Session 2 – Manohar – 20th Jan 2021

What is literature? How do we define it? So, those of you who are interested in knowing the history of
some of these terms, should look at a book by Raymond Williams called keywords. What he has
done is just like in dictionary, if you look for the meaning of a word, it just gives you a few words a
few phrases, few sentences and explains that, what Raymond Williams has done is he has chosen
some of the important key words in the history of human civilization and has done research on those
key terms and given us the history of those terms, for example, literature, how was the term literature
used in 14th century and 15th century or 18th century and how is it used now. So, he sort of
documented the changes or the shifts that took place in defining these terms. So, if you look up
literature or even law, you will find such kinds of explanations.
So, if you read him, then you will know that literature, the term literature, until 18th century, was not
used in this specialized form, that we use today. Like only if poetry or or novels or epics was not the
kind of stuff that was categorized as literature, it was much more broader, it was much more inclusive.
And also, most of the time, it was used to mean literate it means as equivalent to literacy. So, anything
that was written was called literature. So therefore, today, people use writing as equivalent to what
people do if they don't like the word literature in the specialized meaning, then they would want if
they want something to be more inclusive, then they would use the word writing. For example, you
have two volumes of writing in your library here at Mouser called Women writing
So, what is the problem?, why shouldn't we have literature as an especially? one problem is literature,
as it is defined today, is a specialized discipline or a domain and is accessible to only privileged
communities are privileged people in our society, not everyone is able to, for example, write novels
and publish. But there are blogs today or there are little journals, or informal diaries, just written and
sometimes may not even be published. So, people who are not privileged, have always found other
places to express their views. And if you think and believe that literature is just a mode of expression,
in whatever way in the poetic form or the prose style, whatever you use, but if you think it's a mode of
expression, then why to privilege one mode of expression is the question or other modes of
expression. So, to be privilege, or to make something more inclusive, you have all kinds of other
mediums which are brought together and why only writing when we ask even that could be restricted
restricting our reach.
So, therefore, in our course, we have made it a little more inclusive, we would say as inclusive as
possible. So, you have articles that we are going to read, of course, some quote unquote, literary texts,
but we also included films, because films are also a mode of expression. So, we if we want to
understand something, it could be anything, it could be nationalism, it could be caste or it could be
religion, or it could be gender, anything that we want to understand, we need to look for material or
sources from any medium, whether it is visual medium, print medium, or even a particular, for
example, if you are working on gender, you could look at the Constitution.
How is history written? Is it really inclusive? How much space does it give to some people, what is
told to us about some people, what is not told what is hidden or from what point of view whose point
of view the history is being told. So, there is no limit to the text that you can look at
The point is specialization is a problem. It's a privilege domain. And therefore, it may have some its
own some of the merits, but increasingly, people are finding it problematic. So interdisciplinarity is
something that is prevalent today, that most critical thinkers and scholars are emphasizing that
interdisciplinarity not defined, we should not restrict ourselves to particular one discipline. But draw
from various other sources, like for interdisciplinarity is very much required. And interdisciplinarity
doesn't mean that you bring history, sociology, literature law together, that will not automatically
become interdisciplinary.
It's like, you know, if people belong into five different castes come together and have a meeting. That
doesn't break the caste barriers. You can only call it multicaste meeting. But if you really want to
Break the castt barriers you need, what you need to do is you need to transgress or violate or break the
protocols imposed by those disciplines. every discipline has its own protocols. For example, if you
apply for a PhD in the literature department, on a particular topic, you will have to face the interview
committee, they will ask you why you have chosen this topic, etc. and in your proposal, you may have
to give a list of readings, for example, you want to work on some topic, and then let's say you include
in your bibliography, or list of readings, a text by some political theorist or a legal theorist. Now, in
the literature committee, the experts will tell you, this is not literature. So, go to political science
department, if you want to read all this stuff, you basically are expected to read literary texts on this
topic. So, you have such problems. But there are also places where people are much more open. So, in
one university, you may be rejected for doing but good research, but there may be some other place
where you may be welcome.
So, challenging the protocols is important, rather than bringing them together. So, in law and
literature, both law has its own boundaries, its own protocols, and literature has its own boundaries
and protocols. So, if you want to make it interdisciplinary, then you need to break both the barriers.
What is good literature? What is bad literature, who decides? And the idea of context also came into a
discussion that we should look at the context in which something is written and not judge it from play,
and get it from its own time and context?
First question, Who decides, now, it's okay to say, I feel this is good literature, or not good literature,
etc. But that's not how it always functions. Because everywhere in the world, there are institutions,
which guard the boundaries of literature, which protect the privileged boundaries of literature.
Now, there are many blogs, unlike in the past, everyone had to depend on publisher, and publishers
always relied on experts in the field. So therefore, they could control the domain of literature much
more powerfully in the past, whereas today, people could publish or write or express their views
openly in the digital media. However, it is also obvious that the publishers and the experts are finding
their own ways of continuing their authority, not that they're just vanished. We all know that if a
particular novel is awarded a literary prize, the next day, the sales on Amazon go 100 times more. So
still they do have the experts who have a say in deciding what is good literature or what is bad,
although they are not in full control of it. So that's something to remember now about the context.
Now Shakespeare, the literary critics claimed, was the best of all literary writers. Because he was a
universal writer. What does it mean?
Although hear his characters in his dramas where people from whether they're kings or clowns or
common people are the Queens or women's characters. Literary critics tell us that they represented
universal human values, that Shakespeare did not write about England, but he wrote about humanity
in general. And therefore, the critics claim that Shakespeare appealed or has an appeal to people
beyond regions beyond races, beyond nations and beyond cultures. So, according to them,
contextualizing Shakespeare is undesirable. Because if you contextualize then you will say this is
about 16th century England, these dramas about 16th century England, but the literary critics claimed
that Shakespeare plays have no time. So, they are they are beyond time and space. So, how does one
deal with that? Now, challenging, therefore, Shakespeare became an issue. One way to do it was
contextualized and of course, so, so people who are opposed to the dominant ways of looking at
Shakespeare said, No, no, they are not right.
we must remember that in time, society is a very vague term. India for example, if you take India as a,
as a singular term, it's still vague what is India? Can anyone define in one way it's very difficult. So
therefore, India or any other country or any other society Even if you take as a term as a category does
not change in the linear order, like the history tells us that India was like this in the past or Britain was
like this in the past in the 16th century, then things changed and changed and unchanged. And here we
are today in this way, that is how history tells us, but that is not how the reality is always even in the
time when Ramayana was written, there were always alternative ways of thinking. Now, if you, if you
look at other texts available at that time, you would probably know that whatever Ramayana stood
for, was perhaps challenged in its own time. So, you could take contemporary examples, you may
look at the film today, and it's not like today's films reflect the reality of today. But if you think that a
film is something, it's a point of view about what is happening, you know, in our times, then you
always have different points of view in our own time. So, later on after 100 years, if somebody's
looking at filming today, besides that, this was the reality in 21st century then they would be wrong
because there are many other alternative use in today's time itself.

So, there is no singular context for any work or for even any law. There are always multiple contexts
and each time a particular text or a film is viewed or a particular text is read, it is produced a fresh it
says a new text is produced.
So for example, in 1987 first time Ravana was serialized on television in India on doordarshan which
is serialized again during lockdown period and it is claimed that it is the only serial in the world which
is viewed by millions of people I mean no other TV serial was viewed in the world by so many people
When it was serialized. It is not. Of course it was claimed that it was based on Valmiki ramen and
tulsidas Ram charit Manas. But a TV serial is made of contemporary characters. So Ram did not
appear in the TV serial the way Valmiki imagined Ram. So the contemporary settings, the people, the
music, everything is contemporary that we must remember so it's not though original Ramayan that is
recreated, but a more contemporary 21st 20th century Ramayana that was created however, loyal and
true, they might be to the original context, or original Ramayana as a text, visualization itself makes it
different from the printed text, apart from many other things, so one could give a list of things to say
that this is a new creation despite the overall story.
Second, the context in which this was serialized, just after just five years after this serial was
broadcast, Babri Masjid was demolished. So there many critics today attribute the rise of hindutva
politics and the demolition of Babri Masjid to the broadcasting of this Ramayan serial on
doordarshan. So, apart from various other factors, we are not saying that is the only factor. But this
the serialization of Ramayana made its own contribution to the demolition and the rise of Hindutva
politics.
So, therefore, we must be careful when we say, you know, we must judge something in its own
context, because there are multiple contexts and therefore what we should think about are these
multiple contexts and not think that retrieving or recalling the true context in which while Valmiki’s
Ramayan was written is possible, that seems an impossible task.
Now coming to the history of the discipline itself, law, law and literature, it has become a discipline
by itself now, over a period of 78 years, mostly in the US, has been taught with more seriousness. So
one of the claims is the law students should read literature, because literature has something to teach
them, or literature can make law students understand the society better, and therefore also the law
better. Well, this is an assumption. And the assumption also comes from and this has been challenged
by lawyers, some lawyers, many lawyers seem to have accepted that claim, that literature is somehow
superior, and it has the capacity to understand society better. And therefore, lawyers could benefit
from reading literature. Some lawyers have questioned and said that, you know, this puts us in a
hierarchy, that literature sitting on a high pedestal, looking down upon the law, and saying that we
have something to offer you, and you must learn from us. So I think that is a fair kind of criticism.
Literature by itself, is not superior to any other discipline, or probably doesn't have insights by itself
as a whole is to offer insights to lawyers, because the lawyers are also critical thinkers, they're not
foolish people.
So they can very well decide what is good or bad for them and why to rely on literature. But, like,
some lawyers are critical thinkers and some lawyers may not be critical thinkers. So in literature also
you have kind of similarity you may have good literary text, which may not really which may help
you in understanding the society. But there may be other literary texts which reinforce the dominant
notions of our society on any matter, so it depends on you finally, what literature you want to rely on
to get some insights. And therefore, it's not just the literature could take any source or any writing,
Michel Foucault has introduced a new term called discourse that what we need to think of is a
particular discourse not a particular discipline. Now, what does he mean by discourse, if you want to
understand the caste discourse or a particular religious discourse or a liberal discourse, it could be any
discourse, you could rely on a variety of sources which deal with that issue. Now let's say, you are
working on nationalism, then you could look at a film, an essay, a novel or a particular law,
constitution, etc, to get a very comprehensive view of it and the history textbook or a sociological
research project report from various sources.
So, especially marginalized literature coming from marginalized communities seem to record their
own experiences on a particular issue, which go against the common sensical notion or the dominant
notions, which are prevalent in our society.

Challenging the experiences of the author.

The authors are not like mirrors, they do not reflect something.
Literature is deeply ideological and political.

Session 3 – Raymond Williams - Manohar – 22nd Jan 2021

Literature is deeply ideological, and political.

Opinion - It would mean that there are author's own biases that would be involved whenever he
writes, it may be his favouritism for one particular topic, or whatever ideology he has grown up with,
or a favourite someone. Like if you see that john Stuart Mill back when he wrote things, he had that
inclination of eastern India Company and the way the previous anthropologists analyzed and gave
writing, so they had that colonial setting in their mind. And that's what these writings to reflect
somewhere or the other day will be ideological biases. Even in case of Ramayana, we see we have
different versions, we have North India or even south, if we have different versions, in Sri Lanka,
there would be a different version of Ramayana and all.
Is neutral perspective, absolutely impossible?
It can be possible, so but again, like, somewhere or the other, implicitly we will have that biasness,
and not even the author himself would realize that this is an ideological bias I am having, and it will
just seem implicit to him, and he would feel it normal.
So why, why is it bias? Why can't it be an ideological position?
bias means basically, inclinations are like, if anything, it can be a position like justice Bobde, he said
yesterday only or day before that, if someone has one particular view regarding the farm laws, that
does not mean he is bias. So if we take that position, that can be a perspective.
Opinion - So with regards to the neutral thing, I don't think a neutral position exists to a certain what
is neutral. And what is objective is through a scientific way, I believe, or literature inherently is a
reflection of the author's experiences, as was said in the last class as well. And that's why I think it's at
it's called a bias. Because like the author's experiences, the author's political positions, the author's
ideology will inherently be reflected in the literature. So either they glorify that position, or either they
oppose a certain political idea. I think all literature inherently will have those characteristics. And
that's why it's called bias.
They claim the end subjects, including humanities, not only social sciences, and humanities are not
claimed it is. humanities sciences or something like that. But all of them have certain claims that they
can be objective. So, whether they are objective or not, is something that we should discuss. But there
is a there are these huge claims made by literature, particularly modern writers like novelists, etc,
that yesterday we were discussing it, that's a reflection of the society. And the author simply observes
the reality outside and then recall record set, just like a historian records or lab technician records
the facts. So those are the claims made. And of course, similar claims are being made about law so
that law can be objective judiciary can be objective. And we are not talking about people who are
corrupt, or people who have very obvious political inclinations towards the right or left, etc. But even
those who don't have any such right or left or center inclinations, and do not have any affiliations to
any political party. When they claim neutral, the question is whether they are three, which I think has
been challenged by many people. And what is the what what does it mean, when you say ideological,
and political? The question still has not been answered. Whatever explanations are being given so far
by all of you, it doesn't fully explain what ideological and political mean. It's not just ideological
doesn't mean just taking one kind of a position that literature functions in everyday life and how does
that function is something that has been explained in terms of ideology or the politics of literature, the
ideology of literature, that will help people have defined it or used it? So, what do they mean by it?
vishesh?

Opinion - So, this is with reference to the point that you brought forward that Why do we call it
social sciences if it is inherently subjective, and ideological. Sir, my belief is that science is basically
it's a systematically broken down process of experimentation and observation, through which we
understand things but while studying humans we are studying something that is inherently subjective,
something that does not show a similar pattern or behaviour over time, like when we study nature, but
the process to study it remains similar and the process through which we observe is itself coloured
with certain ideological lens that somehow tells our viewpoints to certain predictions, which can be
ideologies.
See, one thing is science itself is ideological, that is what has been now claimed by various
philosophers and scholars. So, there is nothing like objective or subjective. When you say subjective,
it also implies that you accept that there is something called objective these are like good and bad,
these are binaries right.
Sir, subjective is something which can change depending on person to person, not common
throughout.
My subjectivity is mine. And I think someone else's subjectivity varies and everybody has a viewpoint
and I think that is where subjectivity lies.
So often certain opinions are dismissed by saying that this is your subjective opinion and not objective
enough. So subjective therefore has a negative opinion, whereas objective has a much more dominant
and positive meaning. But what does subjective mean? Like when you say it's mine? Then the
question is, who are you? How o we understand that question? So, if I say it's me, and it's my opinion,
am I an autonomous subject? Am I an autonomous human being? What do I What do we mean by
autonomous human being? That can I Or my consciousness or my thinking Is it political? Is it not
ideological? Or is it not conditioned by my upbringing or education or my gender? If we accept that,
yes, our thinking is conditioned by all these factors, gender, caste, religion, education, family,
upbringing, books you read, then, then what is mine? Because my ideas seem to be external to me that
if I have a belief about India today, it's not because it originated from my mind. It came to me through
media, through history textbooks, through my teachers, etc. So then my idea seems to be dependent
on something that is external to me, then is it subjective?
Sir in that paradigm, I feel that even I don't think that it's that one idea from oneself is not completely
possible. But what we make an idea is something that we collect from our surroundings, something
that we combine and analyze and break down in our head, and perhaps mix it up in a way that looks a
little different compared to others. So it to that level, I believe, personal autonomy is possible. But
there are certain foundational values.
Opinion - We do collect impressions from outside ideas from outside. But somehow, the thing is, we
use we only rely on those ideas and promises that we already have in our mind, somehow merge it
one way or the other, combine it one way or the other. And then only we come to the conclusion,
because we have certain foundational lens through which we judge whether something is true or not.
But that foundation lens is something that can evolve something that can change over time. But, but
we do, but whatever we decide somehow or the other way are, are an output of what we have already
known from our surroundings.
So therefore, your own conclusions depend on your own surroundings, what you already know. And
what you already know is external to you. So therefore, your conclusions also are dependent on
something that is external. It could be social, political, ideological. See, therefore, you know, the idea
of objectivity comes from the assumption that humans can be autonomous, or our thinking can be
autonomous. And it should, it need not be our thinking or our conclusions, or our positions on a
particular issue, need not be determined by our social surroundings, comes from the idea that humans
are capable of going beyond these sorts of circumstances. Now, it is not absolute. In the majority of
the cases, if you order research that is available to rely on the majority of the cases, our thinking is
conditioned by, you know, the list of things that I said family education, except in very few cases,
people, it's not that they transcend all this, but there could be self reflexive or they could be critical.
Now, that critical thinking is somewhere that we also know, we studied this in law and language that
human beings have this capacity to reflect or critically think. But it's not always possible or available
to everybody. Also because the medium, the visual media, that print media, except that they are so
powerful, that our ideas are often conditioned by various discourses, ideologies that are in circulation.
Now, if somebody is loyal to one sovereign country, it's not because he or she is autonomously
deciding to do it. That is how we have been trained to believe that you belong to this country, you
must be loyal then what does patriotism mean? What does nationalism mean? What does anti national
mean? All these ideas are coming from elsewhere not they're not originating from our own mind.
So, therefore, many people today believe that it is not productive to think in terms of these categories
called subjective and objective. So, what is the productive category, the thing is, all positions are
political and ideological, whether it is law or literature, or any other discourse, whether it is a history
book, or a social science book, or a personal opinion, all can be placed somewhere, you express an
opinion about gender, you can analyze it and say this is either a patriarchal view or something that
challenges patriarchy, a feminist view or some other. So there are various ideologies in circulation,
either leftist or socialist, or rightist or liberal. So somewhere or the other, our writer seem to align
with one of these existing, dominant existing ideological positions. Now, you may have a slight
variation here and there, or if you don't want to align with any of these, you should be able to
probably create a new ideological position, which is also possible, it's not impossible, but even that is
yet another ideological or political position. So therefore, what people say today, you must totally
think politically what is viable, what is not viable, what is feasible, what is democratic, what is
egalitarian, what is authoritative. So, you must choose one of these positions whichever one you think
you would like to.
So, therefore that is why you know, we had another question like why law students should study
literature, we should study literature not because literature is sitting on a high pedestal of moral
ground, and therefore, it is able to teach law students something, but how literature itself functions
sometimes as law or sometimes literature functions as a substitute to law or there are also many things
in common to literary texts, and legal texts. And in the recent critical theory, it did not obviously
come from the domain of literature, but it came from many other sources, anthropology, political
science, philosophy, etc. A lot of theories about how to read a text, what is interpretation? What is a
framework? What is a point of view? And what is ideology? How does power work? There are plenty
of theories that have emerged from literature and social sciences, humanities also particularly. So,
these theories could throw some new light in the way we understand how judiciary functions, or how
we understand the legal text, or how do we understand the notion of an author when a judge likes
something? How do we attribute his or her own intention when we read illegal texts.
Now, to understand law and literature, and particularly how literature works, and its connection to the
law, we must understand how people understand power. Now, any quick responses, when people say
power, what do they mean by it? Or what do you think is power? Or how power operates?

When people think of power, especially, for example, the Marxist Now, a lot of theories about power.
Even the liberal thinkers have certain notions of power which they have explained. State power is
seen as the power, which has a kind of a role to play in almost every citizen’s life. In a sense, there is
no citizen of any nation who is untouched by the power of the state. That is one way of thinking.
Now, how does the State use power?
It can be by various laws, it can be by coercion, it can be other things as well.
So police, army, judiciary, these are the very obvious institutions through which state operates its
power for the citizens. Now citizens or people who violate law, etc.
So was this writer called Althusser, In his essay called the ideological state apparatus.
Hello, hello. Yeah. Can I speak?
Yes, please.
So I believe he said that they stayed in society as it exists, reinforces capitalism, for example, he gave
the innocence of a school in which lead teachers regularly instruct you to be disciplined or subdued,
and they train you for the future life in which you will be dictated on the terms of the factory owners,
I believe.
So what was the concept of power prior to also Sir,
I think it was grungy is edgy money. And I think he built on that. But um, you
know, what is the Marxist notion of power?
Marx's basically thought of society as a structure, but this structure, they're divided into two parts;
class-based structure, and superstructure. They put economy, in the base structure, all other things in
the superstructure, what are the all other things, culture, literature, arts, all that is put in superstructure.
Now Marxists were interested in transforming the existing condition of the society. So, before they
tried to transform the society, they had to decide what to transform and how to transform? Now, if
you transform culture, art literature, will it make a big difference in the life of people? Or if you make
a contribution, or if you intervene in the domain of economy? Will it make a big difference? Now, the
Marxists believed, I'm not saying that was right, they believed that the intervention should be in the
economy. So, for example, they believe therefore, there is something called class in the society, upper
class, lower class, poor and rich; and economy, if you change the economy, then everything else will
automatically change. So, if you want to bring in revolution, for example, you have to demolish, let's
say capitalism, and establish proletarian dictatorship, what they call, or the rule of the poor, if you
want, don't want to use dictatorship. So, that is one way of thinking. So, economy had a lot of power,
money had or property, wealth, all these are seen as something that give you power. Now, in order to
protect the power of particular classes, these classes used state that is police, army, etc. to repress
people. The power was in the past, generally seen as the repressive, that one class tried to control or
suppress another class, by using the state machinery like police and army, or prisons. Now, what
Althusser has done is that, he says, This is not enough to explain how power operates in our day to
day life. He says, power is not always repressive, but it can also function through what Marxist
thought as superstructure. Now, the base structure, superstructure metaphor, is useful for them to
think about. Now, if you like in a building, what is more important in a building? Is it what is
constructed above or below. So the Marxist believed that the foundation is the most important thing,
the superstructure depends on the foundation, but not the opposite. The foundation doesn't for its own
existence, doesn't depend on the walls above the ground. So therefore, what Marx's did was, they
completely ignored anything that is called culture, or literature, or arts, or anything that is called
social. So they only focused on if they are to fight against power, for example, they thought you have
to fight against the economic power, or whichever class or money and you have to fight against the
state power. So police or army, etc. and they completely ignored the others. So what althusser did,
was that even if you do all that then it is not sufficient because power exist in many other ways, like
family, or other Ideological State Apparatuses. There are many other repressive institutions as per
Althusser, like family, education, religion, literature, etc. All these can function as Ideological
Apparatuses but not necessarily repressive. So power can not always be repressive, it can be benign,
subtle, pervasive., it may not be seen, etc.
Foucault describe it as caterpillar, before becoming butterfly.
Family has its own unwritten rules, who should cook, who has power to decide, etc.
For example, education shapes our own thinking. So this how literature becomes one of the
Ideological State Apparatuses.
READ RAYMOND WILLIAMS

Session 4 – Raymond Williams - Manohar – 22nd Jan 2021

So, what is Williams trying to tell us?
See, there's two things here, one is that he is telling us a story about how Arnold Matthew responded
to Hyde Park event. Second, what is Raymond Williams’ critique of that?
Yeah. So he's essentially critiquing Arnold Matthew description of culture as an antithetical to
anarchy. So culture at the time, not far not described as education as discipline as a certain amount of
sophistication in certain people. And he described that the protesters, the anarchist, so to speak, are
basically against, are uneducated or indiscipline, they are basically ruining the existing philosophy.
They are not not ruining, disturbing existing state of society, which consists of educated disciplined
people, and he is against that's what he's against anarchist.
so but don't you think that what Arnold said about breaking things and creating ruckus and damaging
property? All that shouldn't be allowed?
No, no. So he says it shouldn't be allowed. That no matter what the event is, even they also talk about
when Matthew Arnold was asked that even if the protests are against something like the slave trade,
he said that not even in that situation, you shouldn't be allowed to create such chaos, but apparently
later it was removed. Part of retracted that part.
So therefore, wasn't Arnold Matthew right in criticizing, although islands that the writers created and
isn’t Raymond Williams wrong.
So where is the saying that the today's Arnold Matthew are willing to change? Is there any other any
lines your mark, you want to read out?
Yes, it's on the last page is the absolute last. The last paragraph of the last page. The second line, it
says it matters also whether in the inevitable tensions of new kinds of argument and new kinds of
claims, the defenders of reason and education become open to new and unfamiliar relationships, but
instead relapse into their existing habits. And then, as it's now happening, but as significantly didn't
happen in Arnold Matthew to restrict to purge to impoverished education itself. I think that line
suggested that people nowadays are more change and adopt unfamiliar and new habits. Because then
he says that Arnold Matthew’s view is not about preserving education and preserving discipline, but
rather being comfortable in his familiarity and his privilege. And that is what it is willing to add more
open to new and unfamiliar ideas
that he says there. You know, there is a hyphen. And then he says after the word habits and privileges.
And then as is now happening. So what does that mean? Is it saying now things are better? Or is
saying then and now are similar?
He says it's similar. So but then that's followed by but not as significant. But I significantly didn't
happen. And I know it to a lesser degree.
Okay, but I don't think he is he meant he means there is a significant change or transformation,
because the entire effort of writing this essay 100 years after Arnold is to suggest that things have not
really changed much from Arnold times till now. That's the overall argument that he is trying to make.
I think it's on the page three of the PDF, that that of course, violence is condemnable. But the way
Arnold disparage seemingly the entire movement is also wrong, because that's a very convenient point
for himself, as if the protesters unilaterally came to commit violence, riot and all that, he kinds of
ignores the fact that the protest also is a reaction to the threats that preceded it, like the failure of the
reform movement, the denial of suffrage for a long time, and the reactionary policies, like the police
blocked the protests, tried to harass the scuffle with the leader, etc, etc. And, in fact, I think on page
two of the PDF is also some mention of how the leaders of the protests have already talked to the
government, that if you try to like harass us too much, it will inevitably lead to violence and you won't
be able to control it. So it's a very convenient position to pin the entire blame squarely on the writers
there and ignore all the preceding events, which probably provoked what led to that riot.
Okay, so what was Arnold then suggesting, as a solution to? Of course, he sees this as a problem,
right? He says this is a clear problem of anarchy, and not just some people. But at some point,
Raymond Williams still says that he Arnold thinks it's the general symptom of his times, that there
was anarchy and no culture, no civilization, no values. So as a solution to this kind of a problem, what
did Arnold suggest?
so besides the education, like Arnold is not against social change or reform. But it seems that his
agenda is how do you achieve that reform? It's not he wants it to be done through the general spread
of Education, Culture amongst the people and through reasoned debate and arguments, which lead to
policy formulation? And he believes that, that riots and protests and demonstrations, like the disorder
in the system varies in society to make policy and without an audit society. What do you really have?
That's a question,
Yeah. So how does one cultivate “culture” as opposed to anarchy, or values, etc, according to
Matthew Arnold, when he is that is there anything suggested in the essay?
In a more general sense, he said, we have to repress anarchy and disorder. And like, the whole idea
was for him with culture was that we have to move towards human perfection. And that is why he he
said, like those of us who want to strive for human perfection, will always support the authority in
replacing the disorder. And because without this society, there is no human perfection. And in a more
direct sense, like he's, although he's mentioning it in a very humorous fashion, the whole his father
and the rope thing, he seems to be as opposed to, like violence towards the protesters without really
thinking about how that is violent itself. So then these two elegant, one way, like a general sense that
we need the authority to repress them and create society, so that we can go towards human
protection, and then a more direct sense, like violence against protesters.
So, of course, he is very clear passages that Raymond Williams cites here, which shows very clearly,
that he is actually saying the state must repress this kind of writing and use very violent methods, if
necessary, flogging and all that images that he uses in his language, which are like, medieval modes
of punishing the unruly. So, on the one hand, that is there, but is he suggesting only that solution or
there is something more than that? Is that the only way to deal with this issue according to him?
Sir, I think he's also trying to inculcate a certain idea, amongst the people like saying that they are
the one who should not be supporting anarchy, it should be supporting or like revolting against the
anarchy. Because like supporting anarchy would mean like demonic, like, completely destroying the
society because we need a society to preserve.
He is definitely not in support of anarchy. But the solution that he proposes, I'm talking about that. So
one way is repressing. So, you just put them behind bars, or use violence, if necessary, flog them, so
that it will work as a deterrent to others. But is there any other solution that he proposed?
Instilling culture, like you instill values in them, he talks about how culture can be instilled, like
Arnold himself worked very tirelessly towards reforming this secondary education system and
everything. So he thought that like, we have to create men of culture, who would work towards this,
and they will have more things in life than economy and they are not individual. They're not
concerned with individualism itself. So he thought that like you create such men of culture, and that is
how you take society away from the whole trend of individualism, thinking about the economy itself.
So Raymond Williams tells us that Arnold doesn't present himself only as this police officer who
wants to repress I mean, But he also presents himself as this person who wants to civilize the society
in a very humane way. So humane education, how does one inculcate culture or humane values is
through humane education, that is what Arnold, on the other hand was suggesting. But what is this
humane education? Where does it come from? What would be the content of this humane education
be like? What would be the syllabus, etc.?
Arnold was heavily invested in reforming education that time and he was also inspector of schools. So
he heavily travelled, gave lectures, met teachers, went to schools. So, he did not belong to this
aristocratic kind of a family. He came from a middle class, and lead a normal, simple, middle class
life. So he presented himself as one of that times, but extremely concerned with developing “good
education and humane education”, which would sort out problems in society and civilize it and
produce good peaceful society. That is how he presented himself. But Raymond Williams is trying to
tell us there are two sides to this, one side - there is this element of repression. That he was
advocating. And at the same time, he was also advocating the humane education. So what would be
the content of the humane education?
That the best knowledge that was available, so what would be the best, what is the best knowledge?
Yeah, so that was his critique that the present education system was so much utilitarian, but it should
shift the focus and inculcate much more humane education, and that humane education he defines as
the best knowledge that was available.
So, then the question is what is the best knowledge?
So, for him, the best knowledge is anything that can be observed. And then it should be passed on to
the rest of the population. It's based on observing the world.
What he meant is learning from all the best that has been thought and said in the world. He would
define it in terms of, for example, because he was writing in the English context, that he thought all
this could be found in the best English literature. So, finally, the focus would be to teach the best
English literature that was available, whether it was Milton, Shakespeare, or any other great writers
that England produced. So, that was what he had in mind when he said, from all the best that has been
thought and said in the world, not about the modern education that we today think about, either based
on observation and research, etc or scientific knowledge, that that is not what he had in mind. So he
had in mind, particularly English literature.
Now how does English literature do that? Can English literature or is it inherently capable of
inculcating something called culture? The best English literature? And also is it inherently capable of
transforming this “violent writer”?
but how does he still get to the criteria that what is to be the best English Literature Today?
See, you always have institutions which decide right, that irrespective of what you and I think, there
are always authoritative institutions, which will decide what is right and what is wrong, what is good
literature? So just like the judges decide sitting in the court, what a particular law is and how it has to
be interpreted. You have literary critics doing the same thing sitting as literally judges and passing
judgments, value judgments over literature. So, therefore in England, you have a whole industry of
literary criticism. So students of literature are not taught even today. They are not taught just literature
side by side, they are also taught what is called literary criticism. So literary criticism is a way of
prioritizing privileging certain texts as great literary texts, and marginalizing other texts, which is
what it has been doing for a very long time. Institutional literary criticism, there are always dissenting
voices and other literary critics, and Raymond Williams is one of them. Actually, he doesn't belong to
this mainstream school of literary or authority or literary criticism, in fact, he came from a working
class. And he also worked in the army, etc, then comes back and joined the university as a professor.
So, people like Raymond Williams, brought in new changes in the university syllabus and curriculum
and the entire debate about what kind of literature should be taught, etc. those questions were raised.
And also the fact that Williams is actually taking working class protests, demanding for voting rights.
And, and here in this particular instant, not even voting, but even to use the space Hyde Park for
meeting. So the right to meet in Hyde Park for a working class person was denied. And it was
supposed to be a privileged space for aristocrats.
He is also pointing out to us that the power of literary institutions and Matthew Arnold represented
those powerhouses. So Raymond Williams is of course critiquing that position, but the reality also is
that institutions do decide. So what should be taught to the law students today? To some extent, we
have the freedom, but not entirely. In this class, for example, I can’t say everything I want to say, I
either maybe sacked from the university or suspended or maybe given a show cause notice, or even
cases could be booked. So institutions do have their own protocols, right, and institutions decide how
much freedom you can use and what you can teach and what you can't teach.
So it all depends on who decides and the institutional power, whether it allows everyone to use in the
classrooms freely, which is what Raymond Williams is talking about. But the interesting question is
that Raymond Williams doesn't express himself as a rightist, for example, or he doesn't represent
himself as a completely repressive person. So he puts forward himself as the most liberal thinker and
also puts forward some ideas of education and the words which are used or values and culture, and as
opposed to anarchy. So it looks like he is doing an excellent work and that is what is most desirable.
So, it was already decided by the industry of literary criticism or by the discipline of literary criticism,
what was the best literature. And most of the time, the literary criticism of the institution of literary
criticism favoured particular authors, and not even just particular authors, even in those authors,
which particular texts represent the best literature. And even in those best literary texts, which parts
are desirable and which parts are undesirable. And even in those parts, in what way we should
interpret those parts. So, it's a very, very detailed and carefully invested literary criticism. So, it's not
that everything that Shakespeare wrote is seen as desirable or should be taught to the students, only
selected text and that too from the lens of literary criticism because literary critics claimed that
ordinary people don't know how to interpret great literary texts, only great literary critics and great
literary minds can explain what actually Shakespeare meant by a particular word or particular
sentence or a particular paragraph. So, similarly, we have in the legal education, also in the legal field,
that not every interpretation of a particular law is accepted by the courts. So, what the judges say to
lawyer is the law because they are the most authoritative people interpreting it despite other voices,
so, often what is taken as law is what judges say about the law. So, similarly, you have a literary
critics. So, what does Shakespeare represent is actually defined by the literary critics that he is
supposed to represent the universal human values, any other view is dismissed as something that is
foolish or not critical enough or political or coming from a biased perspective. But what the literary
institution of literary criticism explained about what Shakespeare stands for is claimed as a neutral
position and the truth of Shakespeare. So, those are the dominant positions right.
Now, one could take or somebody may say what Arnold was trying to do or was pitching is the
correct thing to do, because we are seeing now in our own times, these kinds of several events that's
happening in our own time. Whether it is anti CAA protests, or JNU, or now farm laws. So there are
very similar discussions in the Indian context in media today about how should farmers protest? What
about the violence they created? So, the police are now saying no protester who created this violence
will be spared, we are going to take very strict action. So, you can see one part of Arnold, clearly
speaking here. On the other hand, you have some of the leaders and somebody like Yogendra Yadav
who was also a professor before who is now with the farm laws agitation, is saying this is completely
wrong, the violence is wrong, we condemn this violence etc. What are the farmers saying is another
question. So we see many things which are described in the essay being played in our own times. And
also many suggestions which came up through Arnold whether it is repression or best education, etc.
Also, if you look around, you will find people who would say, you know, the JNU is promoting bad
education. So what you need is good education. So you will need to now bring Vivekananda which is
seen as one of the best minds?
So therefore, there is a lot of relevance for us to think about things which are discussed in this scene.
But one thing I want to flag here is that law and order, the connection between maintaining law and
order for somebody like Matthew Arnold, and how it should be done. So one, of course, is by
repression, you can maintain law and order. But the other way for me is to teach, for example, English
literature.
Now, whether you use repression, or whether you use literature as a mode of influencing people's
behaviour, the objective is same. That is where it's significant to understand what law could do. I
mean, law, for example, according to Matthew are not here, to just lock them up. Like book cases
against them, you punish them through repression, or many other or even to legal modes. But what
other people would say that Matthew Arnold is wrong in proposing this repression, but he may be
right in proposing teaching literature or teaching the best knowledge as a solution. But Raymond
Williams would tell us that the objective is same, how does it matter? Now, it probably matters that
there is not so much violence involved in teaching these writers to behave through English literature
or the best knowledge. But ultimately, from the perspective of the so called working class man who
was protesting there, he wants the voting rights, he wants the right to protest in Hyde Park. But
teaching literature would not serve any of those purposes, teaching literature would only tell him that
what he was doing was wrong, and he should become a civilized person. So, therefore, from the
perspective of Raymond Williams, literature is nothing not doing anything great for the working class
man. It's doing exactly what repression did but in a much more subtle way. So Arnold, who was also
beginning to think of humane education or liberal education or literature in particular, as a substitute a
law or repressive law is not law in its entirety, but as a substitute to repressive law. So, the function of
repressive law and the best English literature was imagined as the same. So therefore, one question for
us to think is that there is this illusion among many people that literature is antithetical to law. And
literature can do so much good to the society. Of course, therefore, we need to think about literature
not in its entirety, and when people say literature, they actually mean, what Arnold proposed the best
literature. So, you have to make this distinction, there isn't one kind of literature, and authoritative
literature promoted by the literary institutions does not always serve the interests of everybody but it
mainly serves the interests of the minority, and the powerful and the dominated in the society, which I
think is true about the mainstream law. So, therefore, it's not correct, to place law as antithetical to
literature, they could be doing exactly the same things and serving the same purpose. So, you need to
think therefore, just like there are laws, there are laws for example, which are made, not because the
establishment or the government or the institutions wanted to make those laws, but they are made
because of the pressure from the people, for example, Nirbhaya Act, or SC/ST Atrocities Act. So,
there are certain laws, which are very different from the laws which came from the establishment.
Similarly, you have literature, which is promoted by the literary institutions, and there is also
literature, which comes from dissenting voices, etc. So, therefore, you need to make these distinctions
and think about them critically, rather than placing them as two different kinds of things or opposed
entities.
Raymond Williams is not saying that what Arnold said is completely wrong. He doesn’t agree with
the humane education point which is made by Arnold.

There are two kinds of Liberalism he talks about, one is Mill and the other is Arnold. He says that the
Arnoldian liberalism is kind of dishonest, on one hand you are talking about repression and on the
other hand you are talking about the humane education, so which way to go? For example, You say
Jai Shree Ram and then you kill somebody. He says Mill’s liberalism was an honest one, though there
were limits. Mill atleast was on the side of the writer, he wanted voting rights for them, etc. Mill only
sees violence as the problem and not the other things whereas Arnold is silent on those. Thogh
Raymond has his own POV, but he is kind of positive towards Mill.
Session 5 – Gauri Viswanathan - Manohar – 2nd Feb 2021
She's trying to bring to bring bringing a debate between English education and the Indian education
and is trying to explain how education plays an important role in shaping the lives of people.
But is that all? Is there any connection between education and law here? And what kind of education
is she talking about? All kinds of education or only particular kind of education?
She's talking about education in which native should be taught, first you brought the orientalist school
but then gradually brought that orientalist thinking started to decline.
So what I had understood, understood from the reading is that she's trying to tell us how, how, when
the state to educate people, how the subject matter is decided based on how it helps the agenda of the
state. Initially, it was the Oriental education a, for example, Hasten using the Oriental education to
justify his despotism. And another thing that I observed that she's trying to tell us that how states can
conveniently kill literature. Then, later on during the last part of the reading, she has mentioned how
the state by cutting of the funding and by certain justifications can deny the Oriental education and
rely on scientific English education.
so, that was a genuine concern, right? If they thought that whatever they called Orientalism was, let's
say superstitious, and not scientific and modern, etc. And they want to help people to modernize
themselves, so they wanted to introduce Western education, which is what we are all doing now.
Right? So, you are not learning, ancient Indian law, to a large extent, you are learning Western law
with modern Western law. Our own constitution is a modern constitution, it's not dependent on
ancient laws. Of course, there are some laws, which are community laws or personal laws, etc. But by
and large, the Constitution is a modern one. And the democracy itself and the nation itself, these are
all Western concepts, and Western developments, which we inherited after the British rule, or while
the British rule was on. So was it undesirable then keeping Orientals learning aside or promoting
Western education here? So, what is her take on that issue, saying it was a bad thing, or it's a desirable
or undesirable one.
Does she through this essay, establish some connection between British law or the law that the British
Empire in India, British government in India wanted to implement? And in the introduction of the
study of English literature, in India, in British India, is she trying to establish any connection between
the two? And if yes, what is that connect connection?
So, in the reading, she gives an account of the ideological motivations behind the introduction of
English education in the British India. And she studies the shifts in the curriculum and relates such
developments to debates over the objectives of English education, both among the British
administrators as well as among the missionaries and colonial officials. And she goes on, as she says,
that initially, Indians studied English literature using this knowledge, which other argues that a
British administration under status introduced English literary study in India in the early 19th
century to improve the moral knowledge of Indians. Since Britain prefers the policy of religious
neutrality, and Christian teachings could not be used in India. Unlike the situation in Britain. In
order to resolve this conflict, the officials describing literature was infused with Christian imagery for
government schools. And they are just such debates also, she basically says that the main objective
behind the British introducing English education in India was for their own conduct expedition and
other benefits for themselves.
How does that happen? I mean by teaching Indians moral values through Christianity or any other
form, how does that help the British to exploit them morally? Or economically?
I'm here, So, what I have understood till now was the author started the argument by initiating the
topic by saying that how Indian Education was not was challenged all over from all the corners, like
Britishers were not willing to bring amendments or bring any improvement in the Indian education
system, since it was not their central motive. And then she talks about how Indian behaviour themself
was not compatible to bring change, since it's the people who should change themselves in the change
to the native.
So at any point, did you notice that she talks about law? Or governance? Or the British rule?
The one portion where they talk about law is the shift from the Hastings era to the Cornwallis era,
because in the Hastings era, England did not show direct involvement in governance, and the
Britishers were not interested in the Indian Culture and Society, but that change, in the Hastings era.
So Hastings’ era was basically White Man's Burden perspective of how to civilize the natives. So to
say, I think there's a paragraph also mentioned that he did not want Indians to be a part of the
government. And this led to the idea that native mind should be confined only to small and trivial
pursuits and all and they should not have an active part in governance.
Okay. So, which means that the British officers themselves did not have one conception of how to
govern India, and did not have one conception of the Indian people as such, and they did not have one
conception of how the Indians responded to the British government and how they responded to the
Western education. So, there were a variety of stance that the British officers took, and she is giving
us a detailed account of all that, how it changed. And also sometimes, you know, they have based on
their own understanding of the reality here, that they take a stand and they come up with a policy and
the next person who is in charge would make amendments or changes that policy, but a third person
who comes in may find the first person policy correct. So they would revert to the first person's
policy. So this kind of back and forth and policies have been changed frequently. And in that process,
you have a lot of justifications, analysis of Native people etc., which she is giving us a detailed
account of all that through archival research. So basically she is writing it based on all the documents
that the British government produced, their discussions about governance, about education, etc, from
those documents, so she studied in those documents and giving us a kind of a summary of what she
understood from those documents. Now, the question is, irrespective of all those differences they had,
whereas people, what was the primary, or a singular objective of all these people? What were they
trying to essentially achieve?
So about White Man’s burden thing, it is one of the ways to justify their conquest, the primary
purpose behind British rule, everything they did was to consolidate the British Empire in India. It
talks about how people like Macaulay and Anglican priests and missionaries tried to somehow justify
the conquest because it was very overt British society to only see their Indian conquests as a
consequence of their greed. They wanted to see, like I think, on after the missing pages, there is a
section on how missionaries petition Parliament that they want to civilize the heathens also in India.
So, they found other justifications for their own greed and conquest and the primary purpose was to
consolidate power one way or another.
There was a section in the reading which like analyzes what British Parliament and the British people
in England were raising serious questions about the British in India, like how British India not doing
good to the natives of Indians and that led to the formation of the goal of civilizing the natives in
India.
So, the approach, how to deal with Indians, what to do with them, what education should be offered,
etc, there could be various approaches and even in the governance or even the kind of British officers
who are here, some may have been correct. So, therefore, some may have been some may have said
that there is a problem with the British officers corruption, so, we should be more truthful, genuine,
etc, etc. Some officers may have been very rude, violent or reckless. So, others may have said this is
not the way, you should be more generous, not so harsh, etc. But what is common to all of them is
consolidation of the British power here, with bad motives, good motives, genuine ,not so genuine,
perfect, not so perfect, irrespective of all that one common thing for all of them is how to consolidate
British power here and how to produce governable subjects. Now, the problem that they faced when
they came here from their perspective was that Indians were not easily governable subjects. Why were
they not easily governable subjects? Who are the governable subjects? Or even for that matter, who
are the usually governable citizens
People who are Convinced that all citizens must follow the rule of law. To a large extent, we are all
like that. But, for example, now if you look at the farmers protest, then some of them “violated the
law”, broke the barricades or try to maybe, according to the media reports, attack the police or not
even tried to attack the police, which is supposed to be the violation of the law, breaking of the law,
etc. Now, we also have seen in Raymond Williams say that the working class people did some of the
things which farmers are doing now, breaking the barriers, barricades, entering public spaces, creating
chaos, or breaking the piece of a particular city or a particular space like Hyde Park, or central Delhi.
So the problem that they face, therefore, with this is how to teach these people to respect the law.
Now, what kind of law is it? Whether people should respect it or not? Whether that particular law is
just law or unjust law, those were not the concerns, because the laws that the British government
implemented here, it was taken for granted by them, that they were just laws, according to them. And
the only question in front of those people that time was, how to make people respect these laws. And
what should we do about it? How do we do how do we go about Now, why people did not respect the
law according to them, but there are so many reasons that they are not rational thinking peop, how
does it How did they arrive at that? Now, this they relied basically on a lot of Indian literature to
assess the “character” of India's. So they found that a lot of Indian literature, of course, there are
several groups here. But one group was so excited, the orientalist, they thought this is fascinating, new
thing, new world we are discovering, etc. and the world has a lot of things to learn from it, etc. But
soon, many others come and tell all that is nonsense. And this is completely superstition, and it's
immoral. Many of those things don't even deserve to be read or preserved. And McAulay, often
quoted by many of the post colonial scholars, seems to have said that entire oriental literature is not
even equivalent to bookshelf of literature of Western countries. So many people, therefore, relied on
this new kind of knowledge that is produced about Indians, which is called Orientalism, and Edward
has written a full book on that called Orientalism.
You can see that the framework of analysis that Gauri vishwanathan uses here is very much that is
theoretically made available to us by Edward. So, Orientalism is basically a body of knowledge
produced about Indians by the West. And it is only through this knowledge that the West understands
Indians. So, it's not like that we understand people without any mediation. So, the mediating agent
here is orientalist knowledge. So, therefore there is no contact, there is no direct understanding of
people, Western people understanding Indian people directly without this knowledge. So it's like,
some people in India, if they want to understand they are going to France. And if they want to
understand French society, they might look up online, and then read few short stories or novels, etc,
etc. And I think that's how society is all about. And it also comes from the conception, that literature
reflects the society or reflects the reality of the society. So which could be very problematic. But that's
how it worked.
So, in India also, with that conception, that the British studied a lot of Indian literature. And then they
found that they came to the conclusion that why Indians are in such a bad state. And they made a
connection between the two, that Indians are in such a bad state, also because of the kind of
knowledge that they have produced. So they are superstitious because their knowledge is
superstitious. So it's like a two way process. superstitious people are producing superstitious
knowledge. And superstitious knowledge, in turn, is producing superstitious people. So it's a cyclical
kind of a thing, which they thought was the truth of India. So, because people are superstitious, they
don't understand rational law. So they need scientific education, scientific thinking, and also morality.
They found that many cultural practices that were prevalent in India was superstitious, or irrational, or
immoral. So, to be a good citizen, the person also has to be morally correct, an immoral person doesn't
seem to fit into the category of a good citizen. So, therefore, one of the things they took up was how
to turn the immoral subjects into a moral subject or a governable subject. Now, one could say that
there are instances there are some British officers who tried to bring in new laws against the morality
against superstition. So, law is one way of or law became an instrument to deal with this phenomenon.
So to transform people or to make them moral etc, by following certain British laws. Now, there are
other people who disagreed with this, that, you know, you can't enforce strict law with force. So, you
ruling people by force, according to them was wrong. So, what should they do? Therefore, you should
find other ways to change the behaviour or the human conduct of people in India, whether in social or
cultural or in moral on fields or domains.
Now, if people objected or disliked ruling Indians by force of law, what was the alternative suggested
by them? Did any alternative come up?
I think that in case they thought that Indians cannot be that they should not use force. They used other
methods, like one was persuasion. This is where the Christian missionaries came in. And they try to
persuade people that they should go to Christianity that their religion is maybe discriminating
against them, is not good enough for them. And then secondly, they were like, in the later part of the
readings, they were introducing English education. They were finding loopholes in the law, so that
they could introduce English education, and then change the thinking of the people introduce rational
education.
So therefore, as an alternative, they suggested Christianity, that we should convert people to
Christianity. Now why? How does that solve the problem?
Is Christianity therefore according to them, a different kind of religion compared to Hinduism, etc, or
Islam, or did they think that Christianity is some way superior to Hinduism, etc.
So according to the reading, this is not something which is about, let's say the morality or superior
superiority of one religion over the other, but the but they thought that Christianity was something
which could be favorable to them that if in case people adhere to the principles of Christianity, it
would be easier to govern them.
Missionaries came and told British that we can help you govern them. Though the government denied
their interference, but the missionaries insisted.
They suggested that the Christianity was morally and intellectually superior to Hindu faith and by
using this they might set themselves as the leaders of intellectual thought.
So, although some of them did not see as morally superior, but the missionaries always believe them
to be superior, and they though that they could teach the right conduct, moral or behaviour to the
Indians, which is what required for a governable subject.
Now from these times, even though the British official believe that Christianity could help them, but
they fear that it may result into a backlash from the Hindus. So finally after a long for and against
tussle amongst the British, the missionaries were invited and they were allowed to preach Christianity
in India. But then somebody came and said that there is an intelligent way to do this, not by the Bible
or missionaries but by teaching English literature, because every morals, or conducts or behaviours,
that you want to teach, can be found in the selective English texts. So you can escape this religious
route. And pretend to be stay secular. So therefore, the connection between law, literature and religion
is established by Gauri Viswanathan.
So the object of the law is to produce a governable subject which is good for sustenance and
continuation of the British law. So when forcing of law was not seem right then the religion entered,
but when the religion was also seen as a problem, the literature took over, and the role of literature
was hence established. Literature shapes our own behaviour.
Political and Ideological Role of LITERATURE. 36

Tutorial – 1
As you know, in the reading, we have been presented with a very topical subject, right?
So what I want to ask you is about literature and education, right? And I want to ask you, how can we
use literature and education as a form of ideological apparatus? Basically, how can we palletize
politicize educational literature and use it towards such arguments or use it towards inculcating
politics within the environment?
So we only had this kind of a discussion today in the history class as well. So, how the British would
think talk about syllabus and the curriculum of universities will try to put in that kind of only those
kind of parts in the syllabus, which would focus on the supremacy or on the niceness of the British,
right. So similarly in recently also, we came across these, the news where BJP tried to alter the history
textbooks of 11th and 12th grade, right. So basically the narrative which the government wants the
students to, you know, inculcate and want to learn the kind of propaganda which they want to get into
picture. So if, if we take BJP into picture, just an example, they will try to remove all the nice things
about Nehru and they try to put in good things about, say the right or they will try to put in good
things about hindutva, etc, etc. So basically, the government would want to cut out those things,
which would criticize them from the other spectrum of the ideological ideologies. And would try to
put in those kinds of things into the curriculum or syllabus which put them in a better light in front of
the public. And, of course, students have impressionable minds. So whatever they read, they inculcate
that and they internalize that. And then in future, they go on to talk about those things.
So a very important part of how literature and education is used as an ideological apparatus is actually
through the education system, in schools, colleges, etc. So, of course, the point about syllabus is very
important, British curriculum is an excellent example of how it is carried out during the colonial era.
And right now, as we can see, we can see that the central ideology of the state, or the ruling
government has been kind of ventilated throughout different education systems and throughout
different age groups also.
Every time, you know, you see the news of there being new ways of inculcating the same in different
age groups within school. It can be as soon as, you know, primary school, like I had read about these
comic strips about a prime minister, and how he has been kind of glorified in those comic strips, and
presented to the children of primary school at an early age. So syllabuses obviously inculcate those
ideas at a very foundational level. So Marxist study that literature is an instrument of maintaining law
and order. So as we can see, I've already spoken about direct action, the involvement of police,
involvement of authorities and how that is utilized to kind of restrict such popular movement, and,
you know, seen as a very direct resort to maintain law and order, but actually, education is a very
subtle, so the important point behind education is that it's presented in a very subtle way. It's presented
as a necessity. And it is used in various ways as we can see, it is firstly used as a weapon towards the
people that the state or the center wants to subdue. So in such an example, the points about the
protesters being educated or not educated always kind of holds a very strict authority to it, or these
people are protesting or even educated or even educated enough about the policy they're protesting
against. So it is used as an weapon. It is also used as a justification for the law existing in the society.
So if we were to look at a colonial example, maybe the banning of Sati, so till now something that
was considered as normal, was suddenly penalized. In such a way, law kind of prevents practices from
happening or encourages some practices from happening, a recent example would be the love Jihad
law. And third, it is a ideological apparatus, to kind of instill this particular ideology, whichever
favored ideology into the minds of people.
So when we speak about ISAs, we can see that it kind of manipulates people into thinking in a certain
way, right. And, if I give you a very, very, like, normal example, let's look at something as simple as
the standards of beauty. You guys must have seen that post about how in a children's book, you know,
the pictures of ugly and beautiful, have, you know, pictures of these women and the ugly woman has
some particular categories that have been conditioned in the society from a long time, you know,
things like dark skin, or having skin texture, or having a bigger nose, stuff like that. And to the
beautiful side of the picture, you have this fair woman with long hair, yada, yada, yada. So, you know,
these are really subtle ways to manipulate people into thinking a certain way setting standards of the
society right now, I give you an example of the beauty standard, but you can see how it escalates into
highest standards of morality and thinking into the society. It also shapes our interpretation of the
social and the cultural world, whether this particular act is moral or immoral, for example, something
like the Jallikattu, right? There were arguments from both sides, how it is moral, how it is immoral,
why it is of cultural value, why it is opened, etc.
Then there is also the carrying out of the hegemonic structure through literature, and literature,
education. So this can be done even in cultural forms. There's always an elite culture and then there is
the culture of the minorities or transition of folk people. So you can see that sometimes hegemonic
cultures are elevated over others, or a hegemonic system is maintained. Things like partisanship, older
things like feudalism, or, you know, stories of how a master should you know, the master servant
relationship how servants should always really listen to master.
The next point is that they allow existing modes of autonomy and authority to exist. So, they do not
encourage people or rebellion. In some cases, they say that this is the state of the society and this is
what is true.
A nice example would be fact that a lot of people who come from richer families, from established
families, telling poor people that you know, all you need to do is work hard to achieve your dreams,
all you need to do is work hard to become rich like me, which is not true. There is a lot of mediating
factors present in their lives that are not present in a poor place. So stuff like social capital, economic
gains, and just a really nice Head Start to begin with. So, these are things that allow existing modes of
authority to exist.
Point is maintaining of cultural ideology and reproducing it. So theology can be central in nature. For
example, right now, we see that the popular ideology which is present across the country is Hindutva
what I'm saying popular because it is to send the central ideology, which is promoted by the state,
promoted by government, we can see how it is not only seeped into the education system seeped into
the culture, more to celebrating something, for example, the celebration of the Ram temple or the
present of it in the education system, then we can see, you know, inclusion of religious texts with
core syllabuses and reproduction of the same through this assertion that something is good, something
is bad, something that's subjective, as religion is good or bad, and the same religious morals are good
or bad, right?
They shape people's thought, as we already know, education can really influence how you think, how
you behave with more education, we don't really mean you know, the standard literary forms of sex
and documents. But we can also extend it to other modes of learning, especially in this age, for
example, we will students, the propagation of the LGBTQ community wasn't as prevalent as it is now.
Now, with social media, and multimedia, multimedia forms of learning, we can kind of, you know,
get the arguments in a much more popularized manner. There is often a saying that kids these days are
way more educated on these socio political factors than we were back in our day. Because the
ventilation of such arguments or the ventilation of such experiences wasn't as nuanced as, as it is now.
So that's how they shaped people's thought. And they also create ideologically produce subjects. Now,
this is important, because education, in usual is seen as this broad terminology that covers everything
that one needs to learn, right.
But education is heavily dependent upon the kind of things that you are taught, especially when it
comes to literature, the weapon of using literature, in an ideological form, is a presence within its
subjectiveness. Because it's open to interpretation, it's open to one's thinking. So even if we were to
look at text, someone could do a critical reading out of it, someone could, you know, bring out the
merits and demerits. other person could kind of do a review in which they are appraising the reading.
So things like that are same with case laws and everything. But right now we're focusing on literature.
So the subjectiveness of literature presents a very complex nature to the study. Because it's open to
interpretation. And it creates ideologically produced subjects in such a way. And lastly, dominant
ideology is produced in literally works again.
So I feel like, that the arguments which were raised by James mill, or Raymond Williams in the
essay, I feel like they can be situated, very aptly within the ongoing protest, right? Whether it is
a farmers protest, or whether it's the blacklights movement, you often see these kinds of
arguments radiating from each side, for example, with Arnoldian thoughts about taking direct
action and educating the masses and things like that calling riot the bad things and not
understanding where they come from. So that could be one point of argument. The other point
is obviously, about James Mills, who support the cause, but says that there is a point that you
should not cross the line, right. So his support for the cause is limited. he's open to talking with
them as long as they use nonviolent means. So such is the understanding of the ongoing protests
or the movement in the current scenario to
So kind of after you guys have understood all of this, how do you think we could look at literature
into the current? For example, farmers protest? How do you think, what we have been taught by
younger school teachers, or whatever we've been taught by our education? What do you think? How
do you think literature has influenced our views? Or someone else's views? Regarding the ongoing
farmer’s protest? For example, I'll give you an example of the people who think that national flag
should not be disrespected at any cost, right? I feel like they are similar to James Mills point of view,
because many of them are liberals who support the causes of farmers, but think that, you know,
disrespecting the national flag, that is something you cannot do it. So I feel like we see a bit of change
in that kind of argument. So do you guys have any input regarding the same with specificity with
farmer rights? Because I feel like, that's really topic, and everyone would have heard something or the
other about it. So just in a form of interpretation, if you see how these arguments could be located
there or to see the influence, or particular kind of education, you know, in ventilating the same
arguments.
So with regards to like James mill being open to listening to the other side, but only as long as
nonviolent methods are used. Even at the farmers protests, a lot of people are claiming that the
farmers there's a huge debate about which side is being violent? Is it the police or is it the farmers and
a lot of people.
Yes, it was just regarding the I think about violence in the farmers protests, because a lot of people
have attributed it to the farmers. Whereas some attributed it to the police, and a lot of people that I
know, personally, have said that, Oh, I'm on the side of farmers, but then once they start using violent
methods, their entire cause has no value and has no meaning. So again, violence becomes subjective
that And a lot of So to speak liberals said that it will say what we were of the opinion that no farmers
have been violent so their protest is invalid and we shouldn't listen to that thing that's what I thought
about when the whole James mill point came up that he's willing to listen only as long as the other
side is non violent but then how do you define it?
So the point I was raising about how shaping perceptions about particular people, particular class of
people is evident in the point she wrote about farmers being these frail and submissive people.
I was talking about shaping perceptions of a certain class of people as we have been kind of
conditioned to respect a certain class of people. We have also been conditioned to view people in
certain way. So farmers being frail and fragile and not being able to participate in active protests, or
not being able to protect themselves, things like that. There's a very paternalistic view about farmers
present and I remember how there was a video going viral about a farmer speaking English,
ventilating his grievances and people were like, even if he is suffering, what is he protesting For? He
knows English. He's saying, Yeah, he knows English, he's speaking fluent English. So the point I'm
trying to raise about using literature and education as a weapon was essentially that at one hand, you
are telling these farmers that they are not even educated enough to know about the bills that have been
created, essentially, for that profession. But on the other hand, when someone is educated enough to
speak, you know, to converse in the language of the elite, then he suddenly, you know, somehow he's
again not eligible enough to be a genuine protester. So I feel like this point about literature being used
as a weapon education being used as a weapon from the sides of the center, from the sides of the state,
or even from the sides of the oppressor, and the oppressed is pretty clear, from examples like these,
right.
And, again, the point about violence being subjective, that is, again, you know, a way in which we
perceive violent methods against the state, violent forms of protest, and what exactly is acceptable
enough for us, not realizing their point of view. And another point I wanted to raise about education
influencing our views was regarding nationalism, right. So the kind of sentiments that we have, and
the kind of feeling of patriotism that we believe in, and what is considered proper to do within this
very measured center of nationalism and patriotism, right. What we feel is that the national anthem, or
the national flag, technically, they are symbols of nationalism, right? But what really create this
sentiment of nationalism is actually influenced by the people of the country itself, what the people
believe in, is what they work towards. So when we place a symbol of nationalism above the people,
and this is my subjective view.
I feel like there is a lot of education and literature, the influence of the same present behind that,
because since childhood, we have been conditioned to do the same. Same with, you know, getting up
for the national anthem, in movie theaters and stuff like that. I feel like some years back, I would have
said that, oh, it's absolutely, you know, unacceptable. But right now, after going through other points
of views, we can see the kind of understanding that people have a behind not placing it at such a
pedestal, right. So I feel like same protest going on.
The kind of studies that we have taken up in the past few years have influenced our support to the
farmers or you know, not be not so supportive towards the center, the action they are taking, or
whatever. And at the same time, we can understand that the other side, also have a lot of education
present between them.
So I feel like yeah, the point that I wanted to cover regarding education being used as a weapon,
influencing the thoughts of the people, and being subjectiveness presents with the literature.
Tutorial – 2
The authoritarian interpreters of the religious codes of India. So their interpretation was favored, and
then codified into legal texts.
Okay, so according to me, I feel like we can see two patterns of gaining control through Orientalism. I
feel like it's a two way street.
So the first way is portraying a kind of hierarchy and having control over what you depict. So
obviously, there is this kind of selective delivery to what you're teaching the natives about their own
culture, right, you have a lot of power, you can omit something, you can make something seem
biased, and you can highlight certain portions and not highlight the other portions. So, for example,
when we talk about Native Texts, often this illusion, by orthodox society, I won't say it's an illusion.
But for the sake of it, if we say it's an illusion, we can also talk about how it is actually a liberal
society. And there was like an example like, the encouragement and the openness surrounding sex in
the society, which is looked upon by the British as something very new, so they wanted to cover that
up, that could be one way of portraying their own culture to the native. And the other way is
collecting the text and portraying the same back in Britain. So if you want to portray the Indian
culture back in Britain, you can look at objective knowledge and say that this is objective, this is what
the future is derived of. So that way, it has a lot of power, even in Orientalism, because why you are
saying that we are teaching you your own culture, it is entirely controlled by what the British is
actually organizing. And saying that anglicization here, they can help you inculcate British values and
morals. And it is also a kind of enforcement of the British language that is English. And, in
Orientalism, there's also the paternalistic kind of area that yes, we are redefining what your true
knowledge really is, we are encouraging you to go back to your roots, but what is that root that root is
also defined by the by the existing British government. So that was one point about the kind of
methods to come upon them.
The second point I wanted to raise about was the comparison between what we learned in last class
about Raymond Williams and what the point that Gauri Vishwanathan is trying to make. So I
remember we had discussed about ideological forms of state apparatus and how literature contributes.
So let us take one example. For example. Raymond Williams was talking about the reaction to the
protesters. And here, the British were trying to mould governable subjects. So do you see any
similarities between the governable subjects and the said protesters from Williams Text. On one end
there are these governable subjects on the other end, there are the so called truly unruly protesters.
one of the views is that be European or British to be able to establish this hegemony that they were the
only people who were who had the stronghold of intellectual knowledge, and this set them up above
the native Indian workplace. So that the natives are intrinsically trained to follow whatever stream of
thought they were told to follow. Because the British has occupied this hierarchy of information and
knowledge.
Okay, so the main line of Raymond's argument was basically bringing out the different reaction of the
people who reacted to the protests going on at Hyde Park. So, like Arnold, he had an extreme view of
thought, while James Miller was in the level, and Raymond Williams was absolutely legendary. So
Raymond Williams believes more in kind of giving them absolute freedom, even when they were
protesting, while others were like this freedom should be limited. But what sir wanted you all to focus
on beneath these arguments, he actually wanted you to think about how literature and education can
be used as a means of control for the state. So basically, how it can be used as the state apparatus,
because in many of these arguments we see a recurring thought that they should be educated, they
should be taught, they should, you know, they are not the literate. So basically how education can be
used as a tool of the state. And at the same time, how it can be used as a weapon of the elite. That's
what sir wanted you to focus on. So while these arguments are there from Arnold, James Mill,
Raymond Williams, that’s what sir wanted you to focus upon. And as for Raymond Williams, he just
wanted to bring out these different reactions to the protesters and kind of make you think about what
influences and what really defines the boundary that cannot be crossed when it comes to basically
protest and reaction to the state. So in case of James mill, since he kind of what do you call mid level
thinker, he says that I do not endorse violence at all, but as long as they are, you know, willing to
come and peacefully speak to me, I will give them that area of freedom. But at the same time, Arnold
says that protesting is absolutely, you know, it's unacceptable.
So basically, he asked you guys to place these arguments in the current scenario. And that's what we
discussed in the last class with the ongoing farmers’ protest and how you can see two arguments being
ventilated across different platforms. But the crux of the entire reading was about literature and
education as a means to control people and as a means of state authority.
So, the point I was asking about was trying to draw a comparison between governable subjects and
protesters and how you see the role of education setting in.
Okay. So, I'll say what I wanted to say, governable subjects and protesters, both I feel like literature
and education is being used to shape them into whatever shape and form that the British government
wants them to. For protesters, they wanted to introduce the education so that they are more kind of
respectful towards the government, kind of more obedient and in case of governable subjects, the
British wanted the natives to be in a shape and form that is more suitable to the British cultural values
and ethos and also in a way that lets them impose the authority freely. So in such a case, literature and
education plays an important role because it allows them to give a kind of certain means to control
both of them, If you remember last class, in our discussion, we had discussed about how literature has
the force to manipulate people into thinking a certain way. And I feel like that argument can be
extended to any area of not only law, specifically, so it really shapes the kind of society and there was
this important point about how it shapes people's thought, and how hegemony is carried out through
literature. So in such a case of Patriotism and feudalism, glorifying the government leading people
into thinking a certain way, shaping my interpretation of the world. And most importantly, this point
about subjectivity and subjectivity into any area we wanted to. So, which is why we find this area of
Orientalism in the subjectivity bracket, because at one in one way, it is kind of shaping what natives
know about their own history. And in the second way, it is also shaping about what British know
about the Indian history. So that was one comparison, I could draw between Raymond and Gauri
Viswanathan, and also about how literature is used to impose a certain kind of morality. So in case of
Raymond Williams, we could say, a certain code of conduct, or how people are the citizens of the
state are supposed to behave. And in this case, how they're supposed to present themselves, because
as we know, a lot of native practices were looked down upon by the British. So I feel like these two
points are good areas of comparison between the two texts.
And now, another point I wanted to talk about work in Gauri Viswanathan, Mill, he believed that
Western literature is kind of useless, not only Western, whether it be Indian, literature in general is
useless. And he talked about utilitarianism, and how there should be a utility to something being
taught. So how to counter this argument, how would you counter this argument that literature is
absolutely useless to be taught in colleges and schools, it has no value and from the point of the
government also, and from the point of the students also, how you in being taught in schools and
colleges, so how would you counter that utilitarian argument or even kind of thinking about how
literature itself has a utility? Or you could tell me, utilitarianism isn't much of importance? In either
way, how would you counter this argument?
Can we say that literature is doing indirectly what the British couldn't do directly as in they are
introducing the natives to know Christian morality and the cultural values of the Metropole basically,
so in a sense, it is not useless per se, it is seving an imperial agenda.
So first, I think they tried inculcating moral knowledge of morality and stuff among Indians on a more
secular basis, they could not use this or they could not use Christian Missionary, as according to
Britain because the policy of rule in India was more or less secular. But then when the missionaries
came in, they advocated a more religious reading of the text, I think.
So the point that I was making, I just wanted to elaborate on that are carrying forward of the Imperial
agenda through introduction of education and literature that they seem would shape the minds of the
neatest right. And we can see the kind of manipulation that literature has by the examples in the text
itself. Remember, there was this part about how some people in Calcutta actually were protesting for
the function of English Language and English literature on the college side. So I feel like that itself is
a very good example of how literature can manipulate your ways of thinking and how it can be a
strong weapon used by the government, be it colonial or not. And if we were to tie in that bit with the
function of law, then we see how law and literature can both be used to control the masses to kind of
control the state practice and be an apparatus of the state, not only in passing on the ideology that the
state would like to a dominant ideology, but also in making the people behave the way they'd like to
without really enforcing anything explicitly on them. Right. So that was basically the bit that I wanted
to talk about.
And a last area that I want to cover is about religion. So this text also talks about religion and the
arguments of religious people when it came to introduction of education in India be it the Malwis and
pundits who were against the introduction of the English language as its kind of clash with their ethos,
and also with the Christian missionaries, who wanted to come here and impart Christian morals values
onto the natives.
So how do you guys think religion could be used? Just like literature and law? In the sense, how could
religion be used as a form of control?
I think it can be used to invoke a certain morality and this could be relevant if we keep in mind that a
British thought that the Indians were savages at best. So it could be used to moralize or reduce certain
mortality among people. But after the missionaries, I think the British realized that so many religious
activities could not be used to train the Indians. They wanted to recruit the Indians in these civil
services and defend that this religious education could not create that kind of Indian natives. So this
changed track from religion to more, you know, based on trade and commerce or secular basis.
Yes, so moral code is a very important point and how religion controls people.
Okay, so, what I would like to stress upon is something that sir had said in class and he has said that
what for in this example, what Christianity preaches can also be found in English literature right. And
it can be found in other ways, that do not explicitly imply that in a Christian forms literature. So, in
such a way, what the British is essentially doing is escaping the religious route and going the secular
way. And while they are on the face of it going the secular way, actually, in a sense, they are teaching
the ethics and values perpetrated by Christianity right. So, in such a situation literature can help mask
the very religious component of something and give it a secular character. So, giving off a secular
character is an important point, even in the current scenario, as we can see, there has been a lot of
controversy and talk about religion affecting politics, religion affecting education. So, in such a
situation when people are often blamed of promoting a certain religion or a certain value, literature
can help in masking those beliefs. And in such a situation, it can make it seem objective, this is the
situation of literature being used with British models versus native models. And now, we can see
literature being used for religious versus secular models too. So, that is another important literary
function. When it comes to law and order, not only is it ideologically viable, but it also kind of help
things become more objective, even though it is subjective. So you see how complicated and complex
literature is, and how it can be used in so many ways to control the people, right.
And, lastly, in the text, Grant had said that, and I've quoted that securing people, their religion and
laws is the best way to perpetrate our empire on them. And this is why you see the importance of
religion, literature and law colliding.
So the last bit that I wanted to discuss here is how religion is used as a political instrument. Since I
feel like we've had enough discussion about literature being used as a political instrument and I
discuss these points, I want you guys to reflect upon the correlation of religion, literature and law, like
these three points as a whole okay. So, Mark had said that religion is the opiate of actors, and how
religion is used very strongly as a political instrument, and I will raise some points that will prove this
point. So, firstly, the factor of sacredness is present in social institutions everywhere, and as we know
it, social institutions that come the public to be ruled by government right. So, this aspect of
sacredness is not only attributed to the social, but also to the kind of instruments of state as we can
see, the Constitution is sacred, the national flag is sacred. So, the value of sacredness is attributed to
many things, that is being controlled by the state. Secondly, laws are sometimes viewed as divine
commands. Some laws about divine commands can be looked at through religious laws, right family
laws, laws of marriage, how marriage is considered as a sacred sacrament in Hindu laws. So, that is
how laws can be viewed as divine commands. social class hierarchy is reinforced through laws, as we
know, manusmriti reinforces the caste system. So in such a way social class hierarchy can be
replicated through religious laws, and education can be religious, something that we just discussed,
about education having a religious flavor to it or having a secular flavor to it, and how literature
within this education can play a very important role in masking those areas of points.
So after we've discussed all this, can someone tell me what connection you see between religion, law
and literature? What connection and how? What common purpose? Do you think the three of them
can be used by the state? So please think about it and let me know.
Control and obedience, Providing legitimacy?
Basically, law, literature and religion, are used as instruments of control in various ways. So it can be,
as I said, about obedience, about kind of getting this code of conduct of people, you know, getting
people to behave in a certain way. It's also about providing legitimacy to certain practices, which is
very true. by law does it in an explicit way, religious does it in a moral way and literature does it in a
very subtle way. So providing legitimacy is also true. manipulating people into thinking a certain way,
I feel like all three also kind of do the job of justifying each other, right? If we look at religious laws,
we can see that some laws are justified by religion. And if we look at some kinds of literature, we see
that some laws are again, justified by the literature. So in such a way, they also do a job of justifying
each other and justifying certain practices. And I feel like there are ample examples of the things. One
example that is consistent throughout the three structures could be that of having a hegemony or
having a hierarchy, religion does this, law does it And so does literature. So I think, if you would
want a more specific example, we could see how law has this kind of stages of importance for people,
right? Something very explicit, like how president is the most important person of the world, and
Prime Minister and further goes the hierarchy. Then we have religion that kind of has these scriptures
that say that the society is divided into hegemony and a society has classes And these classes exist for
a reason. And then there is literature that says, that kind of a divide between the elite and the poor, and
the practices of the same and discusses the same.
So I feel like these three are connected in such ways. And Gauri’s text kind of uses the three
structures to tell us how the British was really kind of controlling the natives at the time, right?
through law, due to direct enforcement, through literature due to more subtle forms of gaining control,
and transforming the native into governable subjects and through religion, because introduction of
religion can have them can give them more control and perpetrate the values that they are trying to
process it. It also makes them seem like they're on the good side of the native when they are, you
know, encouraging the teaching of religious scripture. And in case when they are bringing in
Christianity, they can kind of show themselves as the white saviors to the native.

UC - 1
What is Literature and what is not?
Test of time see PPTs
Project – Process – Product cycle
Gary Taylor – reinventing Shakespeare
1. Languaging Population – which uses English and crave for something that is criticised.
2. Brititsh Imperalism

Now, the whole idea of implicit and explicit cognition is for you to see that these implicit social
cognition are blind, even to our own, that I am blind to my own implicit social cognition, but only
when somebody shows it out to us like this and says, Look, when you said this, this is what you are
hinting at. That's exactly when you realize that your implicit social cognition,

PPTs
James Boyd White
- Law in Literature
- Law as Literature
- Law of Literature (copyright, ipr, etc.)