Living in a Violent, Broken World (2020)

Living in a Violent, Broken World Markus Spiske, www.pexels.com The Urgent Need for ‘Compassion Studies’ A Proposal For Those Interested in Starting a Course on ‘Compassion Studies’ M. Nadarajah

Work in Progress/Draft Version 1: August 2020 Living in a Violent, Broken World: The Urgent Need for ‘Compassion Studies’ is based on a contribution to a Delhi-based journal, Social Action, Vol.70(1), 2020, pp.32 – 54. The version here is modified and updated. This is work-in-progress towards a primer on compassion studies and a critique of society. Shared here for those who may be interested in starting a comprehensive course in ‘compassion studies’. This article offers a set of ideas to initiate a course development process. The course is articulated as 3 interconnected learning ecologies – social ecology of orientation, social ecology of suffering and social ecology of compassion. Dr. M. Nadarajah Chair Professor Xavier Centre for New Humanities and Compassion Studies Xavier University Bhubaneswar Odisha, India [email protected] [email protected] 2

Concerns Covid19 is teaching many critical and tough lessons about us and the societies we have built. It has shown us how fragile and broken the world is. It has also shown how unprepared we are to the inherent dangers in the world we have mindlessly created and continue to stubbornly sustain. We have paid very little attention to the warnings of the wiser amongst us. Also, to the facts and figures about our disastrous development highway. The façade of civilized modernity is breaking down. However silent we maybe, barbarity is upon us in many forms. We have created and live in ‘a violent, broken world’. Immense problems at the local, national, regional and global levels threaten us. They unfold in both spectacular as well as everyday social sites of human transactions. They are both social and ecological, pushing us towards civilisational collapse. But we walk around with a sophisticated blinker, developing even more sophisticated rationalisations. We keep doing the same thing, hoping that somehow the world will change for the better. We recycle the unsustainable futures of the so-called developed nations. We copy standards that may position us well in the market but not in the long-term survival of life on the planet as we know it. Consider. We have thousands of universities and academic institutions that continue to manage many ‘educational products’ to serve industries and governments. They run hundreds of thousands of academic programmes (structured knowledge packages that are globally copied, revised or recycled). We take part in hundreds of research initiatives and produce a continuous flow of reports. We organise a massive number of global, regional and national academic events involving enormous air and land travels. We passionately set up many local and global technical committees. And publishers all over the world aggressively publish and promote. Yet the world is and continues to be, in a colossal, deepening mess. We focus on leadership thoughtlessly – programmes, events, publications, eulogies etc. Yet many of our leaders, elected and otherwise, are pushing us towards the brink of ecological disasters or violent national and international conflicts. We need a soul-searching reflective pause. Very urgently. We need to accept the fact that we are not doing the right thing, or our disciplinary expert knowledge, the practices and technologies they promote, are just not good enough to take us to a peaceful, nurturing, humane future. The whole mainstream occupational edifice that industries, governments and universities promote and sustain in the name of ‘livelihood’ or careers in the present labour market seems to drastically challenge our effort to become more sustainable. Insane activities are generated for recording a positive GDP. We are all stuck in a path of pain, suffering, disaster and death for many. In an extremely unequal world, one powerful group amongst us drags the other. We also seem to think there is only one path to take us to our common future. We carelessly teach our students and children that ‘there-is-no-alternative’ (TINA) ideology. Despite many attempts to address global problems, there has been no significant relief. Politics, policies, economy and the media have created substantial havoc in the life of the people and planet. The issues we face have led to an ever-growing number of sites of pain and suffering, disaster and death across the globe. Increasingly, we encounter both material and moral crises as well as two critical ‘deficits’ – dialogue and compassion. Given these realities, how do we make sense of the situation we are in and reach out to the people and communities who need help, at both the everyday and structural levels? How do we genuinely and urgently usher in a future that is being threatened today by eco-civilisational collapse? 3

Making Some Sense of contexts today, compassion is a mode of Compassion political engagement both in the everyday or spectacular theatres of 1 (a) A critical question before us: how power. Narratives and acts of do we frame compassion and compassion compassion are indeed radical acts in studies to address it as a legitimate today’s grim political status quo. ‘academic’ field of study, research and practice. And, for such an area of (d) The reality of keeping ‘bodies in learning to eventually become a critical pain’ (a feature of neo-liberal late guide to individual action, community capitalism) is inherently intolerable. participation, public policy and political They evoke our need to respond in many practice. direct or indirect, private or public, usual or creative ways. They urge us to reach (b) There is a need today, to start with, to out to those already suffering or in find plausible reasons to engage with situations that could harm them. (This is compassion actively. It may be necessary applicable to both humans and non- to look at the world and accept the reality humans.) that we are increasingly ‘living ’in a violent, broken world which is the direct (e) The multi-faceted texture and result of our mindless decisions, multidimensionality of compassion lifestyles, occupations, and blind faith on unfold in many diverse ways, from the the ’cancerous’ growth-based personal to policies to the political, but development highway. We are living in a primarily opening us to suffering (of world where, for individual or structural Others) and a readiness to address it. It is reasons, there is the growing ‘distribution a motivational force that spurs many of of sites’ of pain and suffering, disaster us into private or public action. and death (also an ever-increasing ‘deficit ’of empathy, dialogue and (f) Compassion is the critical basis for compassion). our sense of solidarity and interconnectedness with all “non-I”, or (c) The growing fascist tendencies the “not-Self”, that we are all an integral globally is throwing at us yet another part of. Compassion presupposes mutual serious challenge. As many concerned security, safety, respect, well-being and persons, motivated by compassion happiness. We reach out because actively reach out to help others, they existentially, the growing social instances have been assaulted, mauled or worse, of pain, suffering and death may also assassinated. This reaching out to help visit us. We have no defense against others or address unsustainable structural meeting our periods of distress or situations, are actions that come to suffering. The real social suffering of the question the status quo and challenge Other becomes Self’s potential suffering powerful vested interests that sustain it. in the world. Very often, this is not about In a sense, continuing to maintain individuals but also communities. It is individual or masses of ‘bodies in pain’ also not just about humans but involves in unsustainable realities is the way the non-human beings too. system unfolds. It is part of its character and presents it as normal. Questioning it (g) Compassion transcends proximity or is a political risk, which brings along the familiarity of the suffering (unlike with it the danger of censure, threats, empathy). The attention to the suffering imprisonment, torture or death. It is of the distant, the unfamiliar, the stranger essential to acknowledge that in many is the unique quality of compassion. In a

sense, it draws on our ability for victims? Are we advancing surveillance, “embodied imagination” of the bodily social control and ‘disciplining ’of suffering (body and mind) of the not- individuals and populations through a Self, near or distant, familiar or social ‘panopticon’? Is creating a unfamiliar and known or stranger. The sustained state of conflicts, wars, growth of the global “public sphere” and inequality, wants, destructive desires, global “media space” offers the insecurity the ways of the system we live opportunity to witness suffering in in? distant places. And, opportunities to (c) Do we need to rethink the way we respond. produce knowledge about the world we live in and the ways we respond to it? Do (h) The publicness of compassion we need to rethink the unsustainable presupposes an understanding that we are global occupational edifice that all equals, with rights and dignity. We industries, universities and governments are guided by social and ecological create and support? justice. It is essential to realise that rights (d) Are all these not a reflection of not from a compassionate perspective go only material but also moral crisis? beyond the immediate, the familiar and even the human world, recognising rights 3) (a) There are numerous signs of the of Nature. It is also important to ecological (mainly related to the understand that inherent in a biosphere) and civilisational collapse that compassionate orientation, is dialogue we have created on the path of our where the ‘I’ and ‘not I’ merge into growth-based development: (i) the global ‘trans-reality’ experience. eco-footprint in relations to the ‘Earth Overshoot Day ’(using more resources Compassion: Engaging in a Violent, then we are supposed to, measured on an Broken World annual basis), (ii) the categorical transgression of the nine planetary limits 2) (a) How do we make sense of the (out of 9, 4 have been broken), (iii) the world we live in today? Is this world increasing urgency of the “12-year” violent and broken? Has it put the whole timeline for ecological and civilisational of humanity, other sentient and non- collapse (warnings from the 2018 IPCC sentient beings in harm’s way? Isn’t the meeting in Seoul and the 2019 COP25 biosphere, which we and other living meeting in Madrid), (iv) the increasing beings are so dependent on under danger of mass victimisation in a world immense stress and constant destruction? moving to an era feeding male-volent Isn’t our growth-based development fascism and increasing instances of large liquidating Earth, filling our social scale displacement of peoples and environment with products and more genocides. products (along with a massive accumulation of harmful industrial (b) Fascist tendencies are on the rise. We toxins), encouraging us to endless are all in mortal danger since the consumption? We must have demand, character of fascism is to create ‘enemy and more demand, even if Earth is on communities’, slowly moving from the fire! now designated less-than-human Other to continuously differentiating the Self into (b) What are the ecological, social and “us” and them”. The contamination of psychological impacts of the broken, pure Self by “them” who are the less- violent world we live in on all of us? than-human enemy and the source of all Who are benefitting from it? Who are the problems. There is no safety or security 5

for anyone as fascism will eventually need very drastic interventions at every reach the destruction of Self in its endless level – personal, professional, policy and quest for the ‘pure’ Self and the less- political. We need a different story. than-human Other. It will be an era of endless, needless suffering. The initial (c) On what basis would reaching out to apathy shown towards the now those suffering at the individual or designated less-than-human Other by structural levels, in the mundane or those who think they are part of the Self, spectacular theatres of power, be a self- and therefore are safe, is a delusion and a affirming reality that also defines our recipe for a future of systematic, survival and flourishing as a species? inescapable suffering and death. How do we respond to the deep moral crisis that we are facing today? 4) (a) Living in a very ‘violent, broken world ’really means increased 5) Indeed, we have made life convenient geographical and socio-cultural sites of here and there. But many of these pain and suffering, destruction and death conveniences have come with a massive across the globe. We can see this cost to society and ecology. This is cost ‘brokenness ’(i) in biodiversity loss, (ii) that has an inter-generational career. increased extinction rate, (iii) forest Consciously, or carelessly, we have cover loss, (iv) loss of the living habitats continued to sustain the unviable neo- of indigenous peoples, (v) intensification liberal economic order. It has brought a of climatic events, (vi) increased menacing eco-socio-mess to our environmental toxins, (vii) increased doorstep. Collapsing biosphere, climate non-biodegradable wastes (along with e- emergency, extreme inequality, virulent waste), (viii) rising inequality, (ix) global fascism, weaponisation and increased assassinations, (x) growing militarisation of everyday life, genocides modern labour and sexual slavery, (xi) and ecocides are not just threats for a more refugees, (xii) increasing genocides locality but the whole world, not only for and ecocides, (xiii) more conflicts and this generation but across generations, wars, (xiv) growing ill-being, mental not only for human but all life. We are health and stress, suicides and living in an era of growing critical unhappiness and (xv) the growing fascist ‘deficits’ -- a world experiencing loss of socio-political form. And, today, with the empathy, mutuality, dialogical pandemic, we can see how broken our relationships, peaceful and inclusive food and public health delivery systems coexistence and, very importantly, a are. In fact, COVID19 has clearly compassionate ethos. The most important exposed how fragile and broken our question before us today is: how do we world is! systematically understand this loss and recover dialogue, empathy and (b) It has become a habit to look at and compassion (or empathetic compassion) address poverty as our “brokenness”. We to make them an integral part of our look for ways to alleviate it. But we need private and public lives, of the to realise that poverty and affluence are spectacular and the mundane? both part of the brokenness and have their trails of ill-health, social suffering 6 and death. Affluence is as much a social and ecological problem as poverty. We are told repeatedly the ‘rags to riches’ story without once telling us its environmental and social costs! All these

Obstacles to Growing Compassion: (c) We have thousands of universities Problematising’ Growth’ and and academic institutions and continue to ‘Disciplinarity’ manage many educational products and run hundreds of thousands of academic 6) Universally, we are faced with programmes. We take part in hundreds destructive desires in the form of two of research initiatives and produce a seductions: continuous flow of reports. We organise a massive number of global, regional and (a) the seduction of ‘growth’ (and more national academic events involving blind growth) and enormous air and land travel. We (b) the seduction of ‘disciplinarity’ (an passionately set up many local and global increasingly limiting historical mode of technical committees. And global and production of knowledge to understand local publishers aggressively publish and the eco-social complexity we live in). promote. Yet the world is and continues to be, in a colossal, deepening mess 7) (a) The desire for the first, growth, has endlessly threatening human civilisation. led to global ‘socio-economic cancer’ Perhaps we need to accept the fact that that we carelessly continue to feed. It is we are not doing the right thing, or our cancerous because it is growth for disciplinary expert knowledge and the growth sake. In the main, it has practices they promote, are just not good contributed to a violent and broken enough to take us to a better, more world. In the mainstream imagination of humane society. We are stuck in a self- growth, the increasing brokenness of the destructive path which is ironically world is just a part of the normal, which perceived, taught and promoted as can further be made to serve the heartless needed development. economy. The proposed solutions to our (d) With the poverty of imagination, we brokenness seem to come with more seem to think that there only one path we growth, with more demand and supply. can take to our collective, shared future. Even the Sustainable Development Goals Unfortunately, even many faith-based (SDGs) are based on growth and more educational initiatives are recycling the growth. Carelessly and quite naively, it ways of the corporate sector or the proposes to do away with poverty, developed nations. They are not setting inequality, conflicts and wars and all that the standard but instead are following the which contribute to human misery and punishing standards set by for-profit and suffering from more and more Earth profit-focused institutions. Profit is the liquidating growth! It is scary death wish. standard! (b) The desire for the second, (e) Unfortunately, disciplinarity is reified disciplinarity, which has also contributed and taken to be the ahistorical reality. to the broken world we live in today, is However, it is just another historical presented to us as a way of producing stage in our effort to produce knowledge privileged scientific knowledge that about ourselves, society and Nature. It helps us to make sense of and to design has assumed significant arrogance in the our society. It is the desire to be able to name of objectivity, hegemonic standards name, define and control the world on knowledge production and who has through privileged, expert knowledge, the right to do it. In a sense, it is produced directly or indirectly, within exclusive and imperialistic. Evaluating it the mainstream university framework carefully, it seems to present only a (which follows many global caricature of the ‘eco-social complexity’ standardizing procedures). we engage with in our everyday life. 7

(f) Disciplinarity and its institutional the knowledge they produce, the medium, the university, need to grow out mainstream careers they promote and the beyond what they are. There is no lifestyles they nurture on our ecology and sociology or economics or political society. Both disciplinarity and the science, etc. out there in the real world. university are certainly part of the global And, it is not a mechanical world with eco-social problems we acutely face clear black and white causes and effects. today. We need to recognise this urgently These are modern myths. We do not live and work towards its long-term trans- in a uni-dimensional, mechanical reality. formation. The complexity we are an integral part of h) Disconnected, fragmented, alienated, is deeply inter-connected and inter- and bureaucratised “disciplinary silo- dependent, multi-layered, multi- dom” submerges realities and make them functional, multi-media, multi-vocal, unavailable to our understanding and multi-directional, multi-temporal, multi- learning. It cannot offer a grounded, species, material, spiritual, and wholesome knowledge of such complex continuously ‘emergent’. Disciplinarity realities as trans-being, emotions, is just inadequate to understand this virtues, inter-being, spirituality, trans- complexity and its emergent character. realities, trans-faith, trans-gender, (g) We need to interrogate both sustainability, art, empathy, dialogue or disciplinarity and the university. We compassion, etc. To address these need to accept that they are certainly part realities, it must transgress its of the global eco-social problems we face boundaries. It does in becoming multi- or today. We must take into consideration interdisciplinary to go beyond its limited the glocal ecological footprint of approach to producing knowledge. To universities. The footprint of mainstream develop such areas as compassion, we universities is not just the material, i.e. need to go beyond disciplinarity. This the material resources consumed by the ‘primitive’ approach cannot make sense universities and their metabolism. It is of a complex inter-connected, trans- also tied to the social reproduction and media, trans-faith, inter-dependent, trans- ideological processes (in the name of layered, and multi-temporal reality. selling recycled knowledge packages, (i) University too has assumed a reified categorised into degrees and diplomas) status. Though it has the profound that create generations of students who potential to transform, the university, contribute to the acute problems that the which is in the main institutional form of world is facing today. This ‘university disciplinarity, is part of the global footprint’ (which is ideological in problem we face today. It is time to Nature) in terms of its programmes, rethink the university, its footprint and courses, and certificates has been the seduction of disciplinarity. disastrous to our eco-socio well-being. In Wholesome transgression of the name of offering a career, place and disciplinarity is the need of the times. future to students in the present global mainstream occupational structure and 8) Today, we are also certainly faced the hedonistic cultures supporting it with a crisis of imagination. We need to (including a wildly consumeristic one), seriously and consistently problematise we inject a disastrous viral practice that both growth and disciplinarity. Without infects the well-being of the biosphere to this first step, we cannot rethink our support life. It is essential that we future(s) or find lasting solutions to the critically examine the impact of the problems that are gaining the power to courses/programmes that universities destroy human civilisations in the way run, the thousands of graduating students, we know them. One cannot find a 8

solution with the same knowledge, certificates, manufacture numerous technologies and tools that produced the assembly lines of consumers (‘students’). civilisation-threatening problems in the Corporatised education is constantly first place. producing profitable futures for its survival by selling all kinds of 9) We will not really understand the knowledges packages as education. social and ecological complexity we live in today by using the present mode of 11) Alternative pathways are unfolding knowledge production and all the to the above historical stage in human technologies around it, which we have learning. For instance, another approach developed. We continue to make critical to learning and social evolution is the decisions based on the limited knowledge growth of alternative multiversities. produced by disciplinarity. It is not Critical notions such as deschooling, enough or helpful. And unfortunately, we decolonisation and conscientisation are not ready to acknowledge this serious influence this development. It is problem before us. University or primarily a movement in the developing university associated knowledge world, questioning the hegemony of producers have become hegemonic, western knowledge, its production setting the standards and criteria for what practices and its universities. It knowledge is, what it is not and who can challenges the culture and tyranny of the and cannot produce it. All kinds of expert and their hegemonic approaches. regulatory and promotional bodies are at It attempts to recapture indigenous work to ensure this is maintained and traditions of engaging with Nature, reproduced. By these mindless strictures, Society and knowledge production we have only marginalised deep cultures practices. Its approach goes beyond of practice, vast collections of disciplinarity. It is closer to inter- knowledge, large terrains of realities and disciplinarity or transdisciplinarity. i. All numerous sustainable pathways to the these have led to thinking about new future. We are certainly missing options institutional forms, namely ‘multiversity’ for our survival and flourishing. The and ‘transversity’. Learning social seduction of growth, disciplinarity and ecologies need drastic changes and new technology are all putting us in harm’s institutional forms for us to survive and way. flourish. 10) The disciplinary mode of engaging 12) In combination, this entire new with the world and production of architecture of learning offers a much knowledge has schooled successive needed ‘disruption’ of the way we generations. Learning, within this social engage with the world. It is not ecology, has transformed into education disruption for more technology, more and education into an industry. growth and a new round of aggressive Universities have become ‘knowledge capital accumulation and profit-making. factories’ with ‘productivisation’ of It is not a disruption to grow indefinitely disciplinarity-based knowledge packages and mindlessly. It is one to reclaim our on sale as courses in the effort to sell interdependentness, inclusivity, inter- learning. A pervasive network of national being, wholeness, humanity, and and international institutions and compassion. It is a pathway out of our bureaucracies, including ranking material and moral crises and way to the agencies, make universities, and their ‘new humanities’. marketable knowledge packages, offered Back to the Basics: Can we Re-Orient? as the ‘career currencies’ of degrees and 9

13) The struggle against growth and material possessiveness and product line disciplinarity is a difficult one. We need expansionism? We look at the ‘culture of to raise fundamental questions to re- sustainability’ not, just the ‘culture of imagine. Will we ‘wake up’? Can we economic growth’? We look at stop and turn back? Can we re-look, re- indigenous elders, not just the examine our assumptions? Can we take a professional experts? We look at ‘u-turn’? Can we go ‘underground’ and spirituality not, just religion? We look at look for ‘subterranean’ pathways? Can Other-centeredness, not just Self- we get off ‘the highway’? Can we re- centeredness? We look at our other- imagine, rethink? Can we rewrite the directed compassionate foundation, not stories to live by? Can we let go? Can we our self-directed competitive, ‘what’s in identify and associate with other it for me’ mindset? We look out for all, ‘categories’ of knowledge producers? not just our kin or kind (or species). Can we create genuine and counter- (b) Efforts in addressing and answering hegemonic narratives, new stories of these questions should help us rethink authentic development to live by? Can our education and the ‘decosmologised’ we mindfully re-examine the basics? Can worldview(s) we are imprisoned in. we be cosmological in our imagination, Among other things, it is a pathway to thinking and being? help us position compassion studies. 14) (a) Specifically, can: We look at Compassion Studies: Proposal for a causes, not just symptoms? We look at Systematic Learning Ecology being, not just having? We look at the maximum wage, not just the minimum 15) (a) There is a need to respond to our wage? We look at affluence, not just present challenges, problems, dangers poverty? We look at labour, not just and promise. We need to move away capital? We look at people, not just the from disciplinarity to inter-disciplinarity profit? We look at value-creating culture, to transdisciplinarity. And we need to not just the economy? We look at Nature, transform our universities and its not just humanity? We look at faculties over time to multiversities to temporalities not, just ‘spatialities’? We transversities. We have to find ways back look at the ecology of and closer to Nature. Only through these interconnectedness, not just individuating pathways can we nurture the growth of separate existence? We look at critical new integrative trans-knowledge and followership, not just leadership? We wholesome, authentic learning look at health and well-being, not just the practices/ecologies. It is a proposal of a medico-pharmaceutical industry? We new cosmological way of being. look at wholesome nourishment, not just (b) One of the critical aims should be to the food industry? We look at engage with not just university agroecology, not just the agrochemical knowledge producers but also all other industry? We look at mobility, not just non-academic knowledge co-producers. the transportation industry? We look at In particular, we have a lot to learn from making peace and not instigating wars the elders of many endangered and profiting from them? We look at indigenous communities. We also need to learning, not just schooling and the establish a serious and profound education industry? We look at dialogue between mainstream science appropriate technologies, not just smart and arts to transcend the limitations of technologies? We look at sustainable disciplinarity. In creating new pathways livelihood not just ‘rags to riches’ and nurturing counter or anti-colonial careers? We look at minimalism not just narratives to live by, authentic artistic 10

imagination goes beyond its present 16) (a) The Deschooling is a structured high-society entertainment, or effort that needs to be nurtured by edutainment, functions. Equally, we decolonisation and conscientisation, should not shy away from inclusive and transformative learning processes and engaged spirituality. The sacred and critical civic engagement. deschooling secular are artificial creations that need project is more than a material project. It to be bridged and overcome. And is also a political, moral and spiritual seriously, we need to address the global movement as well as a dematerialisation business and bureaucracy (the “bu-bu”) project. By interrogating and challenging assault on humanities (and social unexamined assumptions of our learning sciences) and rebuild it as ‘New and being, transformative learning Humanities’. practices will prepare us to examine the (c) If we want to survive on impact of the dominant, often Mother/Sister Earth and build a vibrant exploitative or alienating, structures on self-conscious, trans-disciplinary, trans- our choices, lifestyles and conscience. It faith inclusive society, we need to be would also interrogate the unexamined open to the enriching ways New assumptions of the taken-for-granted Humanities will offer the future to us. world our learning is based on and taking We need to revisit and engage with the place. ‘ecological and social’ complexity, grow (b) The foundational edifice of the new transdisciplinary areas of learning unsustainable world we have so and set up an all-together a dynamic carelessly and mindlessly built with all social infrastructure for generating new its institutional scaffolding, including the livelihoods. Truth and reconciliation, university, needs to go through a dialogue, peace, socially engaged ‘metamorphosis’ into a completely spirituality, trans-faith, indigeneity, different one. The ‘social caterpillar’ is animality, nature rights, femininity, post- ready to become a butterfly. Will we development, post-humanity, empathy allow it? and compassion among others would (c) We need to reclaim our cosmological have to become a regular part of a new orientation, genuine animality and language serving a new learning ecology. compassionate humanity. Only then will In the long run, we must not forget to we be able to generate deschooled, take the liberating potential of decolonised, disruptive new stories, new transdisciplinarity as historical and not narratives, and new futures. Maybe then reify it too to make it ahistorical. We we will have a fighting chance at deeply need to go beyond that frame of mind. repairing the world we have broken. And (d) We need to do one important thing: set a new course, a new regenerative actively and systematically deschool and Japanese art of kintsugi. decolonise society from the ‘seduction’ of growth and disciplinarity. The forces Proposed Content for a Course on of growth and disciplinarity will resist, Compassion criticise and demonise such efforts just as how the climate deniers have funded, 17) (a) There are growing pathways in denied and demonised those who addressing the civilisational challenges educated us to transborder climate we are faced with. It is within this problems emerging from anthropogenic nourishing desire to seek a lasting causes. Our effort to introduce new solution; a proposal for compassion humanities and a transdisciplinary studies is being made. It is being approach to knowledge creation practices proposed as a critique of growth, is inherently a critical political stand. disciplinarity and the university form. It 11

is a proposal to address a world where •The Dialogical Method there is a critical ‘deficit ’of •Reflection/Contemplation/Meditation cosmological thinking, empathy, •Transdisciplinarity and the Eco-Social dialogue and compassion. It is also Complexity proposed to heal the fragmentary •Transdisciplinarity and Ecology of the knowledge silos created by disciplinarity. Future (b) In the proposed version, the course •The ‘Framing’ Approach to Analysis: content will have 3 cluster areas or focus Mindfulness and Reading the Signs of on helping us understand and nurture the Times compassion: Social Ecology of •Challenging Assumptions and Orientation (Theory, Methodology and Transformative Learning Practice), Social Ecology of Suffering •Critical Civic Engagement and and Social Ecology of Compassion. The Citizenship, first cluster/focus is basically the •Critical Followership and Leadership grounding of compassion studies in •Global Public Virtues, Values and transdisciplinarity, transformative Meanings learning and critical civic engagement •Socially-Engaged Spirituality through the process covering •Cosmos, Nature and Our Animality deschooling, decolonisation and •Social Evil and Dystopia conscientisation. The second •Localism, Nationalism and cluster/focus is to deeply understand the Cosmopolitanism social structures that give rise to the •Arts, Sciences, Cosmology and Different many social sites of pain, suffering, Modes of Thinking disasters and death. And lastly, the third •Counter-Hegemonic, Anti-Colonial cluster/focus is to recover/reclaim our Narratives/Counter-Narratives compassionate nature and genuinely •Indigeneity and Femininity engage with it at all levels, inclusive of Frameworks the private and public levels. •New Glossaries, New Worlds, New Ways (c) The course on compassion is to help of Being young people to grow and nurture a new •Rethinking University, Imagining sense of being-in-the-world. The present Multiversity and Transversity ‘version ’of the specific content of the 3 •Alternative Pathways: Charters, focus areas below can be further Planetary Futures and Social Utopias rationalised, developed and structured in •Reimaging Eco-Social Complexity/ many ways as per needs and structuring Exploring New Ecologies of Learning, formats. •‘Compassion Studies’ Cluster/Focus 1: Social Ecology of Cluster/Focus 2: Social Ecology of Orientation (Theory, Method and Practice) Suffering •Why Do We Need to Rethink •Examining Global and National Humanities? Statistics on Social and Ecological •Moving Away from Corporatised Trends Education and the “Bu-Bu Approach” •Interrogating Neo-Liberalism, Capitalist •Human, Humanism, Post-Humanism Development, Sustainable Development •Methodology, Praxiology and Dialogism and Economic Growth/Political •Deschooling, Decolonialisation and Economy Conscientisation •The Body in Pain and Dystopias •Political Economy •The Human World: Inequality, Poverty, Affluence, Retail and Structural Violence, Health, Genocides 12

•The Non-Human World: Biosphere •Femininity, Indigeneity and Ethics of Destruction/Ecological Care/’Animal Stdies’ Disasters/Wars/Ecocides •Discipleship, Critical Followership and •Geopolitics and Violence Leadership •Panopticon, Surveillance and Control •Compassion, Citizenship, Governance •Nationalism, Nazism and Fascism and the Policy Environment •Climate and Eco-Fascism •Media, Public Sphere, and Distant •Migrants, Refugees, Human Trafficking, Suffering and Modern Slavery •Creative Arts, Meaningful Art and •‘Nature-Deficiency’ and Ecopsychology Compassion •Occupation, Meaninglessness and Stress •Exploring Social Teachings of World •Food, Market and Industrial Agriculture Religions •Market, Consumerism, Health and •Compassion in World Modern Diseases Religious/Spiritual Traditions •Interrogating Conflicts, Wars, Arms •Compassion in Contemplative Humanist Industry, Weaponisation and the Traditions Military •Models of Compassionate Practice •Torture, Assassinations, Genocides and Ecocides Are We Ready To Go a Step Beyond? •Interrogating Socialism and Violence •Ethics and the Future of Pain, Suffering, 18) (a) The attempt above is basically to Disaster and Death ‘frame and position ’a learning ecology for compassion studies. A new academic Cluster/Focus 3: Social Ecology of architecture ’is proposed to promote a learning ecology that basically questions Compassion disciplinarity and the mainstream university institutional form. It also •Understanding Compassion, its examines the mindless economic growth Varieties and Cultures model our societies are based on, which •Key Thinkers / Practitioners intimately influences the modern •Key Concepts/ Theories university and its knowledge-producing •Exploring Humane Virtues, Values and activities. Such activities follow invasive Meaning Structures dissection of reality, the privileging of •Contemplation and Meditation certain realities, neglect or submerging of •Mindfulness others and complete blindness to yet •Beyond TINA/Rethinking Development: others. The integrity of a rich and Alternative Narratives/Post- complex whole is carelessly lost. We Development/Post Materialism have also violently separated ourselves •Exploring Worldviews/Indigenous from each other and Nature. We have Cosmologies of Development/Utopia encouraged a lifestyle that depends on a •Alternative Economic Theories and disastrous global occupational Practice/Degrowth/Public and infrastructure that persistently contributes Common Good to and sustains global problems. The •Civil Society Movements, Civil ecological footprint of the totality of Disobedience, and Humanitarian universities is deeply troubling, Intervention problematic and unsustainable. •Urbanisation and the Architecture of Compassion (b) The new social architecture based on •Peace, Reconciliation, Trust, Mutuality compassion will be governed by efforts and Inclusive Coexistence at deschooling and decolonisation to go •Sustainable Cultures and Socially beyond growth and disciplinarity, guided Engaged Spirituality 13

by transformative learning and the integral part of the new academic transdisciplinary approach. It aims to architecture, opens up a whole new world look not at a minutely dissected reality, including compassion for exploration and one not ‘out there ’but one in which we human flourishing. are all intimately interconnected and integrated. ‘New Humanities’, which an • Angela Hilmi, Agroecology: Reweaving a New Landscape i There is a growing body of knowledge on (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, this. \"Trans\" means to “zigzag back and 2018) forth, to cross over, to go beyond, to transcend borders and boundaries. While • Ashish Kothari, Ariel Salleh, interdisciplinarity is focused on blurring or Arturo Escobar, Federico dismantling the boundaries between Demaria and Alberto Acosta disciplines (within the university system), (eds.), Pluriverse: A Post- transdisciplinarity (TD) strives to remove the Development Dictionary (New boundaries between higher education and the Delhi: Tulika Books, 2019) rest of the world, to solve the problems of the world”. See footnote 24. See Charter of • Ashish Nandy, Traditions, Transdisciplinarity here: Tyranny and Utopias: Essays in http://inters.org/Freitas-Morin-Nicolescu- the Politics of Awareness (New Transdisciplinarity. Oct. 2019. Delhi: OUP, 1987) Selected Readings • Ashok Vajpeyi (ed.), India Dissents: 3000 Years of • Agnes Heller, Everyday Life Difference, Doubt and Argument (London, RKP, 1984) (New Delhi: Speaking Tiger, 2017) • Alain Berto, The Age of Violence: The Crisis of Political Action and • Atsuko Matsuoko and John the End of Utopia, Tr. By David Sorenson (eds), Critical Animal Broder (London: Verso, 2018) Studies: Towards Trans-Species Social Justice (London: Rowman • Alex Callinicos, An Anti- & Littlefield, 2018) Capitalist Manifesto ((Cambridge: Policy, 2003) • Azeem Ibrahim, The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden • Alison Rios Millett McCartney, Genocide (New Delhi: Speaking Elizabeth A. Bennion and Dick Tiger, 2017) Simpson (eds.) Teaching Civic Engagement: From Student to • Bangkok Forum 2018, Active Citizen (Washington: Integrating Knowledge for Social American Political Science Sustainability Proceedings Association, 2013) (Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University, 2018), pp. 106-07 • Allan Kellehear, Compassionate Cities: Public Health and End-of- • Basarab Nicolescu and Atila life Care ( London: Routledge, Ertas (eds.), Transdisciplinary 2008) Education, Philosophy, & Applications (Lubbock: The • Allen F. Repco, Rick Szostak & Atlas, 2014) Michelle Phillips Buchberger, Introduction to Interdisciplinary • Benjamin B. Page (ed.), Marxism Studies (New Delhi: Sage, 2017) and Spirituality: An International Anthology (London: Bergin & • Andre Gorz, Ecologica (Calcutta: Garvey, 1993) Seagull, 2010) 14

• Bertell Ollman, Alienation: • Doug Morris, “Pedagogy in Marx’s Conception of Man in Catastrophic Times: Giroux and Capitalist Society (Cambridge: the Tasks of Critical Public CUP, 1076). Intellectuals” Policy Futures In Education, Vol. 10 (6), 2012, pp. • Bronislaw Szerszynski, Nature, 647 – 664. Technology and the Sacred (London: Blackwell, 2005) • David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology (New • Brian Baxter, Ecologism: An York: Vintage Books, 2011). Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, • Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: 1999) Create a Better Life (London: Penguin Books, 2005) • Christiane Struckmann, “A Postcolonial Feminist Critique of • Edmund O'Sullivan, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Transformative Learning: Development: A South African Educational Vision for the 21st application”, Agenda, 32:1, pp. Century (London: Zed Books, 12-24, 2018 1999) • Claude Alvarez (ed.), • Egon Becker and Thomas Jahn Multiversity: Freeing Children (eds.), Sustainability and the From the Tyranny of Schooling, Social Sciences: A Cross Bringing Colour Back Into Disciplinary Approach to Academic Studies (Goa: Other integrating Environmental India Bookstore, 2004) Consideration Into Theoretical Re-orientation (London: Zed • Claude Alvarez, “Launching the Books, 1999) Multiversity”, http://www.swaraj.org/multiversit • Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: y/ideamultiversity.htm Oct. 2019. The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford: OUP, 1985) • Claude Alvares and Shad Saleem Faruqi (eds), Decolonising the • Felix Wilfred, Theology for an University: The Emerging Quest Inclusive World (Delhi: Indian for Non-Eurocentric Paradigms Society for Promoting Christian (Penang: University Sains Knowledge, 2019) Malaysia, 2012). • Filip Spagnoli, The Neo- • Claude Alvarez (ed.), Communist Manifesto (New Multicultural Knowledge and the York: Algora Publishing, 2010) University (Penang: Citizen International, 2014) • Fumio Sasaki, Goodbye, Things: On Minimalist Living (London: • Charles W. Smith, A Critique of Penguin Books, 2017) Sociological Reasoning: An Essay in Philosophical Sociology • Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979) the Earth (London: Penguin, 1967) • Dalai Lama, Ancient Wisdom, Modern World: Ethics for the • Frederic Darbellay, “From New Millennium (London: Disciplinarity to Abacus, 2001) Postdisciplinarity: Tourism Studies Dedisciplined”, Tourism • Dario Martinelli, Arts and Analysis, Vol. 2, 2016: pp.363 – Humanities in Progress: A 372, Manifesto for Numanities (Cham: Springer, 2016) 15

• Giacoma D’Alisa, Frederico united-nations-encyclical-sdgs. Demaria & Giorgos Kallis (eds.), Nov. 2018 Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a • Jairus Banaji (ed.), Fascism: New Era (London: Routledge, Essays on Europe and India 2015) (Gurgaon: Three Essays Collective, 2016) • Gregory Claeys, Dystopia: A • James Garvey, The Ethics of Natural History: A Study of Climate Change: Right and Modern Despotism, Wrong in a Warming World (London: Continuum, 2008) • Its Antecedents, and Its Literary • Jenny Donovan, Designing The Diffractions (Oxford: OUP, 2017) Compassionate City: Creating Places Where People Thrive • Greta Thunberg tough message to (New York: Routledge, 2018) world leaders in 2019: • Johan Goudsblom and Stephen https://www.theguardian.com/env Mennell (eds.), The Norbert Elias ironment/video/2019/sep/23/greta Reader ((Oxford: Blackwell, -thunberg-to-world- leaders-how- 1998) dare-you-you-have-stolen-my- • John E. Carroll, Sustainability dreams-and-my-childhood-video. and Spirituality (Albany: State University of New York Press, • Hannah Arendt, The Human 2004) Condition (Chicago: The • Josephine Donovan and Carol University of Chicago Press, Adams (ed.), The Feminist Care 1958) Tradition in Animal Ethics (New York: Columbia University Press, • Harsh Mander, Looking Away: 2007) Inequality, Prejudice and • Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Indifference in New India (New Transformation of the Public Delhi: Speaking Tiger, 2015) Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society • Ira Rabois, Compassionate (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Critical Thinking (Lanham: Press, 1991) Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) • Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP, • Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society 2002) (New York: Harper & Row, • Linda Tuhiwai Smith, 1970). Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous People • J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. (London: Zed Press, 2004) Ames (eds.), Nature in Asian • Lisa Feldman Barrett, How Traditions of Thought: Essays in Emotions are Made: The Secret Environmental Philosophy Life of the Brain (London: (Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, Macmillan, 2018) 1989) • M. Nadarajah, Culture, Gender and Ecology: Beyond Workerism • Jason Hickel, ‘The Problem with (New Delhi: Rawat Publications, Saving the World’, Jacobin. 1999) https://www.jacobinmag.com/201 ”5/08/global-poverty-climate- 16 change-sdgs/ . Nov. 2018 • Jason Hickel, “The Pope Vs the UN: Who will Save the World First?” The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/glo bal-development-professionals- network/2015/jun/23/the- pope-

• M. Nadarajah, Living Pathways: Political World (Boulder: Meditations on Sustainable Paradigm Publishers, 2010) Cultures and Cosmologies in Asia • Michel Foucault, Discipline and (Penang: Areca Books, 2014); Punish: The Birth of the Prison (London: Penguin, 1977) • M. Nadarajah, “UN Sustainable • Michel Foucault, The Archeology Development Goals: Hijacking of Knowledge (New York: our Compassion for the World”, Vintage, 1982) Aliran, Jan 2019. • Michael Mayerfeld Bell and Michael Gardiner (eds.), Bakhtin • Marshall b. Rosenberg, and the Human Sciences: No Last Nonviolent Communication: A Words (New Delhi: Sage Language of Life (Indore: Banyan Publications, 1998) • Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, Islam Tree Publishers, 2017) on Mercy and Compassion (London: Minhaj-ul-Quran • Martha C. Nussbaum, Not For Publication, 2013) Profit: Why Democracy Needs • Natan Sznaider, The the Humanities (Princeton: Compassionate Temperament: Princeton University Press, 2010) Care and Cruelty in Modern Society (London: Rowman & • Maria Mies and Veronika Littlefield, 2001) Bennholdt-Thomsen, The • Nazia Erum, Mothering a Subsistence Perspective: Beyond Muslim: The Dark Secret in Our the Globalised Economy (New Schools and Playgrounds (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999) Delhi: Juggernaut Books, 2017) • Oliver Albert Matikainen, • Mark Langan, “The UN “Sustaining the One- Sustainable Development Goals Dimensional: An Ideology and Neo-Colonialism” in Neo- Critique of Agenda 2030 and the SDGs”, Master Thesis in Colonialism and the Poverty of Sustainable Development 'Development' in Africa (Cham: 2019/24, University of Uppsala Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. • Owen M. Lynch (ed.), Divine 177 – 205. Passions: The Social Construction of Emotion in India • Matt Hern, Everywhere All the (Delhi: OUP, 1990) Time: A New Deschooling Reader • Paul Bloom, Against Empathy: (Oakland: AK Press, 2008) The Case for Rational Compassion (New York: • Matthieu Ricard, Altruism: The HarperCollins Publishers, 2016) Science and Psychology of • Paul Gilbert, Compassion: Kindness (London: Atlantic Concepts, Research and Books, 2013) Applications (London: Routledge, 2017) • McGregor, S. L. T., & • Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Volckmann, R., “Transversity: Oppressed (New York: Herder Transdisciplinarity in Higher and Herder, 1971) Education” in G. Hampson & M. Rich- Tolsma (eds.), Leading 17 Transformative Higher Education (Olomouc, Czech Republic: Palacky University Press, 2013), pp. 58- 81. • Michele Micheletti & and Andrew S. McFarland (eds.), Creative Participation: Responsibility-Taking in the

• Paul Gilbert and Choden, Mindful Accounts (New York: Routledge, Compassion: Using the Power of 2013) Mindfulness and Compassion to • Saral Sarkar, Eco-socialism or Transform Our Lives (London: Eco-Capitalism: A Critical Constable and Robinson, 2014) Analysis of Humanity’s Fundamental Choices ((London: • Peter Bazalgette, The Empathy Zed Books, 1999) Instinct: How to Create a More • Severn Cullis-Suzuki message to Civil Society (London: John world leaders in 2008. Murray Publisher, 2017) • https://weightofsilence.wordpress .com/2008/06/23/the-girl-who- • Peter Hitchcock, Dialogics of the silenced-the-un-for-five- Oppressed (Minneapolis: minutes/. Oct. 2019 University of Minnesota, 1993) • Swami Agnivesh, Applied Spirituality: A Spiritual Vision for • Philip Lymbery & Isabel the Dialogue of Religion (Noida: Oakeshott, Farmageddon: The Harper Collins, 2015) True Cost of Meat (London: • T. Storm Heter, Sartre's Ethics of Bloomsbury, 2014) Engagement: Authenticity And Civic Virtue • Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The • London: Continuum, 2006); Phenomenon of Man (New York: • Thich Nhat Hanh, Love Letter to Harper Perennial, 2008) the Earth (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2013) • Pope Francis, Little Book of • Thomas Weber, Gandhi, Compassion: The Essential Gandhism and the Gandhians Reading (London: HarperCollins, (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2006) 2017) • Tony Jorg, New Thinking in Complexity for the Social • Pope Francis, Laudato Si: On Sciences and Humanities: A Care for Our Common Home Generative, Transdisciplinary (Singapore: Catholic Bishops Approach (Cham: Springer, Conference, 2015) 2011) Ricard Wolin, The Seduction of • United Nations, Civic Unreason: The Intellectual Engagement in Public Policies: A Romance With Fascism From Toolkit (New York: United Nietzsche to Postmodernism Nations, 2007) (Princeton: Princeton University • Wallapa van Willenswaard (ed.), Press, 2004) Mindful Markets: Producer- Consumer Partnerships Towards • Roberto Marchesini, Over the a New Economy (Bangkok: Human: Post-Humanism and the Garden of fruition, 2015) Concept of Animal Epiphany, Tr. • William J. Bennett (ed.), The By Sarah De Sanctis (Cham: Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Springer, 2017) Great Moral Stories (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993) • Roman Krznaric, Empathy: A Handbook for Revolution 18 (London: Rider, 2014) • Sajay Samuel, Beyond Economics and Ecology: The Radical Thought of Ivan Illich (New York: Marion Boyars, 2013) • Samuel Totten and William S. Parsons (eds.), Centuries of Genocide: Essays and Eyewitness

• Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons • Zygmunt Bauman and Leonidas for the 21st Century (London: Donskis, Moral Blindness: The Jonathan Cape, 2018) Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity, • Ulrich Beck, The Metamorphosis 2013) of the World (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2016) • Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow ((London: Vintage, 2015) 19

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