--- "Rajan P. Parrikar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >What falls out of all this is the factoid that Dr. >Helekar knows virtually nothing about culture, Goan >or otherwise. >
Actually, with the above assertion Dr. Parrikar has refuted his own argument. How can he conclude that I know virtually nothing about culture, Goan or otherwise without personally interrogating me? Not being able to defend his original claim, or demonstrate consistency in applying his apocryphal criterion to me or himself (his claim that he is an expert in some elements of Goan music without submitting a report of an independent interrogation), he is now moving the goal post - expanding his definition of knowledge about culture to include anubhav or the personal experience of having lived in that culture, and having immersed in it. In other words, he is trying to claim that a scholar who has spent 40 years of his life acquiring objective comprehensive knowledge of a culture, and its long history, cannot know more than a 40 year-old native who practices some present day non-Western, non-Christian elements of that culture. Cheers, Santosh > > For much of the vital, living facets of culture > cannot be > encapsulated or frozen within the pages of journal > papers or books. Cultural traditions are in a sense > > living entities, and knowledge of culture is best > acquired > through immersion in the milieu, through what we > call > "anubhava" (that splendid Sanskrit term). This is > particularly > crucial in the context of Indian traditions, many of > which > are nuncupative. Music, dance, sculpture, craftwork > - the > ropes have traditionally come down orally, not > through > reams of written paper. >
