I found the Gandhi readings very relevant to the present day. There were a couple ideas I could relate to todays politics like the formation of the "moderates" and the "extremists". To me, this seemed like conservatives and liberals. His explanation of "civilisation" was a very good representation of what is going on these days. Especially when he says that "anybody writes and prints anything he likes and poisons people's mind."(36) It's not a laughing matter but I thought it was humorous because it made me think of Wikipedia and other non-reliable internet sites where anybody can just post their opinions on what might they think really happened.
I liked all the examples that Gandhi would use like, the seed being planted is the role the congress played, and the process of waking up was the part the Partition took in Home Rule. Something else I found extremely interesting and was like a flag that popped up was the issue with women. It makes complete sense, although I'm not an advocate of women staying at home, the fact that the industrial revolution did force women to be in factories is very true and this results in women not taking care of their children properly.
The final aspect of Gandhi's writing was what he wrote about newspapers and their influence on people's views. This is exactly what happens with recent elections, certain newspapers or television shows are in favor of certain candidates, so they publish and put forth ideas that are going to be benificial to that candidate.
3 comments:
I like how you related Gandhi's view on anybody's writing and ideas made available to the public to contemporary times. I also liked the analogies/metaphors Gandhi used to illustrate his views. They were creative but also enlightening.
It’s interesting that you related moderates and extremists to conservatives and liberals today. In both cases, distinguishing the two as different means there’s no middle ground and leaves an “either/ or” mentality. I think it’s important to have a middle ground so that taking sides isn’t emphasized but rather the emphasis is on rationality.
this post raises some interesting questions about how the two groups that gandhi seeks a middle ground for relate--it is true, as sharilyn points out, that between liberals and conservatives a middle ground is also sought. it might then be helpful to ask what the main disagreement of the liberal/conservative is?
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