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On "Moderation" in public views

Moderation as virtue : Where you tend to an opinion in the "middle" because the "middle ground" indeed has more to back it than the extremes

Moderation as a diffident "tactic" : Where you tone down your views for fear of not getting into trouble
The problem in public discourse is -

Both the people with "moderate" views and the critics of "moderation" understand "moderation" in the latter sense
When Aristotle and the Greeks spoke of "moderation" as a philosophical virtue, they meant the former "moderation"

Where moderation indeed captures the "truth" better

Not moderation as an exercise in escapism
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Śrīkānta Kṛṣṇamācārya
@shrikanth_krish
Just listened to a podcast on Covid with @teasri and @balajis where @balajis used the term -

"Civilizational vaccination"

A fascinating term

Where a civilization remembers a historical catastrophe so well, that it has taken strong lessons from it for a very long time to come
Perhaps the Cultural Revolution represents such a "civilizational vaccination" in the case of China?

With Germany it is perhaps the rise and fall of Nazism - which has vaccinated the German people against the virus of "extreme racial nationalism"
With the West, it is harder to think of such a civilizational vaccine, as the West has been in the ascendant for such a long time

No catastrophes to remember

Perhaps the closest is WW1, where Britain blundered into a war

Creating a climate of pacifism that persists in the West
Read 7 tweets
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Śrīkānta Kṛṣṇamācārya
@shrikanth_krish
Random question on Tamil names

Why do we have so many "chari's " (basically Acharyas) among Tamil Sri-Vaishnavas (Iyengars), but hardly any chari's among Smarthas (Iyers)?

Acharya means preceptor

So it is strange that it is not used too commonly as a suffix in Smartha names
My theory -

Chari suffix in Iyengar names is usually an add-on to forms of Vishnu (Narayana).

Veeraraghavachari
Gopalachar
Varadachari

etc

And the form of Narayana most extolled in Tamil country is vAsudeva (KrSNa) who was a preceptor (who taught us the Gita)
Given the very strong kRSNa focus among Tamil Vaishnava brahmins, I suspect Acharya suffix picked up during the medieval period

Smarthas, with. a more diffuse theology, didn't pick on the "Acharya" suffix
Read 4 tweets
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Śrīkānta Kṛṣṇamācārya
@shrikanth_krish
Random thought on caste

Stripping out detail - it can be summed up this way

"Pride in one's birth"

E.g A working class Brahmin clerk finds it beneath his dignity to marry off his daughter to an OBC or Dalit multi-millionaire

So in that sense, Caste runs counter to materialism
We live in a world where "money is the measure of a person's status"

That's the American creed

Caste kind of is antagonistic to that spirit
So there is always this tension b/w "pride in one's birth and ancestors" vs "pride in one's material wealth and acquisitions" (be it acquisitions inherited or acquisitions earned)

Once the acquisitive spirit triumphs over the pride in one's birth, caste is a thing of the past
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