Read old news. News 1-08-01 News 1-15-01 News 1-22-01 News 1-29-01 News 2-05-01 News 2-12-01 News 2-19-01 News 2-26-01 News 3-5-01	Gandhi in the Twentieth Century NEWS 3-12-01
	The take-home exam may be found on the left Navigation bar under III. Instructions for Assignments. Unless I receive a formal proposal as described on the instructions for the Final Project, I will assume that you are submitting an exam rather than a paper.
	Doing a rewrite? Please remember that a rewrite should address the issues in my comments in a global way, rather than being a cosmetic fix of the particular instances I pointed out. Originals must be submitted with the rewrite.

Take-home exam: The general idea:
Many of you have not taken the opportunities available in writing assignments, etc. to fully demonstrate your interaction with the readings and integration of class discussions. The exam will consist of broad questions about Gandhi's life, thought and legacy that will give you a final opportunity to do that.
Submission date extended: All papers, exams, rewrites, etc. can be submitted up to 1 PM on Thursday, March 22. However, anything submitted earlier will be gratefully accepted.

Policy on return of work: Because of the high volume of papers that need to be carefully read in a short period of time, I assign grades but do not write comments. Please do not submit envelopes for return of work. If you wish to see your paper with comments, contact me after the beginning of the next quarter and I will be glad to return your paper with comments. Thank you.

Plan for Monday's class: (many selections, but all relatively short)

A. Gandhi and non-violent Christian activism
ERes required Merton, Selection from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, (pp.102-105; note that this is not the entire ERes selection, just four pages of it) Notes and Questions
ERes Douglass, Selection from The Non-Violent Cross: A Theology of Revolution and Peace (Chapter Three, "From Gandhi to Christ") Notes and Questions
ERes required Dear, Introduction from Daniel Berrigan, Apostle of Peace; note that this is only the first selection in the ERes file; Sullivan and McSorley are recommended but not required. Notes and Questions
ERes required, Berrigan, letter to Ernesto Cardenal, "Guns Don't Work" Notes and Questions
Guest Speaker, Robert Ludwig, Director, University Ministry.

B. Gandhi and Psycho-biography: Peer Teaching by Hillary
ERes required Erikson, Selections from Gandhi's Truth Notes and Questions
ERes recommended (NOTE CHANGE) Bondurant et al, "Responses to Gandhi's Truth (Gandhi: A Psychoanalytic View)" Notes and Questions
ERes recommended, Berrigan, from Lights on in the House of the Dead Notes and Questions

As a coda to A., take a look at the following websites:
http://www.soulforce.org/    Notes and Questions
http://www.melwhite.org/
http://www.protest.net/activists_handbook/mwtips.html

Merton, Selection from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Note: Thomas Merton was probably one of the most famous American Catholics from the late 40's to the end of the century. His early renown came from an autobiography called The Seven Storey Mountain, in which he chronicled his cool, wild youth in New York, his conversion to Catholicism and becoming a Trappist monk. He wrote prolifically, becoming interested in issues of peace and justice, as well as inter-religious dialogue. He died in 1968 in Bangkok, while attending a conference.
Note: Obviously the Gandhi quote is referring to the ideal of detached action in the Bhagavad Gita. How well does Merton represent Gandhi's idea? How does placing the idea of detached action in a Christian context change the Gita's conception? ("Doing all things in the name of Christ" is probably not as much of a problem as you might think, since Merton is not practicing an "idolatry of the Name," but is emphasizing the displacement of agency and ego from the person on to God.)

Douglass, Selection from The Non-Violent Cross: A Theology of Revolution and Peace (Chapter Three, "From Gandhi to Christ")
Note: Jim Douglass' book, published at the height of the Vietnam War and in the year of Martin Luther King's death, was a landmark in radical Catholic Christian pacifism. This chapter systematically makes the case for a non-violent social action rooted in the Christian Gospel, and especially in the Roman Catholic teaching about the nature of Jesus Christ. This selection is obviously written by a Christian for Christians. For those with other faith commitments, or no faith commitments, Douglass' theology can be intellectually

For those who are not familiar with traditional Christian theology, I offer a few notes to help you get started. Christians believe that God is incarnate in Jesus, a Jewish teacher who lived, taught, healed and was put to death by the Romans who occupied Palestine some two thousand years ago. The idea that God takes human bodily form means for Christians that Jesus' life, death and work was the very life of God in human form. Christians also assert that after his death Jesus contained to live as the risen Christ. He therefore still inspires and teaches, showing his followers the path to God. The challenging part of this idea of the incarnation is the very paradoxical idea that Jesus was wholly human and wholly divine at the same time. Our limited understanding wants to make Jesus too god-like, someone not like us, and therefore to make Jesus separate from human affairs. This is what Douglass means when he says that Western Christianity denies its own truth. In place of the living Christ who, like the historical Jesus, continues to challenge hypocrisy and social injustice by bringing God into the midst of all things, we substitute the "normal" values of the society, like being nice, being responsible, being cheerful, hardworking, etc. None of this was what Jesus is about, but that doesn't matter to most Christians, because they think of Jesus as being a gift giver, a wonder-worker and a consoler. This substitution of "nice," middle class values for the challenge of the Gospel to break down barriers is what Douglass calls Milieu Catholicism, because it enthrones the dominant values of the society (the "milieu").
Q: What are some of the historical examples for Douglass of what happens when Milieu Catholicism becomes enthroned?
Q: Why does Douglass think that this happened in America in the mid-twentieth century?
Q: How does Douglass see Gandhi as the embodiment of a Christ-like way of being in the world?
Q: How can this way be translated into the life of a nation?
Q: How does "Milieu Christianity" work against a Jesus-like vocation?
Q: What does Douglass mean by "passing over to the subjective standpoint of Jesus"? What implications would this have for a life of political commitment?
Note: Webb Miller, whose report from the clubbing at the Dharasana Salt Works, a scene vividly depicted in the Attenborough film, was one of the several American reporters (including Gene Sharp and Lowell Thomas) whose involvement with Gandhi went into creating the composite figure of Vince Walker (Martin Sheen) in the film. By the way, Martin Sheen (born Ramon Estévez) was one of 22 people arrested for crossing over a line established by the Air Force in an anti-militarization protest at California's Vandenberg Air Force base. He was charged with trespassing. Mr. Sheen is a strong advocate for the closing of The School Of The Americas, a military base which trains Latin American soldiers. Has been involved in a large protest every year since 1998. He has also been involved in anti-nuclear protests with the Berrigans.
Q: As Douglass shows, Gandhi continually quoted Christ and looked to his example as a model for taking on suffering for the good of the community. As we have seen before, Gandhi is also thought of revitalizing (though perhaps altering) traditional Hinduism. Finally, he is also seen as using traditional Hinduism to critique European civilization, which is usually thought of as Christian. How should we put all these ideas together in thinking about Gandhi's "religion"?

Dear, Introduction from Daniel Berrigan, Apostle of Peace
Note: Dan Berrigan, a Jesuit priest, is an anti-war activist and a poet. He is regarded as the most eloquent and uncompromising embodiment of radical commitment to the peacemaking that some see as the heart of the Christian Gospel. He has spent a great deal of time in jail for trespassing on government property to dismantle what he sees as an imperial war machine capable of mass destruction of innocent lives. Besides destruction of draft records during the Vietnam War he has participated in "Plowshares" actions, in which the nosecones of nuclear missiles are defaced and poured with blood (or substances that look like blood). The name of these actions comes from the famous passage from the 2nd chapter of the Book of Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible: "[God] shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Though the dramatic belligerence of the Cold War has died down, many see the threat of nuclear destruction as being worse than ever since many regional conflicts involve countries with nuclear weapons. Daniel Berrigan has taught several times at DePaul.

Fr. John Dear's essay is an introduction to a book of appreciations of the life and mission of Daniel Berrigan on the occasion of his 75th birthday a few years back.
Q: As you read Dear's essay what points of contact do you see with the ways Gandhi lived, worked and conceived his mission? Think about: the sources of inspiration, the relationship to political power, the nature of community, the attitudes toward the effectiveness of action, the interrelation between political commitment and life as a whole, the choices of action and the consequences of action.
Q: In Dear's essay, the notion of "resistance" comes up. What is meant by "resistance" and can you describe the parallels in Gandhi's thought and life?

Berrigan, letter to Ernesto Cardenal, "Guns Don't Work"
Note: The context of this letter is the struggle in Nicaragua which was at its height during the late 70's and Reagan presidency of the 1980's. This letter was written in 1978, a year before the leftist insurgents known as the Sandinistas overthrew the 43-year dictatorship of Somoza, which had previously been supported by the United States. But during the Reagan era the U.S. decided to support rightist guerrillas (called by Reagan "freedom fighters") because of the populist/socialist bent of the Sandinista government.

This is a response to a letter written by Cardenal to Berrigan. Like Berrigan, Cardenal was a priest activist and poet; who had been declared an outlaw by Somoza. Berrigan is here responding to a letter in which Cardenal declares his support for the armed struggle of the Sandinistas. From Berrigan's response you can see some of the arguments by which Cardenal tried to justify his position.
Q: What are the arguments that Berrigan makes? In other words, why does he say that "guns don't work"?

Erikson, Selections from Gandhi's Truth. Hillary will be peer teaching.
Note: Erik Erikson is a psychologist with a generally Freudian orientation in that he sees infant and child experiences as factors that shape later life. Like Freud, he focuses on stages of childhood development in which the child (and here he is speaking of the male child) works through stages in which he competes for the mother's attention with the powerful male figure of the father (the Oedipal conflict). But Erikson's achievement was to extend the development process into adult life and to think more comprehensively about the individual's interaction with society. He divides this life-long process into eight stages. Whereas Freud focuses on the childhood resolution of the Oedipal crisis as the key moment in the development of the person, Erikson identifies the "identity crisis" of adolescence--the teenager asking "Who am I?" as equally important. (The term "identity crisis" has become part of our language.) In general, in place of what some see as Freud's grim determinism, Erikson tends to appreciate, even marvel at the creativity with which people transform pleasant and difficult childhoods into adult ideas and life projects. Erikson applied his theories by inventing a new type of writing, combining psychology, history and biography. After his groundbreak Childhood and Society in the 50's, Erikson inaugurated this genre, known as "psychohistory," with Young Man Luther (1964), in which the early life of the leader of the Protestant Reformation is shown to find expression in the challenge to the Roman Catholic Church. This was followed by Gandhi's Truth: on the origins of militant nonviolence (1969). In some ways, the term "Truth" in the title probably should have been put in quotes, since it refers to the "satya" of satyagraha. [Those who are less impressed with Erikson's approach call it "psychobiography" rather than "psychohistory."] For a clear, basic introduction to Erikson, check out http://snycorva.cortland.edu/~ANDERSMD/ERIK/.

For a hint of Erikson's approach, look at the end of the Introduction before "Childhood and Youth." The context is Erikson's explanation of why Gandhi's autobiography is not a reliable source for information about the quality of his childhood, for reasons we discussed in class.
Q: What is Erikson saying about Gandhi's relationship with the Viceroy?

Notes: Our main purpose in looking at Gandhi's Truth is more to think about psychobiography as an approach to study the life and ideas of a great person than to learn more gossipy details about Gandhi.
Pyarelal is an associate of Gandhi. Moniya was a childhood nickname of Gandhi. As he got a little older he was called Mohan, and Erikson often speaks of Moniya, Mohan and the Mahatma as the different personas. Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher who lived in the first half of the nineteenth century. He was somewhat of a theologian but broadly known as the "father of existentialism." He is of interest to Erikson for several reasons: As a student and author of "confessional autobiography" (such as the famous Confessions of St. Augustine--this is why Erikson refers on p. 121 to "Augustinianisms"), Kierkegaard wrote, like Erikson, about conflicts with fathers and "management" of sexuality as productive of adult development. More on Kierkegaard: http://home.pacbell.net/newcov/sk/intro.htm

Q: What does Erikson think Gandhi learned from his living situation as a child?
Q: What aspects of the portrait Erikson paints of the child Moniya seem familiar to you? What aspects are new, or different from what you have previously read?
Q: As you read Erikson's account of the child's relationship with his mother and father, notice how Erikson draws connections between these relationships and the adult Gandhi's ideas and practices. Which of these seem reasonable to you? Which seem far-fetched or wrong, and why? Could you offer other explanations for the adult Gandhi's ideas and actions?
Q: How does Erikson explain Gandhi's portrait of himself as scrupulously (and obnoxiously) honest in school?
Q: Important: What is Erikson's thesis about the relationship between the suppression of his adolescent sexuality (and adult sexuality) and his public style
PP. 128-133: This is the most important and famous passage in Erik's book. As you read this section, remember Erikson's previous discussion that Gandhi's confession to his father was actually intended to purify his father rather than Gandhi himself. See especially the middle paragraph on p. 129 and the questions on the bottom of 129.
And see especially the paragraph that begins on the bottom of p. 131 and ends on the top of p. 132. Those of who have studied biology will recognize a version of the ontogeny - phylogeny argument. This is the thesis that the development of the individual organism recaps the evolutionary history of the species. Erikson is saying that this is true in psychological development as well. In this case, Gandhi's need not just to resolve the issue of competition with his father as a child (the Oedipal complex) but to surpass his father in goodness and creativity (what Erikson calls the "Generational Complex") is shared, according to Erikson, by all men: All men either want to achieve this or to vicariously achieve it through admiration of those who do. Unlike the Oedipal theory, which is primarily applicable to the development of boys, the Generational theory can be applied to the development of great women, as shown by Erikson's reference to Eleanor Roosevelt.
Q: Evaluate Erikson's theory as an explanation for Gandhi's ideals--and for the adult development of great men and women.
Note: Though the next section is not included, it is also controversial. You may recall the Rudolphs go into much greater detail on the young Gandhi's "bad company" Muslim friend than does his own Autobiography. Erikson takes the daring position that Gandhi's intense guilt and worry about his escapades with Sheikh Mehtab were not really about the smoking, the petty thievery, the meat-eating or even the trips to prostitutes.
General Question: What are the differences you notice between Gandhi's view of his childhood, the Rudolphs' and Erikson's? What do you think accounts for these differences?

Bondurant et al, "Responses to Gandhi's Truth (Gandhi: A Psychoanalytic View)"
Notes: I have made this recommended, but I do want you to notice that these responses from noted Gandhi scholars show that Erikson's work was received as an appreciation rather than a debunking of Gandhi's life and thought. These two pieces will be of interest to those writing about the development of Gandhi's character.

Berrigan, from Lights on in the House of the Dead (recommended)
Notes: Berrigan's interesting comments on Gandhi's discipline of celibacy and its relationship to violence, and nonviolence.

Websites: Mel White and Soul Force
Note: To those who are active in this issue, there are forceful parallels between the issue of the church's view of gay and lesbian people and that of slavery and civil rights for people of African descent. During the slave era, it was very common for religious authorities to use Biblical quotations to justify slavery. Even after emancipation, conservative Christian leaders quoted the Bible to assert that people of color should be separated from whites, and that people of color were "inferior." Mel White, as the web sites show, is a veteran of the white evangelical conservative Christian world, but after years of living a double life, felt he could no longer tolerate the discrimination and prejudice promoted by the church that celebrated Jesus Christ, the same Jesus Christ who invites all into the Kingdom of God. He named the movement he started "Soul Force" after Gandhi's satyagraha, and White sees himself in the lineage of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
Q: Evaluate the material on these web sites. Beyond the brief description above, what similarities and differences do you see on the web sites with the work, even the writings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King? What similarities and differences do you see with the situation of sexual minorities in Christian churches (or even in American society) compared with the marginalized groups we looked at in India and the American South?
Q: What would have been gained or lost if instead of looking at Mel White and Soul Force, we had looked at the Solidarity movement in Poland or the People Power revolution in the Philippines, both of which effected tremendous political change through nonviolent action?