Holi Discussion Appreciation

[John Gardner]

an innocent semantic question on this matter, and perhaps presumptuous to 
suggest re-interpretation of someone else' terminaology, but here goes-

could it not be that "chaos" was invoked--perhaps, still, in unforeseen 
error--in the sense prescribed by the more revolutionary fringes of 
sub-atomic physics?  if this were the case, it might actually be the 
genesis of a terminology which could actually be fair in describing 
cultural phenomena which do NOT easily mold themselves to stale 
generalizations of english.  in addition, such a usage of the term 
necessarily entails an admission on the part of the user (if, indeed, 
this were how the term was intended) that ultimate "graha" of the topic 
or issue is and will remain outside the purview of controllable, 
manipulable, and deginable data quanta?

whether or not this was the case with the usage of the word which has 
brought forth this controversy, i suggest consideration of these term 
pools related to chaos theory as they are perhaps quite reflective of the 
various ineffables entailed in study or discovery of the 
cultural/temporal/ethnic "other".

tentatively,
john robert gardner
university of iowa

On Wed, 7 Feb 1996 RAJAGOPALANM at HARPO.TNSTATE.EDU wrote:

> dear friend
> Thanks for letting us know that you have visited india for many many years.
> I amsure you would have seen how friendly and reasonable the hindus are .
> Unfortunately their culture and character is tainted by many indologists by
> usage of bad words like chaos etc . while such words  do give a wrong impression
> of the character of the hindu society such words when repeated very often even by innocence
>  that that is the true character of the hindu society . it is like making 
> a lie appear true by repeating it enough times . i hope that true scientific indologista
> will avoid using such wrong and unhealthy words  being used against any society ,
> not alone hindus , unless it is proved that that society as bad as the 
> word chaotic means . that word was used by missionaries to slant 
> hindus in a time of their aggressive attacks on non-white cultures and we
> as scientists should not lend support to such unfortunate usages even
> by innocence .   M.Rajagopalanzz
>