that can be implemented with the mutual consent and political recognition between them, and not what are considered natural rights formulated on a universal basis.

The problem we need to address here is that in a multi-cultural society like ours, in assuring the right of all the communities to live within their respective cultures, how do we preserve and build the commonality necessary for the unity and peace of the entire society? It is our suggestion that the path to resolving this problem lies in considering how our “state” can be transformed into a genuine “republic” that goes beyond simply bearing its name.

February 2006

kathika@gmail.com

by Nalin de Silva

We have outlined some aspects of the logic and attitudes of western GJC Chinthanaya. Western knowledge is based on the GJC Chinthanaya, one of its attitude being the domination of the world, which includes not only the domination of the other people, which Europeans and their descendants in North America have been engaged since the fifteenth century, but nature as well. The Biblical attitudes that man has been created in the image of God, and that the world (universe) including the woman has been created for the man, and that the Jews are the chosen people have been changed so as to replace Jews by the white Europeans, and after about three hundred years since the renaissance, the white Anglican Christians had become the dominant people on the earth. Since the fifteenth century that saw the emergence of the GJC Chinthanaya, it took about three hundred years for the English to rule the world defeating finally not only the Pope but the Catholic Chinthanaya as well. However, the Catholic Chinthanaya has not died down completely as could be seen from the advent of Communism and Fascism in the twentieth century, which are in the final analysis based on the community feeling reigning over the individual, and superficially on the three fold logic. Both Communism and Fascism were products of Germany which remains a Catholic country to date, but which gradually follows Anglo Christian countries and their culture. It has to be emphasised that the logic of Catholic Chinthanaya is two valued three fold, while the logic of GJC Chinthanaya, which is Aristotelian, is two valued and two fold

The economic man giving priority to the economics with welfare of man being substituted by the economic welfare, and the material goods acquired by the individual becoming a yard stick of the success of the individual, is a product of the GJC Chinthanaya that climaxed in England, in Europe, which has begun the next stage of development in USA. If Liberalism was a product of England (if one wishes Britain or UK) neo Liberalism is a product of USA. It is the evolution of the western society with its leadership changing from English kings and prime ministers to the American presidents that began after the so-called second world war, which has been identified as Post Modernism by some intellectuals in the west. If industrial revolution and machine technology belonged to England, electronic revolution and information technology belong to USA, though countries such as Japan may be producing more computers than north America. If India and China continue to take the path of Japan imitating the western Anglo Christian countries, they would soon lose their identities and become so called neo liberal countries with the individual dominating the community going against Hindu and Confucian cultures respectively. India and China could become economic giants in the future at the expense of becoming spiritual pygmies, and losing their sovereignties as well.

In any event, it has to be pointed out that the Newtonian world view that was challenged by scientists such as Heisenberg produced by German culture, as well as by people such as Bohr who had been greatly influenced by the Chinese culture, has been to a large extent defended by those in the USA and England with what could be identified as the neo Newtonian world view, if one wishes to do so. The adjective neo as far as we are concerned, implies a development within the same GJC Chinthanaya, though the paradigm may have been changed somewhat in certain cases. In that sense it is possible to identify Einstein as a neo Newtonian, with his opposition to interpretations of Quantum Mechanics by Bohr and Heisenberg. Einstein’s relativity did not change the GJC Chinthanaya though the Newtonian paradigm was changed as a result. Similarly what is known as post modernism could be identified as neo Modernism. It is clear that a paradigm shift has occurred in the GJC Chinthanaya in certain areas during the twentieth century without a change in the Chinthanaya as a whole. The logic of the GJC Chinthanaya has not been changed and in certain fields in “neo Modernism” the Einsteinian paradigm reins supreme. However, we do not subscribe to the nomenclature of neo this and neo that as we do not believe these limited changes only in certain areas warrant a change of name. For us it is Modernism and Modernity that has evolved for five centuries.

In the Newtonian paradigm, within the GJC Chinthanaya it is assumed among others that (i) the world (reality) exists outside the observer independent of him, (ii) the world obeys laws that could be discovered by the observer, (iii) the laws as well as the observer are rational, (iv) it is through the sense organs that the observer observes and understands the world, (v) there exists a space which is absolute, (vi) time which is absolute flows uniformly through absolute space, (vii) space and time are continuous, (viii) the properties (measurements) of objects exist independent of the observer, (ix) the measurements such as lengths, energies can take continuous values, (x) all the properties of an object can be known (measured) simultaneously at least theoretically, (xi) measurement of a property gives an already existing value, (xii) the objects exist independent of each other, (xiii) the objects move with velocities that could be measured or are at rest, in space and time (xiv) a system could be analysed into components, (xv) properties of objects could be deduced from fundamental properties implying reductionism. In the Einsteinian paradigm only (v), (vi) and (xiii) were modified, and space and time became relative, while what was introduced as space-time became absolute. However, with the Quantum Paradigm most of the others were rejected. The western world has failed to come to grips with the Quantum Paradigm, and as a consequence the GJC Chinthanaya has not been changed.

Western Classical Economics is essentially built on the Newtonian paradigm and not even on the Einsteinian paradigm. In general it is assumed that rational selfish individuals competing with each other in a Newtonian space and time, who try to satisfy their “infinite” needs (including sensual pleasures) with finite “resources” on the earth, during their lifetimes, contribute towards the economy of a country. With this view western engineering sciences and related disciplines try to maximise the resources (”efficiently” use them, or theoretically looking for infinite energies), and the medical sciences take pains in attempting to avoid death, as if it is possible to do so. However, it has been shown that the human beings are not rational beings taking decisions on a rational basis always, nor are they selfish. In fact it has been shown that human beings are no more rational than the capuchin monkeys. (For details please read the article entitled Monkey Business that appeared in the 5th November 2005 issue of the New Scientist). However, the western Christian modernity assuming the existence of a rational man, in five hundred years has reduced everything to Economics and Economic man. Marxism, though with a superficial three valued logic, subscribed to reductionism, and in essence reduced social evolution to economics.

There is no pluralism in western Christian modernity which pays only lip service to the former. It is the Judaic Christian culture and the GJC Chinthanaya that dominate the world. The other cultures and Chinthanayas are given the freedom to agitate on soap boxes (soap box freedom), as has been demonstrated by the recent incidents in UK, Australia and the present crisis in France involving black Muslims. Only the knowledge constructed in the GJC Chinthanaya is recognised as true or objective knowledge with other systems considered as “traditional” knowledge. How can there be pluralism in a Chinthanaya that has absorbed a version of a chosen people found in the Jewish culture? The White Anglo Saxon Christian Males are the chosen people in the world with other European whites following Lutheran religions coming second.

The attitudes of Jathika Chinthanaya based, among other things, on Buddha’s advice to Gahapthi Upali to continue to pay respect to the Nighanata Natha Putththa, and not to hasten to become a disciple of Buddha, is pluralistic to the core. The Sinhala people have tolerated the others through out history and also knowledge systems other than their own. The Jathika Chinthanaya of this country has a logic which is four valued that contains not only propositions of the form A and its negation but also of the form neither A nor its negation. The logic of the Jathika Chinthanaya is not two fold, and there does not arise the necessity of expressing the world in terms of binary oppositions. The question of an economic man presiding over the destinies of all other men would not arise in the Jathika Chinthanaya. There is no reductionism taught in Jathika Chinthanaya and the welfare of the man is not believed to be confined to Economics. It is neither the individual nor the community that take precedence over the other, and aspects other than economics of people are also considered. The Sinhala leaders of the past had taken into consideration the integrated life of a person dealing with bringing up children and making them useful citizens of the country, the spiritual life and such other aspects of life. The people were not measured with an economic yardstick, and the economy had to be integrated with the environment, nature and also the spiritual and other non economic lives of a person. The cyclic logic of Jathika Chinthanaya helped people to lead a more balanced way of life, one aspect of which depending on the other and finally ending up as Dhamma, which anybody could learn from the texts, even if it was not possible to find a teacher at a particular period of life.

However, it has to be pointed out that we have not formulated the theories of economics within the Jathika Chinthanaya. We have not even begun this work, but it does not mean that we have no intuitive ideas on what could be called a Jathika Arthikaya. The so called Thulana Arthikaya is only one aspect of a Jathika Arthikaya, arising out of four fold logic. A Jathika Arthikaya would not give prominence to either the “private sector” or the “state sector”. As we do not think in terms of binary oppositions, within a Jathika Arthikaya it is possible to have both “private sector” and the “state sector” complementing each other. Also there would not be a ban on investments by the foreigners, provided of course the investors agree to the conditions imposed by Jathika Arthikaya. Within a Jathika Arthikaya neither the nature nor the man become the important component, and it would not be assumed that the world has been created for man, nor that the men are rational and selfish, and are all out to compete with each other. The Jathika Arthikaya would also see to it that the “economic man” does not take the upper hand over the “spiritual man” and others.

Finally as some people have over the years gained the idea that Jathika Chinthanaya rejects everything western, we have to emphasise that it is the imitation of western knowledge and attitudes under western cultural colonialism, which most of the so-called intellectuals among us are unaware, that we are against. It is possible to absorb western knowledge into our culture when it is necessary to do so, and still be independent without losing our identity.

by Nalin de Silva

We have seen how in the western modernist tradition the individual became the dominant term in the binary opposition individual-community. This was a change from the western Catholic tradition which had community as the dominant term in the same binary opposition. The individual was raised above the community, and then he was “freed” from the ties or relationships that he had not only with the other individuals but with the community as well. The individual was encouraged and given the freedom to satisfy its “needs”. There were no restrictions imposed on the “sensual pleasures” of the individual. However, this did not mean that each and every individual had the same opportunities, but the individual was left to believe that he (later on she as well) was his own master, with the freedom to sell his labour, and to satisfy his “needs”. The community as such or the environment had no say on the freedom of the individual, with the only restriction coming from the freedom of the other individuals. As long as a person did not interfere with the freedom of the other individuals he was able to do anything, provided of course that he had the means to do so. The individual was also led to believe that even if he did not possess the means at a given time he had the opportunity to acquire them.

The state was supposed to make sure that in general no individual restricted the freedom of any other individual. The success of the individual was judged by the wealth, and in this regard the individual became the dominant term in the binary opposition man (individual) – nature. The individual had the freedom to exploit the nature and natural resources. Even the English word resources imply that the sources could be used many times, a source becoming a source again and again. This probably had roots in the medieval Catholic Chinthanaya of Europe and also in other Chinthanayas that had influenced Europe in the so-called dark ages. However, under the western modernist tradition the resources became sources. The individual exploited the sources making them useless in no time. Without the resources becoming sources there would not have been an “industrial revolution” that exploited the products that had been supplied by nature. The individual could exploit nature in order to increase his wealth. It also meant that any individual if he had the means could exploit the labour of any other individual as long as the former did not restrict the freedom of the latter. Any individual had the freedom to sell or not to sell his labour. However, after an individual decided to sell his labour he lost the freedom to do what he wanted during the time he was “employed”. There was a contract between the employer and the employee in this regard. The employee by deciding to sell his labour (physical/mental) took the decision to sell his freedom as well during the time his labour was being used by the employer.

It was the western modernism that gave rise to Lutheran religion, Capitalism and also western science and technology. All of them are interconnected, and one could see a fundamentalism associated not only with Lutheran religion but also in Capitalism as well as western science of going back to the Book. The man (Adam) who was created in the image of the God, and who was the controller of everything including the woman (Eve) that the God had created could do anything subject to certain restrictions (freedom of other individuals) as long as he had the means to do so. The western Christian societies and their intellectuals who accuse others of fundamentalism do not realize that the western Christian culture is more fundamental than most of the others who are accused of being fundamentalist. There would not have been a western science without a western technology, and no western technology was possible without the freedom to exploit nature and labour.

Of course, in the creation of the western science abstract theorizing played an important part as well. This abstract thinking came from two sources. One was the Greek Mathematical tradition that had made use of abstract objects (concepts) such as straight lines nobody could visualize (a straight line is supposed to have length but no breadth or width!), and the axiomatic method, and the Jewish tradition going back to an abstract God who could not be visualized. The absence of statues of God in the religions associated with the Book (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is due to this abstractness. The Christians (Catholics) before Luther and Calvin were not as abstract as the Jews, as the concept of God coming to the earth in the form of Jesus had to do away with an abstract God. Jesus was there for anybody to see and hear and was not an abstract object. The Catholics could erect statues of Jesus a well as Mary, and they were not abstract in their thinking. It was Galileo who took the first step to create abstract laws and for that reason, not for the so called experimental method, he could be called the “Father of western Science”. The experiment he is supposed to have carried out in Pisa is an abstract or thought experiment in a way. He did not create a vacuum around the leaning tower, though his experiment was on objects falling in a vacuum!

The linear thinking of the western modernist tradition, with its reductionism, where resources became sources could also be identified with the creation described in the Genesis of the Old Testament. In more than one way Luther and Protestantism went back to the Book. In his “Protestant Ethic” Weber demonstrates that he had an idea of the roots of capitalism in contrast to Marx who tried to analyse social evolution in terms of class. It is our view that capitalism, western science and technology, Protestantism etc., are the results of the Chinthana revolution (the word revolution in contrast to evolution, shift etc. has a cyclic origin though Marxists would not like to think of social evolution as a cyclic process. The Marxists give a linear interpretation to revolution and understand it as a discontinuous shift) that began in the fifteenth century in the Eastern and Southern Europe. There are some western thinkers who would like to answer the question raised by Joseph Needham as to why western science originated in Europe rather than say in China which had a voluminous knowledge on natural and created phenomena, as due to capitalism. However it cannot be so for the simple reason that capitalism saw the light of the day long after Galileo and Newton had created their concepts, laws and theories.

The so called neo liberalism is only the present form of a social evolution that began in the fifteenth century in Europe. A reductionist linear Chinthanaya such as the Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya at some stage has to acquire the characteristics of neo liberalism. Neo liberalists have gone back to the Book even more than Luther. The intolerance of the Gods of the others by the Jews who destroyed the images and the statues of such Gods and who wanted others to follow their God or Yehovah, without the “freedom” to become Jews, could be seen in Neo Liberalism. Neo Liberalism, if possible, would not allow any culture other than the western Judaic Christian culture to exist in the world. The Neo Liberalists would pay lip service to the other cultures but want the others in the world to follow their culture, however, without becoming Anglo Saxons proper. The “kalu suddas” among us could imitate the neo liberalist culture including the Oxford accent (or is it the Bush accent now?), the sudda table manners, the western dress, western knowledge etc., but they could never become suddas proper, just as much anybody born outside a Jewish family could not become a Jew, in spite of having Yehovah as his God. Yehovah may have been replaced by the western Judaic Christian culture but simply by acquiring that culture we could not become a sudda. Michael Jackson though a well known singer who has contributed to western culture, could not become a member of the “real American” society even after attempting to become a sudda through plastic surgery. White Anglo Saxons want to dominate the world with their culture, economics and politics and want us to follow them with a soap box speech (without a murmur). Occasional soap box speeches allowed at Hyde Park, London symbolize the limit of tolerance in the western Christian society. Our protests have to be confined to soap boxes. If we want to survive then we better follow what the world bank (The computer wants me to spell world bank as World Bank with capitals! When I write sudda the computer can “think” only of soda! In a way sudda is not different from soda with nothing but lot of gas.

We should, as they say, customize not only spelling but all knowledge that has been created in the west while creating our own knowledge) or the IMF or even UNESCO want us to do. We have to think the way they do and act the way they want us to act. The so called plural societies are only rubbish (I do not want to use the word bullshit as goma is not bullshit for us the Sinhalas and the Tamils) that are in the minds of the western liberal intellectuals. The dominant culture is the western Judaic Christian culture which has been erected on a pedestal while the other cultures are kept on soap boxes in the Hyde Park.

The Professors, Associate Professors and Assistant Professors from the so called third world and living in USA to earn a few dollars selling their mental labour to the suddas know only to repeat what their master and mistresses (suddas and suddis) have said over the years. When Prof. H. L. Seneviratne (the computer does not suggest any spellings but “thinks” that it is wrong, whereas we know that he is wrong) poses the question as Jathika or Arthika he wants the others to do what he does in USA, and sell the Jathiya for Arthikya, meaning a few dollars. He is simply following his masters and mistresses who impose their thinking on us. What is the Arthikaya that he is talking about? There is no Arthikaya as such but Arthikayas. However, we are led to believe, in spite of so called pluralism, there is only the Arthikaya of neo liberalism. We have to expose what is behind the words used by the westerners, especially their intellectuals and show that there is no pluralism in the western society. Either one follows them and survives as a (mental) slave or be prepared to face hardships. Prof. Seneviratne who like his gurus from the Department of Sociology at Peradeniya has not produced a single concept or theory though they may have so called research publications in the reputed international journals with which Prof. Hoole of the UGC is obsessed, has heard of only one Arthikaya which he wants us to adopt. It is true that we are yet to formulate the concepts and theories of a Jathika Arthikaya but that does not mean that we do not have intuitive ideas of such an Arthikaya. To begin with there would not be any Jathika Arthikaya without a Jathiya, and when Prof. Seneviratne poses the question as Jathika or Arthika he only exposes himself and reveals that he cannot think independent of western logic. Ranil Wickremesinghe on the other hand does not pretend to be an intellectual and knows only one way for the economy of the country. He thinks that Bush has got some extra money which he can borrow to feed the people and hence solve the problem, whatever it may be. The Thulana Arthikaya or Jathika Arthikaya is based on the thulanaya between the individual and the community, and between the man and the nature. There are no binary oppositions with one term dominating the other in our Chinthanaya and it would not be long before we formulate concepts and theories of a Jathika Arthikaya. (To be continued)

by Nalin de Silva

I have to thank “Kathika” study circle for the article “Neo-liberalism, Jathika Chinthanaya, and Citizenship” that appeared in The Island on 31st October 2005. “Kathika” has taken the trouble to study Jathika Chinthanaya, unlike some others who dabble on the topic without trying to understand what it is all about. “Kathika” has identified the Presidential Elections as that between two candidates, one of them following what is known as Neo-liberalism, and the other Jathika Chinthanaya. At the outset, I must admit that Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse, though he has called his manifesto Mahinda Chinthana, is unlikely to identify himself with Jathika Chinthanaya as such. Both Mr. Rajapakse and Jathika Chinthanaya are in transitional stages, with the former attempting to achieve an alternative to neo-liberalism, while the latter is in the process of formulating concepts and theories relative to the culture and the Chinthanaya of the country.

“Kathika” like many others have translated Jathika Chinthanaya as national ethos. However, Jathika Chinthanaya is the Chinthanaya of the nation, and the latter has been recognized (or defined, if one who is brought up in the western intellectual tradition may say so) as the thread that binds all that has been constructed by the humans belonging to a particular nation, community etc. Thus, the arts and crafts, music, literature, science, the attitudes, world view and any other human creation of a nation have something in common that can be called the Chinthanaya. Any Chinthanaya has at least a logic, and attitudes and a philosophy, which may be called the world view of the community or the nation. We do not wish to translate Chinthanaya into English or any other language as it could convey a different meaning. It is true that when Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera used the words Jathika Chinthanaya way back in 1986, he used them as a translation of the words national thought. However, in the evolution of the concept, Chinthanaya has acquired a much deeper idea than thought, though even in Sinhala many people who hear the word Chinthanaya for the first time are likely to mean thought by it. The concept of Chinthanaya is both holistic and reductionist. It is both analytic as well as synthetic. One could think of Chinthanaya as a concept to which everything is reduced and (not or) that synthetically combines everything into a whole. The logic of Jathika Chinthanaya enables us to consider Chinthanaya as both holistic and reductionist.

One of the theories that has been formulated within Jathika Chinthanaya is that knowledge is a human construction, as opposed to say a discovery, and that it is constructed relative to the mind, the sense organs and the culture of a particular individual. One could say that there is a school of thought in the western tradition as well which claim that knowledge is a human construction. It may be so, but we differ from them, as in our formulation, the construction is due to avidya of anicca, dukka and anatta. In that sense any knowledge including science is due to avidya. It has to be mentioned that anicca, dukka and anatta are not concepts and a “person” who “understands” them would have achieved nibbana. The knowledge that is constructed is thus relative to a particular culture, and hence is constructed within a Chinthanaya. We claim that the modern western knowledge is relative to Judaic Christian culture and is constructed within what we call the Greek Judaic Christian (GJC) Chinthanaya.

The GJC Chinthanaya itself was created only about five hundred years ago in the west, and what is known as modernity, renaissance, reformation, western science have been created within this particular Chinthanaya. We have our own theories regarding the creation of the GJC Chinthanaya, published mainly in Sinhala in the newspapers “Irida Divaina” and “Vidusara” which I am afraid are not reputed international journals where intellectuals publish their research. (I continue to lose points for my promotions under the UGC circular No 723 as I do not have so called research papers in reputed journals) Western modernity is in essence a creation in the last five hundred years in the west and is based on the GJC Chinthanaya. It is a continuing process, and in this regard we agree with Habermass, as opposed to the so-called postmodernists, though for different reasons.

We do not wish to use the word tradition in opposition to modernity. We have a tradition, as much as modernity has a tradition. The tradition of Western Christian (we identify it as Christian as well, opposed to Catholic) Modernity is based on the GJC Chinthanaya. The western Christian Modernity emerged in the fifteenth century with the GJC Chinthanaya being created in opposition to the Catholic Chinthanaya that prevailed in Europe at that time. When the westerners refer to tradition they use the word tradition with some kind of degradation. Thus traditional knowledge is not scientific knowledge implying that it is bordering on mythology if not mythology itself. Also modern is to be preferred with respect to tradition which is ancient and not relevant. I am not that concerned with what the westerners have to say about us, but as most of us also follow the westerners, we should be careful in the words we use as unconsciously we may degrade ourselves. It is the English who are very particular about reading between the lines, but when it comes to using their concepts and theories we have not only to read between the lines, but between the words as well. It has to be mentioned that all knowledge is mythology as knowledge is constructed as a result of avidya. Everything including the mind is a construction of the mind. (Those who are interested may read Vidusara to find out how mind constructs the mind!) This follows from the logic of Jathika Chinthanaya, which is cyclic unlike the linear logic of the westerners.

“Kathika” has referred to the individual as against the community. Before the advent of the modernist tradition the westerners were community minded. The western Chinthanaya was Catholic then, and that word itself implies whole. However, the western logic has always been Aristotelian, with their attempts to being “dialectic” ending up in formal systems (Please read Apohakaye Rupikaya or The formalism of Dialectics for details). Though the westerners changed from Catholic Chinthanaya to GJC in the fifteenth century, they did not change their logic. The logic remained Aristotelian and they continued to think in terms of binary oppositions. When Derrida says the westerners think in terms of binary oppositions such as white- black, with one of the terms in the pair dominating the other he refers to this particular characteristic in the western tradition that has remained unchanged to date in spite of Hegel, Marx and Derrida himself. None of them was able to create a system different to that of Aristotle with Derrida not even making an attempt. However, in the eastern traditions, especially in the Sinhala Theravada tradition we have a logical system known as catuskoti which incorporates the Aristotelian logic as well. Thus the Aristotelian logic could be considered as a subset of catuskoti.

What “Kathika” has pointed out is the emergence of the individual in the Western Christian modernity. Within the Catholic Chinthanaya the community or the whole was the dominant term in the binary opposition individual – community. When the Chinthanaya changed to GJC the binary opposition as a pair remained the same. However, unlike during the so-called European medieval period when the Catholic Chinthanaya was the prevailing Chinthanaya, during Christian modernity, the individual became the dominant term in the binary opposition individual – community. The David of Michelangelo that was created five hundred years ago could be considered as a symbol representing the change from the community to the individual. It represented the victory of the individual David over the community Goliath. The westerners could change only the dominant term, they did not know how to drop the binary opposition altogether.

We consider Capitalism, that emerged later in the Europe as the economic mode of western Christian modernity, just as much feudalism was the economic mode of the European medieval period. In the medieval period the community dominated over the individual, but when the individual became the dominant term, the latter lost everything except the labour that he could spend or sell. The individual gradually lost the relationship with the extended family, then the nuclear family and now he has alienated from himself as well. The alienation that Marx mentions is associated with Capitalism. For Marx alienation is a result of Capitalism. For us alienation as well as capitalism is the result of the change of the Chinthanaya of the Europeans. Not only Capitalism but even Luther and Calvin, not to mention Copernicus and Galileo are the results of the change in the Chinthanaya that began in the fifteenth century. Lutheran God of the individual was opposed to God of the community and mass of the Catholic Church. The next stage of alienation would see the individual alienating from himself and more and more cases of schizophrenia as a social phenomenon would have to be dealt with.

In the western society the individual is the most important concept and his, now hers as well, freedom from the society (community), individual liberty, human rights have drawn the attention of the academics legal pundits and administrators. The small David has grown up to be a Goliath in five hundred years threatening not only the community but himself as well. It has become a case of protecting David not from Goliath but from himself. The economic component has become the dominant component and welfare has become synonymous with individual economic prosperity. In the process, not only the environment but even the health of the individual has been sacrificed. The adage prevention is better than cure has been replaced by get ill and then get well attitude. If one has money he could get well, after getting ill. Even meditation has become a way to train the mind how to spend energy efficiently on accumulating wealth. Ever since Adam Smith talked about wealth of the nation individuals have been spending more and more energy to grab more and more wealth. Adam Smith should have written on wealth of the individual and not on the wealth of the nation.

(To be continued)

By ‘Kathikā’ Study Circle

We interpret the Presidential election of 2005 in its essence as a crucial battle for hegemony, between the ideologies of neo-liberalism and Jathika Chinthanaya or the ‘national thought’ as its founders wish to call it, a battle against the modern liberal ethos with the expressed desire to revive a ‘national’ ethos.

We take the two candidates to be foremost the representatives of the respective ideologies, one a committed believer of neo-liberalism, while in the other case it is the unfolding of the recent events that made the movement of Jathika Chinthanaya select him as its leader, given that intuitively he seems to be closer to the tradition Jathika Chinthanaya represents than to the neo-liberal policies.

The two ideologies find themselves mutually exclusive. Neo-liberal agenda at this election proposes to enshrine liberal democracy and market economy in our society. The Jathika Chinthanaya proposes to free Sri Lanka from the grip of Western imperialism and establish a Jathika Arthikaya, a national economy based on Jathika Chinthanaya, which combines both the state and the private sector.

I Neo-Liberalism and Jathika Chinthanaya: Polar Opposites?

The neo-liberal agenda
The neo-liberal agenda strongly believes that its implementation will bring economic growth, and therefore freedom and prosperity to the people of the country; hence the agenda has to be implemented somehow ignoring its social consequences for the deprived sectors of society. What lies behind this belief is the modern faith in the discourse of modernity and therefore, in the belief that in progress, modernization and development will overcome all social ills. It follows that the freedom of the individual in the guaranteed through the human rights would generate economic growth the ripples of which will bring modernization and development. With the trickle down effect everyone will benefit at the end, and there will be freedom and prosperity all around. In this view, any resistance to the implementation of such an agenda has to be considered a politically misguided move that goes against the common interest and therefore warrants to be overcome at any cost. Hence, the authoritarianism of neo-liberalism, born out of the modern conviction of the possibility of knowing what is good for society and believing in one’s missionary role in implementing it against all resistance. In this version, politics is the vocation of the aristocracy brought up to rule the subjects. Hence the distance of political leaders from the ordinary public. The ruler depends on the technocrat and the bureaucrat to implement the political agenda conceived in the minds of the experts who being the students of the correct method that know the Truth of modernity, and therefore how to modernize and develop, ‘underdeveloped,’ ‘third world’ countries such as Sri Lanka.

Jathika Chinthanaya
Jathika Chinthanaya, as a discourse seeks to resist the impact of modernity on tradition in its present phase of globalization which (to borrow Marx’s famous metaphor) threatens to melt all solid identities based on tradition into thin air in its atomization of communities and homogenization of all cultures. Jathika Chinthanaya perceives the rejuvenation of a national polity and economy and a national culture based on a state driven, people oriented, agricultural and industrial development as the way out of the ill effects of the impact of the neo-liberal agenda backed by globalization on our society. Hence Jathika Chinthanaya’s portrayal of this election as a battle between the Jathika and Vijathika or the national and the alien forces identified as Western imperialism. The struggle then is a patriotic one to assert Sri Lanka’s national independence.

Jathika Chinthanaya theoretically understands Sinhala Buddhist culture as one based on Buddhist humanism whose chief characteristics are considered to be the middle path, rejection of hedonism, commitment to altruism in place of selfishness, non-acquisitive way of life, egalitarianism and placing humanity above riches.

In our view, this is in essence a notion of the good life for humans centered on our ability to cultivate a capacity for discerning judgment in the conduct of our lives. Contrary to attempts to equate liberalism with Buddhism, the ethos of liberal individualism which reduces the idea of judgment to making consumer choices in the marketplace, goes against the very essence of Buddhist ethos and seek to uproot it.

In our view, it is politically misleading to take the political base of Jathika Chinthanaya as formed merely by economically deprived sectors of society. It is neither simply a matter of chauvinism. What takes the form of a ‘nationalist’ sentiment is the sense of the loss of a strong identity previously provided by the tradition.

Individualism based on freedom in the marketplace breaks down all the traditional bonds of community that gives a strong sense of identity to people. The value of tradition lies in its ability to provide resources to cultivate a stable identity. In Sri Lanka this identity was traditionally given in the form of a combination of language and religion. Hence the natural inclination of people to express their loss of identity in the form of falling back on their traditional linguistic or religious sources of identity. From the perspective of Jathika Chinthanaya, if it seeks to build a national polity, economy and culture, it needs to preserve an integrated nation beyond existing linguistic and religious divisions. Hence, the Sinhala nationalism’s opposition to Tamil nationalism. It sees the rise of Sinhala nationalism as a result of an attempt to reassert the due place of the Sinhala community which was denied to them under the colonial rule, the community taken to be the repository of Sinhala Buddhist ethos.

The battle between neo-liberalism and Jathika Chinthanaya is not simply a battle between two discourses, but also between two ways of life and therefore belief systems based on the discourses, which make their own way of life true for the believers of each system making it possibly a battle between life and death for the strong believer. It seems to represent what appears to be the irreconcilable and intense conflictual nature of politics between modernity and tradition.

polarization leading to authoritarian tendencies
The danger of the political polarization between the forces of modernity and tradition in Sri Lanka is that it threatens to strengthen the authoritarian tendencies within society. In its resistance to the authoritarianism of neo-liberalism, sections within the Jathika Chinthanaya movement betray a tendency which is potentially authoritarian.

In our view, this is due to that the Jathika Chinthanaya as a political movement shares some of the modernist premises which it seeks to reject in its philosophical/theoretical attempts to revive a Buddhist humanist ethos. If neo-liberalism’s authoritarianism arises from its belief in having a blueprint to remedy the ills of modern society and therefore the urge to implement it at any cost in the face of all the resistance, Jathika Chinthanaya also seems to believe that it has a blueprint for nation building and feels the urgency to carry out its project of building a national polity, economy and culture in the face of any resistance to it. In this instrumentalist approach, politics, then is no more than a mere means to reaching for the end of nation building and, the end seems to be taken to justify the means. In its project of nation building through development, Jathika Chinthanaya also seems to share the belief that progress, modernization and development will enable us to remedy the ills of our society.

Jathika Chinthanaya has a strong point over the liberal notion of the freedom of the individual in the marketplace, in its idea that its only a strong sense of the community that can give a stable identity to human beings. It is this latter idea however, that brings Jathika Chinthanaya to the idea of giving priority to the notion of nation building on the basis of a national economy. The desire to build a strong sense of the community that resists the atomizing tendencies of modernity seems to bring us back to the fold of modernity itself in the form of the nation building. Ironically, the exercise of nation building under modernity on the basis of a ‘national economy’ undertaken by the state is fraught with the danger of becoming authoritarian so far as it may feel the need to suppress any political resistance to it in order to muster all the necessary resources to build the ‘national economy.’

In order to imagine a way out of this potential political impasse in the long term, it is necessary to begin by re-state the political conflict between modernity and tradition as essentially a one between the freedom of the individual in the marketplace, and the stable identity the community provides. Our challenge under modernity is to develop an idea of identity derived from a strong sense of community which nevertheless simultaneously assures us the freedom as individuals as well. It is our suggestion that herein lies the way forward for the Jathika Chinthanaya out of its present modernist dilemma.

II The Way Forward
We have already stated that the rise of the Jathika Chinthanaya itself is a sign of the negative impact of modernity on traditional identities. We live under the pervasive impact of modernity where the notion of the freedom of the individual in the marketplace has come to dominate as the basis of the liberal ethos adhered to by an increasingly considerable section of society, in urban centers in particular. On the other hand, due to the very atomization of the traditional society under neo-liberal notion of individualism a larger section of people in our society strongly feel that their very identity as individuals belonging to a community is severely threatened if not almost destroyed.

To revive a Jathika Chinthanaya then is to revive the ethos of Buddhist Humanism in the face of the competing ethos of liberal individualism. As we noted earlier, Buddhist humanism takes as the good life for humans a life that enables us to exercise discerning judgment in our conduct. Cultivating the capacity for discerning judgment among citizens as the good life, requires reviving the collective discourse on the good life, which in turn requires us to focus on the need to revive a vibrant public realm, the common space where citizens can actively participate in conversations on their understandings of what is the good life for humans, as the Jathika Chinthanaya, to its credit, has been doing so far, in general. Such a public realm can be revived only if we strive to keep our public life free of all authoritarian tendencies, whether they emanate from the Right or the Left, which requires citizens to sacrifice the freedom to seek an active public life, whether the sacrifice is for the sake of market economy or a state-centered national economy.

We cannot deny that there is a collective responsibility to help improve the living standards of the deprived sectors of society. However, bringing the economic issues to the foremost place in collective life pushes the discourse on the good life out of the public realm and together with that the possibility of reviving a truly national ethos, unless of course we believe that the good life is only the good economic life.

Hence our suggestion that if we are interested in reviving a truly a national ethos, our political focus ought to be on the discourse of the good life for humans rather than the economy.

III The challenge: to imagine a new citizens’ democracy
If we agree on the above premises, then, given that we live under a liberal democracy, the political challenge we Sri Lankans face today is to imagine a form of collective political organization that would assure the freedom of the individual derived from being an active member of the collective life, and not the freedom in the marketplace, thus restoring the possibility of a stable strong identity to people while making them free at the same time. It is such a political organization that could give us a common identity preserving the commonality of society above a plurality of fragmenting linguistic, religious or ethnic identities.

Historically, we know that imagining such a form of collective life was made possible in the West by the example of Athenians in the democracy of ancient Greece. The principle involved was that the state or the polity was the manifestation of the collective ethos and its public, political life, not taken to be the administrator or the management of the economic affairs of the citizens which truly belong in the private sphere. All those who qualified to be citizens (judging by the standards accepted then) had the opportunity to actively participate in the governance of the collective life and in acting as citizens they achieved their freedom and thereby a stable identity.

That we Sri Lankans are also heirs to our own traditions in this regard and that we have already begun to imagine the possibility of such an alternative form of political life to that of either aristocracy or the majoritarian representative democracy which is still based on a notion of ruler and subject, is evident from the political discourse associated with the current presidential elections, where concepts such as Jana Sabha or Grama Rajya are discussed as possibilities. It is encouraging to see that the ideas of developing a strong sense of citizen, of devolving power to the level of active citizen participation at the local level of the gama or the village have already entered our political discourse with the current Presidential election.

However, we need to go beyond treating such village level institutions merely as a means of devolving administrative powers to the level of gama. We need to begin to imagine them as the basis of a new form of genuine democracy where people become truly free individuals by actively participating in politically governing themselves and thereby having a stable strong identity as true citizens. Instead of a liberal democracy based on the freedom of the individual in the marketplace, however, while not denying that freedom to the individual, we could develop a stronger understanding of democracy and individual freedom achieved within the public realm of politics based on a collective sense found within our own traditions and the best in the Western tradition.

Promoting genuine citizen participation at the level of the gama and building an organization of self-government on that basis in the long run would require us to imagine the possibility of such a form of organization replacing a system based on political parties. Such a vision can emerge into success only from among a truly imaginative public. It is our belief that only by establishing a polity that would enable active participation of ordinary citizens in self-governance, among whom, if at all, a national ethos may have been preserved, that a truly national ethos nourished from the best in our traditions and courageous enough to look forward to build a long lasting common world and a stable future for the next generations, can be revived.

kathika@gmail.com

“The role played by education in all political utopias from ancient times onwards shows how natural it seems to start a new world with those who are by birth and nature new.. So far as politics is concerned, this involves a serious misconception: instead of joining with one’s equals in assuming the effort of persuasion and running the risk of failure, there is dictatorial intervention, based upon the absolute superiority of the adult, and the attempt to produce the new as a fait accompli, that is, as though the new already existed. For this reason, in Europe, the belief that one must begin with the children if one wishes to produce new conditions has remained principally the monopoly of revolutionary movements of tyrannical cast which, when they came to power, took the children away from their parents and simply indoctrinated them. Education can play no part in politics, because in politics we always have to deal with those who are already educated. Whoever wants to educate adults really wants to act as their guardian and prevent them from political activity. Since one cannot educate adults, the word “education” has an evil sound in politics; there is a pretense of education, when the real purpose is coercion without the use of force. He who seriously wants to create a new political order though education, that is, neither through force and constraint nor though persuasion, must draw the dreadful Platonic conclusion: the banishment of all older people from the state that is to be founded. But even the children one wishes to educate to be citizens of a utopian morrow are actually denied their own future role in the body politic, for, from the standpoint of the new ones, whatever new the adult world may propose is necessarily older than themselves. It is in the very nature of the human condition that each new generation grows into an old world, so that to preparer a new generation for anew world can only mean that one wishes to strike from the newcomers’ hands their own chance of the new.” “The Crisis in Education”- 176-177

‘Kathikā’ Study Circle, a voluntary group, has published in Sinhala, a translation of The Relevance of the Beautiful, Art as Play, Symbol and Festival, by Hans Georg Gadamer, a major contemporary European philosopher, whose profound critique of modernity has been well recognised.

‘Sundara Deyehi Adalathvaya’ is a complete Sinhala translation of the principal text in Gadamer’s book The Relevance of the Beautiful and other Essays. This essay is considered to be Gadamer’s ‘most sustained work devoted specifically to the question of art.’ Gadamer demonstrates the continuing importance of such concepts as imitation, truth, symbol, and play for our appreciation of contemporary art, and thereby establishes its continuity with the Western tradition,’ says the publisher’s introduction to the English translation.

Gadamer’s work on art is essentially a turning away from the modern domination of philosophy and human sciences by scientific method. Gadamer seems to have taken to heart Nietzsche’s reminder to the moderns that it is not the victory of science that distinguishes modernity but the victory of scientific method over science. In his magnum opus Truth and Method of 1960, when Gadamer sought to show the drawbacks of methodology’s rule within the human sciences he turned first to our experience of the work of art. Gadamer’s point was that essentially, we gain access through the arts to an irresistible truth that the dogmatic application of method overlooks. Gadamer’s contention is that concentration on scientific method can conceal much that art and history has to teach us. In his studies, Gadamer is more concerned with what our experience of art actually is than what it thinks it is. A central claim in Gadamer’s understanding of art is that the work of art brings its own world with it, so that there is in our encounter with it what he calls a fusion of horizons. In this way the work of art makes a claim on us. He means by this that in our experience of the work of art, we do not encounter the work of art without being transformed in the process. Gadamer finds in ancient tragedy an illustration of how art contributes to our self-understanding on the basis of a continuity of the world presented by art with that of our own at present. Tragedy is dependent on the spectators’ acknowledgment that the actions on the stage takes place in a world continuous with their own. He believes that tragedy is possible only in so far as the spectators recognise themselves and their finiteness in the power of a fate that affects everyone. Gadamer appeals to such notions as imitation, participation, play, symbol, and festival with the aim of showing their relevance to modern as much as to traditional art. Gadamer is simply offering their resilience as evidence of the way the art of modernity stands united with the great art to the past. (Compiled from, Robert Bennasconi’s Editor’s introduction to The Relevance of the Beautiful and other essays, Cambridge University Press, 1986)

The Sinhala book also contains an introduction to Gadamer’s key philosophical ideas behind his hermeneutics.

kathika@gmail.com

‘Kathikā’ Study Circle, 171/30, Saranapala Himi Mawatha, Colombo 08.

‘Kathikā’ Study Circle