Thursday, July 29, 2004

They will be architects building on the ruined foundations of the world


An excellent, if troubling, article, Body of the Nation: Why Women Were Mutilated in Gujarat by Martha Nussbaum.

http://bostonreview.net/BR29.3/nussbaum.html

I hold Martha Nussbaum in the highest regard. Her use of the amazing Ernst Junger in a decisive quote is a resounding testimony to taste and brilliance.

The events described lead to a rather disturbing dissonance with Camille Paglia's claim that what we need in contemporary Cultural Critique is less France and more India - but it remains a statement that I am still strongly in agreement with.

With its hallucinogenic pantheon of deities, most of whom are still actively worshipped, and the mind-blowing creativities evidenced in Bollywood, to the imminent ecological crises, and the abysmal ethnic and sexual conflicts burning like wildfires through the ancient lands, India stands an ominous portent of things to come. A God imprisoned in a cage and set to fire, a thousand arms flailing, a hundred heads screaming, bones burning like stars.

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