Stereotyping Hinduism in American Education

Stereotyping Hinduism in American Education:
by Rajiv Malhotra:

This essay addresses how the Greco-Semitic religious paradigms, being the prevailing undercurrents in Western civilization's narrative of the humanities, have influenced the portrayal of the Indic religions. Hinduism is used in this essay to make the points concerning Indic religions, but similar issues also apply to all Indic religions.

The intellectual spectacles formed by one's own culture determine how one perceives the world. According to the postmodern theory of constructivism, no meaning of any kind ever stands on its own. Instead, there is always mediation by prior mental programming and assumptions, even though these biases might be unconsciously applied. As W.C. Smith, E. W. Said and others have noted, we select, group, and organize the multiplicity of events experienced within our own conceptual categories to give coherence to the world.

Are we aware of the effects of mapping other religions onto Greco-Semitic theological categories, even when there is no intentional agenda? Is the narrative being colored by beliefs and even dogma, perhaps unconsciously, of the academic narrator? Does the process known as academic 'objectivity' in fact, facilitate a facade to cloak the prejudices of the scholar, and if so, how might one extricate oneself from the presuppositions of one's heritage? "