The Internet has provided (mostly afflue …
The Internet has provided (mostly affluent) people with many benefits, to be sure, but the perpetuation of Guardianesque punditry which pits style over content is one of its gargantuan downsides. I partly blame those professional academics who have yet to understand this age demands complex issues be made more accessible, particularly via the Net. Anyway, a prime example of Google research posing as expertise is the latest bundle of essentialist daftness from Sunny Hundal on the controversal subject (he knows how to pick ‘em controversal, does our Sunny) of religious violence. An attempt to instigate “healthy debate”, he claims. If The Guardian offered a comparable platform to critique Einstein’s theory of relativity, I’d believe him. Talking about a specific community is one thing, but if you want to scribble about “religion”, start here.
plimfix, and 1 other are discussing.
thabet 2:17 pm on February 21, 2009 Permalink
I think you’re being a little unfair. It’s just a blog post, not a methodologically robust study which has been subjected to peer review.
I have found a lot of sound academic work on t’internet (I am doing a MSc in geo information); but a lot of it is behind paywalls which I only have access through my Athens account. Might be different for others, of course.
plimfix 2:28 pm on February 21, 2009 Permalink
I’m not being unfair at all. SH’s piece essentialises religions leading to grossly misleading statements, e.g. Buddhism eschewing violence doesn’t mean Buddhists do. That’s the kind of error I’d expect in a GCSE Religious Studies class, but it’s sadly a common enough one and perpetuating it does nothing for intelligent debate – quite the opposite. Research using the Net is fine, but not if you are planning to write about something about which you know zip.
thabet 2:33 pm on February 21, 2009 Permalink
Yes, but you’re somone with an academic background in religious studies, i.e. you have training in spotting these problems.
I’d say the post has given you an opportunity in talking about the pitfalls of blogging in such certain/essentliast terms about subjects one may know little about. That’s the start of a debate.
plimfix 3:38 pm on February 21, 2009 Permalink
I’m not convinced debates take place against such pieces on CiF – the main piece dominates, with mostly a handful of contrarians bouncing off one another in the comments section. No one would dare blog something about politics at such a dire level, but simply stepping offline for an hour would have provided something erudite (and readable) to remedy some of the many prevailing misassumptions made in this piece, e.g. Bruce Lincoln’s essay on Conflict in Mark C. Taylor’s “Critical Terms in Religious Studies”. And in my experience, you only have to email half-a-dozen academics to come up with sources like this – especially if you are a known entity. By the way, Sunny is far from being the only guilty party on this issue, as one RS prof on CiF pointed out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jul/21/comment.religion1
Sunny 8:12 pm on February 21, 2009 Permalink
Buddhism eschewing violence doesn’t mean Buddhists do
And who said they did? I could spend half the day creating and knocking down strawmen from stuff you write too. But 675 words doesn’t give me enough space to write disclaimers against every sentence.
Let me know when you’ve actually found something factually wrong. Until then this lame stone throwing doesn’t bother me.
aziz 12:42 am on February 22, 2009 Permalink
plimfix, I dont agree at all. I think that divorcing religion and violence, as Sunny has done, is incredibly useful.