Questioning the psychoanalyst's authority

Sources of the trend to question not just the analyst's authority to interpret, but the analyst's use of authority in general, are explored. Out of a wish to circumvent the potentially detrimental effects an analyst's interpretations can have on patients, certain psychoanalysts have modified their analytic techniques with an eye to downplaying the role of their authority. When taken to extremes, this has led analysts to act as if they have little to offer patients in the way of an alternative point of view, and to privilege patients' accounts and interpretations by treating them as if they were objectively true. It is argued that one need not go so far in order to protect patients from the analyst's less than careful use of authority. It is argued further that the judicious use of authority remains an indispensable tool in helping to ready the patient's mind for a consideration of constructs different from those on which the patient has always relied. Finally, becoming comfortable with the aggressive aspect of the use of one's authority may determine the extent to which one is willing to employ one's authority with patients.     

Questioning authority in the psychoanalytic classroom

Psychoanalytic educators today, like their predecessors who trained them, struggle to maintain respect for and make use of candidates' various kinds of professional expertise while offering instruction in "the subject." But unlike their predecessors, today's educators teach in the wake of various challenges to authority and knowledge in recent decades from across the disciplines. Some of the most important work of teaching in this context begins when teachers recognize that they have assumed the position of objectivity in the classroom--that they have closed down the possibilities for open discussion--and figure out (with and in front of their students) what to do next.     

Hinduism and cyberspace

Hinduism is thriving in cyberspace. In this article I consider the suitability of this environment for Hinduism. This can indicate both whether various forms of Hindu religious expression online are valid and whether Hinduism needs to undergo any radical changes as a result of its presence in cyberspace. In order to investigate this issue I consider the nature of cyberspace and then discuss a number of key aspects of Hinduism in the light of this. I conclude that, overall, cyberspace appears to be a highly suitable environment for Hinduism.     

神圣的容器--婆罗门教/印度教的身体观

身体的问题,与人的问题密切相关,在人的自我理解、交互理解与世界理解、终极理解中,身体都是不可或缺的维度.如何看待身体,如何把握身心关系,实可彰显出各大宗教的不同特质.对于婆罗门教/印度教传统来说,多层次的身体容器中含藏着神圣的种子,通过特殊的修炼技术达到身体的圣化,就能亲证"梵我合一"的神圣境界.这与中国古代身心思想颇可相互印证.从身体的角度去观照印度教传统,当能提供新的线索,展现新的面相.     

Conquering the quarters: Religion and politics in Hinduism

Conclusion Our understanding of South Asian society and history is sometimes muddled by the rigid distinctions we make between ‘religion’ and ‘politics.’ The resurgent appeal of Hindu nationalism, the involvement of Hindu renouncers in contemporary Indian politics, and the continuing relevance of religious issues to political discourse throughout South Asia, show that such a distinction is of limited utility. In this essay, I have examined the notion of digvijaya in some detail, in an attempt to show that this ‘most important Indian concept with regard to sovereignty’ was always both a ‘religious’ and a ‘political’ phenomenon. When it was performed by Hindu kings in the classical period, the ‘political’ dimension of digvijaya was foregrounded, while in the medieval and modern periods, when it was associated primarily with Hindu renouncers, its ‘religious’ aspects were paramount. But neither ‘political’ nor ‘religious’ aspects were ever absent from any of the digvijayas discussed here because religion and politics were mutually entailed in the digvijaya at all times, just as kings and renouncers were—and still are—alter-egos of each other. I am tempted to conclude that the digvijaya melded religious and political domains. Yet perhaps even to speak of ‘melding’ religion and politics is a peculiarly modern kind of discourse. Perhaps we need to rethink our categories and recognize that politics always has a religious element, while religion is always a political force.     

Text and context in Fijian Hinduism: Uses of religion

The recent rise of militant religious nationalism in such places as Sri Lanka, Punjab, Iran, Egypt, Israel and elsewhere has created the impression that there is something wrong with religion in these parts of the world. The author of this article, reporting on his extensive interviews with a radical bhikkhu in Sri Lanka, concludes that the problem is with the Western ideal of secular nationalism. It does not easily fit with traditional political identities and it is sometimes seen as a vestige of cultural colonialism. The author presents four options in the relation of secular nationalism and religion, and raises the question of whether we, as secular Westerners, can adjust to a world increasingly filled with religious nationalists.     

Women as authority figures: The use and nonuse of authority

This paper reports the results of two experiments designed to investigate the effect of sex-role stereotypes on evaluations of authority figures. Female and male subjects read short accounts of various situations in which an authority figure confronted a subordinate who had transgressed in some way and then evaluated the authority figure on a variety of dimensions. Sex of the authority figure and of the subordinate were varied factorially. In Experiment 1, where the authority figure took a hard line with the transgressing subordinate, it was found that a female authority figure being firm with a male subordinate was evaluated most negatively. In Experiment 2, where the authority figure was lenient with the subordinate, it was found that a female authority figure being lenient with a female subordinate was evaluated most negatively. Implications of the results are discussed.     

Response to Brian K. Smith: Re-envisioning Hinduism

Actually the revolution is much closer than we think. The last band of free thinkers (Feuerbach and all related to him) has attacked or tackled the matter far more clearly than formerly, for if you look more closely, you will see that they actually have taken upon themselves the task of defending Christianity against contemporary Christians. The point is that established Christendom is demoralized, in the profoundest sense all respect for Christianity's existential commitments has been lost … Now Feuerbach is saying: No, wait a minute—if you are going to be allowed to go on living as you are living, then you also have to admit that you are not Christians … it is wrong of established Christendom to say that Feuerbach is attacking Christianity; it is not true, he is attacking the Christians by demonstrating that their lives do not correspond to the teachings of Christianity … What Christianity needs for certain is traitors … (JP 6523)     

Religious pluralism and processes of individualisation in Hinduism

The paper explores the interconnection between religious pluralisation and processes of individualisation in India by focusing on the emergence of religious alternatives to Vedic ritualism in the centuries around the beginning of the Common Era. Criticism of established religious goals and practices voiced by individuals was accompanied by an increasing interest in the structures of individual existence. The conceptualisation of the individual in the philosophical and religious literature of the period is an important aspect of establishing new religious pathways with ideas of self, agency and personal relatedness being of central concern. On the basis of different doctrines religious options gained acceptance which allow individuals to pursue their religious aspirations either apart from or parallel to the ritual-social obligations in the context of caste-hierarchy. The new religious options gravitate towards institutionalisation in the form of religious communities (sampradāya). These are not only important elements in organising Hindu religious pluralism, but also allow for recurrent processes of religious individualisation.     

India and Beyond: Vedism,Hinduism, and the Continuity of Culture

International Journal of Hindu Studies -