The monopolisation of ‘empathy’ in the Liberal Arts discourse leads to some observations. It’s good to repeat them even if they are ubiquitous.
The stream uses empathy to legitimise a discourse and a narrative which is selective and not liberal.
The stream uses empathy to legitimise a discourse and a narrative which is selective and not liberal.
A majority of the stream’s practitioners find themselves ill-equipped to believe that the rest of the world can be empathetic too. So, fundamentally this liberal discipline actually makes you illiberal.
If that isn’t enough, it also gives you the licence to look down upon those with a different opinion, from your self-made pedestal of righteousness and virtue signalling.
‘Vinaya’ an important aspect to any discipline of knowledge is absent from the stream.
A discipline with claims to such an aim - that it prepares you to question convention and that it makes you fearless - shouldn’t be afraid to let different worldviews and ideologies be open to its students. It should trust them to be able to make the right choice.
As a student of literature, while I am grateful for the knowledge that came my way, I feel deceived that the university curriculum, which is a part of the global liberal arts structure, gave me a unidimensional worldview.
Why was Samskara a part of the syllabus but not Aavarana? Why Said made it as a theorist but S.N Balagangadhara didn’t?
Because the stream was fearful that I could believe otherwise, it subtly taught me not trust anyone else to have empathy.
This saviour complex is deeply problematic because it makes you justify illiberal behaviour.
This saviour complex is deeply problematic because it makes you justify illiberal behaviour.
It is nothing but an extension of the white man’s burden because the discipline itself is Western.
What matters is who is looking at whom. Unless we find our own lens to look at ourselves and the world, Shreeya Singh will continue to toe the line she is taught at the Yale.
What matters is who is looking at whom. Unless we find our own lens to look at ourselves and the world, Shreeya Singh will continue to toe the line she is taught at the Yale.
