Ghandi Critizised

[Teal_Lantern]

http://dayriffer.com/category/33/l/1930/whoa-here-comes-the-biggest-re-assessment-of-an-icon-since-mother-teresa-s-takedown-by-christopher-hitchens

Some pretty heavy allegations. Although I'm not sure how much of it is true since the title also seems to mention Hitchens as a positive (sorry Hitchens fans).

So my question to the board is how much of these are true and not simply exaggeration and/ or lie? And was Ghandi really this much of a psycho?

[bumperhead]

I've heard the racism charges, but have no idea how accurate they are.

[stevapalooza]

Yeah, Penn & Teller covered this on Bullshit a few seasons back.

[zemo]

Yes, I heard about that book. Mather of fact, it was banned in one state of India because it implies that Gandhi was homosexual. I don't think anybody is ever as holy as stories make them out to be, but I have a strong feeling that this book is mainly intended to tear down someone incredibly famous so that the author can elevate himself. I mean, what serious researcher would put the story with the three men Gandhi seemingly told he wished they'd die into their manuscript? That's simply hearsay from unreliable sources and never provable.

[Gail Simone]

I always think people, even beloved people who are gone, should be recognized as what and who they really were, rather than some perfect mythology.

The truth is always its own defense. If the charges are true, than that is part of the full picture of the man. If they can't be proven, then who cares what this guy says?

[K-DoG7p7]

I cant be bothered to read the whole thing..
is this about him being a Racist, Pedo and Gay ?
if so then there is nothing new here

[Stamenflicker]

It doesn't sound like the author was out to take him out like Hitchens was gunning for Mother Teresa. He actually said in an interview that he wanted to destroy her and he "wished there really was a Hell to send the bitch to."

Anyway, people are mostly out to make a buck and the best way to do that is through outrageous claims. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was right about us in every way. The gluttony of information we have causes it to be lost -- and the only way some can have their information seen is to put an ugly face on it.

[zemo]

I always think people, even beloved people who are gone, should be recognized as what and who they really were, rather than some perfect mythology.

The truth is always its own defense. If the charges are true, than that is part of the full picture of the man. If they can't be proven, then who cares what this guy says?

Alas, this only ever seems to be the case with people that were famous for being good. No one ever seems to be willing to try and have too deep a look into the people that are deemed "bad" to see whether they in fact were all that, or whether there are mitigating circumstances. I guess it's more profitable to make Gandhi look bad than to make Hitler look good (though, as far as I know, he REALLY was that much of an asshole).

[Hugin]

Alas, this only ever seems to be the case with people that were famous for being good. No one ever seems to be willing to try and have too deep a look into the people that are deemed "bad" to see whether they in fact were all that, or whether there are mitigating circumstances. I guess it's more profitable to make Gandhi look bad than to make Hitler look good (though, as far as I know, he REALLY was that much of an asshole).Hitler was a vegan and truly cared about the german people. None of that matters in the face of how complete a monster he was. You can't make a bad guy look good just because he loved puppies, but you can show just how terrible a hero is.

[Ziggy Stardust]

I think no public figure is ever left alone until at least one skeleton is found.

Ghandi just seems to have made it easier than some.

Mind you, having said that.... I don't think I've ever read anything bad about Tom Hanks..... Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

[Corrina]

Alas, this only ever seems to be the case with people that were famous for being good. No one ever seems to be willing to try and have too deep a look into the people that are deemed "bad" to see whether they in fact were all that, or whether there are mitigating circumstances. I guess it's more profitable to make Gandhi look bad than to make Hitler look good (though, as far as I know, he REALLY was that much of an asshole).

You should read Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time. Great sympathetic portrait of Richard III, rescuing him from Shakespeare's hunchbacked villain. :)

[Stressfactor]

You should read Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time. Great sympathetic portrait of Richard III, rescuing him from Shakespeare's hunchbacked villain. :)

Or if you're not intimidated by books as thick as a major metropolitan phone directory there is Sharon Kay Penman's "The Sunne in Spleandor". She does much the same for Richard with a lot of detailed historical research.

[Corrina]

But...Daughter of Time is shorter than Sunne in Splendour, Stress. :)

It's arguably fiction, as Tey's detective is recovering in a hospital and starts studying Richard III to keep himself busy.

[Stressfactor]

But...Daughter of Time is shorter than Sunne in Splendour, Stress. :)

It's arguably fiction, as Tey's detective is recovering in a hospital and starts studying Richard III to keep himself busy.

Oh, I know -- I've read both Tay's and Penman's.

Tay's is shorter and is structured more like a murder mystery but you get a lot more court intrigue and backstabbing in Penman's. :twisted:

I don't think, though, that either Tay's or Penman's stories are necessarily the true Richard though. Both go a little too far in the other direction to try to make up for Shakespeare's piece of propaganda.

As I've told friends, I honestly believe that Richard was little better nor little worse than many other English kings. He did stuff out of political expediency. I doubt he killed the kids. Most likely really seems to be that the boys died of natural causes. Disease was rampant and often carried off the young.

Although, a friend of mine visited England two years ago and toured the Tower of London and even the tour guides there were still propagating the "murder" of the princes in the tower on Richard's orders. :roll:

[Danimal]

I'd be curious to know form what points in his life many of those anecdotes came from. Any number of influential and respected figures had pasts that people find quite objectionable. Malcolm X owned up to any number of crimes and mistakes during his life as well as to shifting attitudes over his life towards race. There is strong evidence that part of Martin Luther King's dissertation was plagiarized. I'm just pointing these out because these were people whom we treat like saints, but we also like to fault them for not being born as such.

[zemo]

I guess the main problem in cases like this is that those human transgressions often run completely opposed to what those people preached. Like, in Gandhi's case, demanding the British to treat Indians equally, but then being racist towards black Africans. Though, as I understood it from comments on that discussion, this racism mainly seems to be the problem of looking at something that was written in the past through today's eyes, i.e. he adressed black people in a way that was appropiate for that time, though I forget what this adressing took shape as. Maybe I should actually get that book, though I generally dislike any analyzation of historical characters outside of scientific writing, as it most often simply is sensationalism.

[Jim Ritchey]

"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."

"I may be a despicable person, but when Truth speaks through me I am
invincible."

"I was a coward. I used to be haunted by the fear of thieves, ghosts and serpents. I did not dare to stir out of doors at night. Darkness was a terror to me. It was almost impossible for me to sleep in the dark, as I would imagine ghosts coming from one direction, thieves from another and serpents from a third. I could not therefore bear to sleep without a light in the room. "
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi

Just keeping it in perspective. I'm not a blind follower of anything, to forewarn--more interested in the truth than the myth, always. But there are literally dozens of self-deprecations in his quotes, and his autobiography very much expressed the growth of a person from a bias-prone, fearful man, to someone who battled that within himself. Nonviolence was a gift of immeasurable value, but the Western Mind wants fuckin' Deities--it's the only way we seem to value a message. Doesn't matter that the Eastern way is to value the spark of God in each of us, something he believed was the seed of every faith.

Of course later, we throw the message out of the Deification, like wingnut Christians do with Jesus.

Too bad, kids--Gandhi was A MAN, never claimed godhood--he just sought to save his people, and happened on a really good idea worthy of any good God.

[Stressfactor]

There's that and there's also the fact that everyone changes over time.

I'm not the same person I was at 18 (thank God) and I wouldn't like it if someone took something I said or wrote at 18 and held it up as some sort of guiding light of my life.

I'm not one of those people who think politicians should hold inalienable views necessarily because, theoretically, anyone can be persuaded with evidence and/or the right arguement.

What I don't like, though, is when politicos simply can't own up to it. When they try to play it like they've really *always* held these views instead of simply saying "Yeah, I said that THEN but since then I've learned some stuff and it made me change my mind."

There's no shame in that.

So I guess what I'm saying is why should Ghandi be any different? I'd like to know the context of things he said and when he said them in his career. Because things said as a young man or a fresh protester can be tempered by experience and years of struggle.

[rob]

You should read Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time. Great sympathetic portrait of Richard III, rescuing him from Shakespeare's hunchbacked villain. :)

Maybe he/she could just do some research into Hitler, and list all the nice things he did.

[Corrina]

Maybe he/she could just do some research into Hitler, and list all the nice things he did.

ah, c'mon, there's not need to Godwin the discussion. There's not even really a comparison.

Richard III was a medieval figure in a time of civil war in England where both sides committed atrocities. He's often been labeled as the evil mastermind--and given a fictional hump--following along with Shakespeare's wonderful but highly imaginative play. Contemporary accounts contradict much of the events in Richard III. But Shakespeare worked for Elizabeth I, who happened to be the granddaughter of the contender who beat Richard III in battle, so..

Well, the victor writes the history, especially in this case.

It doesn't make Richard III a great guy but I believe truth should be known in history and the truth is that Henry VII, Richard's conquerer, was certainly on the same shaky moral ground as his opponent.

Hitler is a completely different story, where there are NOT erroneous historical accounts at all. It's all on the record. The only reason to look on his good traits would be understand that he was human, not some force of nature, and we should do well to remember that humans can still do that to each other.

Gandhi was a person and no doubt had flaws, which do not negate the good that he did, in my opinion. However, it is well that we pay attention to the flaws of our heroes because it provides truth and proves that people can do great good for each other, despite their flaws.

[zemo]

Just keeping it in perspective. I'm not a blind follower of anything, to forewarn--more interested in the truth than the myth, always. But there are literally dozens of self-deprecations in his quotes, and his autobiography very much expressed the growth of a person from a bias-prone, fearful man, to someone who battled that within himself. Nonviolence was a gift of immeasurable value, but the Western Mind wants fuckin' Deities--it's the only way we seem to value a message. Doesn't matter that the Eastern way is to value the spark of God in each of us, something he believed was the seed of every faith.

Of course later, we throw the message out of the Deification, like wingnut Christians do with Jesus.

Too bad, kids--Gandhi was A MAN, never claimed godhood--he just sought to save his people, and happened on a really good idea worthy of any good God.

I think the deification of humans is a self-defence, actually. If someone did something good because they just were inhumanly good, then there is no reason for the rest of us to even try.

[The Xenos]

Yeah, Penn & Teller covered this on Bullshit a few seasons back.Yeah. That's exactly what I thought of. Though even before that a friend of mine who was a sociology major said she thought that Ghandi was an asshole from a number of things in her classes. I believe in particular his views on Africa.

Also, it was India's blind worship of Ghandi that got Clone High canceled after only one season. For that alone... Ghandi is as shitty as the enemas he gave young girls. Okay, I kid. Though as good as some of the stuff he said and did was.. he also did some crazy weird and pretty messed up shit.

[ShaunN]

I'm attaching a link to the NYT book review. In looking at some of the quotes from the OP, I think that it is evident some of Gandhi's statements were taken out of context. I know that I have read before that Gandhi was clearly racist towards Africans during his time in SA. However, I also suspect that he grew and changed and altered his attitudes throughout his life. The review alludes to this and notes how, even within his own community, it took him a couple of decades to begin to accept the equality of all Indians. Gandhi was not born as the man he became. He grew into himself over the course of his life. It is unfair to pick out moments in his life and use those as the measure of his character without considering what he may have come to believe with time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/books/review/book-review-great-soul-mahatma-gandhi-and-his-struggle-with-india-by-joseph-lelyveld.html?pagewanted=1&sq=gandhi&st=cse&scp=4

[ayhe]

I'm attaching a link to the NYT book review. In looking at some of the quotes from the OP, I think that it is evident some of Gandhi's statements were taken out of context. I know that I have read before that Gandhi was clearly racist towards Africans during his time in SA. However, I also suspect that he grew and changed and altered his attitudes throughout his life. The review alludes to this and notes how, even within his own community, it took him a couple of decades to begin to accept the equality of all Indians. Gandhi was not born as the man he became. He grew into himself over the course of his life. It is unfair to pick out moments in his life and use those as the measure of his character without considering what he may have come to believe with time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/books/review/book-review-great-soul-mahatma-gandhi-and-his-struggle-with-india-by-joseph-lelyveld.html?pagewanted=1&sq=gandhi&st=cse&scp=4

Exactly my thoughts