The Point:
“Sacred” would seem generally to be defined by Religious terms which brings with the word a whole variety of bells and triggers that go along with what Religion represents to a given culture and society. For example, the Ramayana was used to inspire events that resulted in the deaths of 3,000 Indians through "communal" rioting across India at the end of 1990-91. The riots which began in October of 1990, were apparently ignited when BJP's president, L.K. Advani, rode a Toyota truck that he had turned into Rama’s Epic Chariot, from Somnath in Gujarat to Adhoya in Northern India. To support Mr. Advani, the Vihva Hindu Parishad (VHP) stated in court documents that "Rama is an immemorial object of worship basic to Hinduism and this worship was being impeded by the presence of a mosque built on the site of his birthplace." (261) It would seem a paradox then that even though the VHP stated their reasons for this violence were religious, many of the military trained youth that manually demolished a mosque on 12/6/1992 claimed themselves to be atheist. Even stranger is that instead of shocking India, these events gave the BJP enough notoriety to become the ruling party in India from 1998 to 2004. In response, Pollock asks what the symbol of Rama’s Epic Chariot represented so that someone could change an apparent heroic tale of love, loss and recovery from the classic past to so greatly empower a vision for violent modern political tactics. (262)[i] [See Torrey A.: Ancient Symbolism and Religious Violence 17MAR08 - Exploring Other Cultures Religion 305].
But we don’t need to cross an ocean and continent to witness the affects of religious marginalization. Hernando Cortez is credited with conquering the Aztecs in 1521 which might be true if we acknowledge his as being the first example of germ warfare. Though one would suppose the Spanish simply walked into Mexico City and through sheer might overwhelmed the indigenous Aztecs. It wasn’t so much military superiority, however, as diseases including Small Pox and Influenza that were brought across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe that conquered the great Aztec civilization. From 250,000,000 people that populated Mexico in 1519, only 2,000,000 (8%) survived to serve the Spanish 60 years later. Post-colonial Mesoamerican “Othering” was presumably accomplished, then, through religious sanctions. Indigenous populations of Mesoamerica have apparently suffered enormous losses for these past centuries through Western Civilization’s narrowed worldview apparently validated by Christianity and ultimately resolved through Liberation Theology. [Death & Beyond REL 257] It would also seem the product of our marginalizing has leaked into United States neighborhoods as many people cross the border from Mexico searching for new opportunities to improve their quality of life.
Exploring the Sacred could be a life long quest, so the point to my undergraduate education is to find the starting point. I do not believe secularizing social reform is the answer to this global problem. Clearly Religion has been the tool for control and power leading to large scale poverty, starvation and death. I’m not so sure, though, Religion needs to be called to task as much as human nature. Can we really blame fire for the building it burns? Do we not credit that same fire for toasting our marshmallows? Is the fault of the damage on the fire, or the person who set the flame? I believe Sacred is the core of what we as a species are compelled to respect. I do not think our knowledge and science will be any more or less poignant through dissolving the concept of Sacred. If, like Mircae Eliade, we define and recognize Sacred as a separate reality from Profane, I would contend today there needs to be a redefinition of what this Sacred means. Perhaps, for example, it is a force that makes something profane extraordinary, but profane can be applied to everyday ethics as well as to a Religious or political standard. Can we agree that which supports and sustains Life is Sacred? Can the concept of Life (no matter what form it takes) be a powerful enough concept to attribute something extraordinary?
Questions I would ask are:
Is there a way to see the Sacred in everyday life? What process would make this worldview possible? (Pragmatism?)
Does Free Will play a role in establishing our view of what’s Sacred? Do we have Free Will? (Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics – Independent Study with Dr. Shellko)
What are some of the processes that make up human nature and its ability to recognize the Sacred? (Nature/Nurture - Learning potentials and Creative Process)
How can these human processes better serve our everyday life (See “Externship”)
What’s my next step? (what I hope to accomplish in Graduate School)
Externship
With this in mind, last quarter I approached Professor Kay Read from DePaul University with the idea of connecting High School students with University level research projects that may be in a process of development. Dr. Read is writing a book regarding the connections between Othering of Mesoamericans and Nature with the Nasty/Noble Savage paradigm. With this project I am hoping to find the potentials of “Sacred” within a neighborhood context. As I live in Rogers Park, I approached Sullivan High School with Dr. Read’s project and suggested that together DePaul University and Sullivan High School could develop a program sensitive to Sullivan’s present curriculum that would hook students into the book Dr. Read is hoping to publish.
Published Articles:
[i] Pollock, S. (1993). Ramayana and political imagination in India. The Journal of Asian Studies, 52/2:261-297.
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