Compassionate Speech: Anekāntavāda as an Antidote to Polarization

Jan 21, 2025
9:00 - 10:00 AM PST
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Presenter: Jeffery D. Long, Professor of Religion, Philosophy, and Asian Studies, Elizabethtown College

Dr. Jeffery D. Long is the Carl W. Zeigler Professor of Religion, Philosophy, and Asian Studies at Elizabethtown College, in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, where he has taught since receiving his PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School in the year 2000. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of twelve books, including Hinduism in America: A Convergence of Worlds, which won the Rajinder and Jyoti Gandhi Award for Excellence in Theology, Philosophy, and Critical Reflection from the Dharma Academy of North America in 2022. His latest book is Discovering Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist Thought. His work focuses primarily on the religions and philosophies of India, mainly the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist traditions, and on such themes as nonviolence, pluralism and its metaphysical foundations, the pedagogy of teaching Indic traditions in a Western context, religion and popular culture, and the concept of rebirth. In 2021, he received an award from the International Ahimsa Foundation for his efforts to promote nonviolence through scholarship. In the same year, he received the Ranck Award for Research Excellence from Elizabethtown College. He has spoken three times at the United Nations and appears in documentaries for PBS and the History Channel.

Compassionate Speech: Anekāntavāda as an Antidote to Polarization
An essential element of compassion–which can be defined as a practice of empathy rooted in the insight that all beings are deeply interconnected–is an awareness of the central role that the beliefs and worldviews of people play in their sense of self. Even if we find that we disagree strongly with some, or even many, of the views held by another person, if we wish to engage with that person compassionately, it is vital that we understand why that person believes as they do. It is equally crucial to our own growth as beings on the spiritual path that we remain open to the truths perceived by others, even when those truths appear to conflict with the truths that we perceive ourselves. The Jain teaching of the anekānta, or multi-faceted nature of reality encourages us to practice speech that is compassionate, enabling us to engage with the worldviews of others not as rivals to our own or as false views in need of refutation, but as potential elements in a wider truth of which we are ourselves only partly aware. For all beings who have not attained omniscience, the proper attitude when engaging with the views of others is humility and openness to learning new things, as well as a willingness to share our own insights when these are welcome. Anekāntavāda can thus serve as an antidote to the violent and uncompassionate polarization that currently afflicts much human discourse. It can open the door to more compassionate and insightful speech, and a deeper dialogue across worldviews.