First four False explanations
1) Hindus were more open to the West whereas the Muslims still resented the Crusades and were further put off by the fact that Europeans didn't wash regularly and used toilet paper- which just smears shit evenly around the arse-hole, instead of sluicing it away- and thus stank to high heaven.
Actually Hindus were less open to the West. They lost caste if they crossed the 'Black Water'. Young Indian Vegetarian males found it very difficult to get nutritious and tasty food in England. Also they were incessantly subjected to intense racial harassment by anyone related to them or from the same agraharam.
2) Hindus were smarter.
Are you fucking kidding me? Have you any idea what them Hindus worship? It's all like gods with monkey heads or elephant heads or big ass Snakes or hot chicks with twelve arms and shit. I had this Hindu bloke live down the road from me once. The day of the eclipse he comes up to me and says we gotta get to Temple pronto coz Rahu or Ketu or some such demon is eating the Sun. Okay, he smoked a lot of ganja and was an English convert- but still.
BTW, 2 of those Hindu Nobel prize winners, both Science nerds, were Tambrams- not Iyengars but just bog standard Iyers. The third was Amartya Sen. 'Nuff said?
3) Hinduism, being territorially delimited, could ditch theology in favour of militant Nationalism of a Modern sort in which, to adapt a phrase from Francis Bacon, not Man but Nature is put on the rack so King's Equity at last achieve univocity as the headless, all devouring Kabandha tyranny of the Demoi.
My answer to this risible thesis comes in two parts
a) Hinduism is NOT territorially delimited. Hindutva is- which is why it poses no threat to us. But, Hinduism? No one's safe while it's prowling around. What if your son or daughter turns vegetarian and, dunno, like marries an elephant or a snake or something? In any case, think of the grand-children. I personally assured my mother-in-law, a censorious Piedmontese Catholic, that I was eating up all the surplus arms and heads baby kept spouting coz his Mom- probably some sort of Calabrian Hindu like her generous Dad, who treated me like a true Carnatic mapillai- worshiped the little poop-producing machine like it was some particularly repellent Deity from out of pillaitamil, Tanjore School of painting, iconography.
b) Fuck off. Seriously dude. I mean it. Listen, I know martial arts. Sumo. What? Well, sure we can have a throwdown sometime but my nappy is in the wash. BTW my b.f.f on Twitter is Prof. Amaresh Mishra? And he can fuck you up big-time coz like he knows all these 'encounter specialist' U.P cops? So just don't go there Mom is what I'm saying and could you please stop reading my blog? It's so not cool.
4) Hinduism being a 'fossil religion' like Judaism, in which 'Sacred knowledge' had been Credentialised, followed a similar path in over-investing in Secular Science for the same resource rationing Credentialist purpose.
But, for Judaism this followed from a female preference for scholars whereas in Hinduism, female preferences determined nothing. Interestingly, there is less intellectual gender dimorphism amongst Hindus. Both sexes are rabid Credentializing fuckwits. But, that's because Intellectual activity for the Hindu really is a zero-sum game- who gets which Professorship, or, in the West, who gets to pose as the benighted Hindu deserving of Tokenist accolades. Science, for the Jews, however, was positive sum and linked to entrepreneurship in Knowledge based industries not bureaucrato-academic rent seeking.
What positive arguments can be made in connection with Dawkin's tweet?
1) If we ask why are there 160 Jewish Nobel Prize winners- and there would have been many more but for the Holocaust- one factor stands out, Sexual competition. Initially, Ashkenazi women favored learned Rabbis as grooms- the autobiography of Solomon Maimon shows this. His wife ran a successful Tavern to support the young prodigy. Unfortunately he developed a taste for secular learning and booze- but he still wouldn't give her a 'get' probably because a wife who runs a Tavern is the dream of every true booze-hound. The other factor was that the Sacred obligation to finance Rabbinical studies became Secularized as providing Jewish Free Schools which rapidly developed as centers of Excellence. If one asks why Education is collapsing in many Muslim countries, we find that
a) Credentialized Education rations rent-seeking opportunities amongst the elite who thus have no incentive to broaden in-take or who do so in a hypocritical manner by creating a two tier system with those trapped in the lower tier condemned to menial work
b) Cadre based Islamist parties quickly lose any technocratic or meritocratic ethos they might have started out with and thus the educational institutions which they infiltrate or control soon turn into ghettos of paranoid political fantasy in which Physics Professors give lectures about djinns working for Mossad who sabotage their experiments.
c) Women's education is first instrumentalized- 'by educating girls to be true Muslims they will get rid of traditional superstitious practices and become good mothers'- but then demonized because the genie has escaped the bottle! Countries like Iran and Tunisia might have seemed the exception- but this particular battle is by no means over. The fact is traditional societies have a preference for female hypergamy- a man feels insecure if his wife is better educated than him- so the 'educational inflation' amongst, for example, Iranian (middle class) women, leads to a 'basiji' backlash not just against Women's education but also the Liberal Intelligentsia and their Political demands.
The truth is, Educational success goes hand in hand with the Rule of Law. At one time, we thought the Religious parties could check the idiocy of the Leftists but the cure was worse than the disease.
Hindus, speaking generally, have experienced a decline in both Religious belief and Ideological fervor since about the 1920's (with the failure of Mahatma Gandhi's Non-cooperation Movement) whereas Political Islam, after a shaky start, has grown from strength to strength.
Though many Hindus subscribe to orthopraxy they no longer give theological reasons for so doing- Vegetarianism might be justified as Ethical or even 'Scientific'; Astrology might be justified by some specious argument developed by Nobel laureate Kary Mullis; visiting Temples may be linked to 'bio-rhythms' or crystal vibrations from the surrounding rocks- and this has been a secular trend discernible for over a hundred years now. Indeed, the crack-pot Theosophical Society of Madam Blavatsky and Col. Olcott found eager Hindu converts from its inception. Annie Beasant, who took over, was elected President of the Indian Home Rule League before being roughly shouldered aside by the lithe and limber, loin cloth clad, Mahatma. By contrast, Islamist parties based on the cadre system used by the Communists, were able to function as a vanguard infiltrating Educational institutions so as to mold young minds. Islam benefited greatly from Stalin's decision to back the creation of Israel because Communism languished ever afterwards for contributing to the humiliating 'Nakba' (catastrophe) that still haunts the Muslim mind. Whether we speak of 'Ikhwan' or 'Jamaati' or 'Salafi' or 'Wahhabbi' or now 'Takfiri'- the influence of such cadre based organizations do impact negatively on young people, especially those attending elite Institutions or studying abroad, because they are steered away from 'fundamental' research in favor of technical skills+ activism- with a view to making them more useful to the Party. In one sense, it may appear to be a good thing if smart young people return to their home country (or emigrate to a Muslim country) to work with the young people there, but, sadly, the Sciences don't work like that. Skills degrade quickly, Intellectual curiosity is dampened, and the political horizon overwhelms everything else- you have a recipe for increasing anger and frustration venting itself in quixotic adventurism- including of a terrorist kind. By contrast, Business studies is a safer course and many Muslim countries now have first rate financial services industry manned with 'rocket scientists'- but, this isn't actually a good thing. Intellectual talent is being diverted into an overblown and fundamentally unstable financial system while Technical education gets neglected and politicized. Admirers of Prof. Dawkins book 'the extended phenotype'- a masterpiece of English prose in which the familiar Sufi trope of the moth and the flame is given a new and more beautiful meaning- should take heed. The activities of cadre based Islamist parties- even though they have had a technocratic image and recruited doctors and engineers- now militate against Human Capital formation in Science and Technology not least because of the ignorant and populist denunciation of Evolution. As a case in point, take the Indian Salafi preacher, Dr. Zakir Naik- a medical doctor who denounces Evolution as an unproven hypothesis. When he first emerged, many Indian Muslims welcomed him as an articulate and moderate voice who could inspire the youth. However, if the result of his preaching is that young people lose faith in Medical research and Epidemiology then the very basis of progress and advancement for millions of young Indian Muslims is destroyed.
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