Top Tweets for #tracetheprocess

"Caste" has been the primary lens through which the west has interpreted India for hundreds of years, mostly b/c it provided missionaries with a simple foil against which they could elevate the supremacy of Protestantism. Hindu civilization, which is defined by caste, is hierarchical, repressive, and stagnant, whereas Protestant Christianity is democratic, egalitarian, and progressive, etc. Interestingly, elements of the global left have similarly engaged in the same reductivism, but for a different reasons. Rather than using "caste" as a way of elevating the virtues of western civilization, they analogize it to race so that they can extend their critiques of the west to India. The effect is a great flattening which facilitates the spread of crackpot sociological and political theories that bear no reference to actual reality. You see this reflected in popular "South Asian" discourse with statements like "Brahmins are the white people of India." In either case, it is a reductive mode of analysis that has proved disastrous for furthering actual understanding. The phenomenon OP is criticizing here is in fact tiresome, but it has nothing to do with caste. Rather, it's a rather commonplace instance of elite assimilation across the anglophone world. The upper echelons of the western academy, media, and culture are filled with second generation Americans of Indian, Asian, or even African origin who see the adoption of this particular POV as a mechanism for advancement within that milieu. It's really that simple.

Internet, discovery of the chemical structure of DNA & breakthroughs in nuclear energy were all based on publicly funded research. US “invests in the most uncertain stage of the business cycle and lets businesses hop on for the easier ride down the way.” https://t.co/McG6s2IFcS