Re: [tied] Harappan horse fraud article

Indeed, this is an unacceptable simplification. The author should
have said that some important elements of Indian culture are
imported. How could that lead to a precarious identity? _All_ great
cultures have always included imported components and there's nothing
humiliating about it. Fortunately such statements do not appear in
Wetzel and Farmer's original article.


Piotr

--- In cybalist@..., Max Dashu <maxdashu@...> wrote:
> I have a big problem with this statement in the Harappan Horse
Fraud article
> (at http://www.umass.edu/wsp/method/antiquity/harappa.html)
>
> >>India, like Japan, is thus a country whose classical high culture
is
> >>imported, not indigenous.
> >> This can lead to a psychologically precarious cultural identity.
>
> What rubbish. India's culture is ancient by any standard. This
insistence
> on conflating Vedic culture with all Indian "high culture" is part
of the
> problem. But the above-quoted assertation is especially ironic,
since
> western Europe's own classical high culture is imported, from its
alphabet
> to its Doric (whoops, Gizan) columns to its dominant religion.
>
> Max