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| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +title: "Unspoken Paradigms: Meanderings Through the Metaphors of a Field" |
| 3 | +authors: |
| 4 | + - "Luis O. Gómez" |
| 5 | +external_url: "https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8835" |
| 6 | +source_url: "http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/14107/" |
| 7 | +drive_links: |
| 8 | + - "https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BZEonaxkD5atZXv9348-xHwCjFCcSBLv/view?usp=drivesdk" |
| 9 | +course: academic |
| 10 | +tags: |
| 11 | + - humanities |
| 12 | +year: 1995 |
| 13 | +month: dec |
| 14 | +journal: jiabs |
| 15 | +publisher: "Heidelberg University" |
| 16 | +volume: 18 |
| 17 | +number: 2 |
| 18 | +pages: "183--230" |
| 19 | +openalexid: W2269661078 |
| 20 | +--- |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +> We provide our audience, in fact, with a variety of mirrors. This is the service of scholarship. |
| 23 | +
|
| 24 | +> No one among |
| 25 | +us can predict, much less legislate, the future of appropriate or meaningful |
| 26 | +language—to do so would be to claim individual property rights over |
| 27 | +something that is useful and valuable only because it cannot be owned by |
| 28 | +individuals. Like the single true text, the single appropriate expression is |
| 29 | +only a fiction, a fantasy created by our desire to control the authority of |
| 30 | +the sacred word. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +> We would be well advised, therefore, to open the field to alternative |
| 33 | +models, but to do so with constant watchfulness. There is no single alternative method |
| 34 | +that will solve our problems. |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | +> More common among contemporary scholars is the role of the anti-priest: the guardian of "secular authority." I do not refer here to the |
| 37 | +common iconoclasm directed at the consecrated work of other scholars, |
| 38 | +rather, I refer to the scholar's interest in undermining the authority of the |
| 39 | +tradition he or she studies. Seldom is this role part of the scholars public role. The motives remain a mystery to me, but it is clear that it is polite to |
| 40 | +pretend that scholarship is perfectly neutral. We would advance considerably if we stopped once and for all the pretense that our |
| 41 | +scholarship is never inimical to Buddhist belief and practice. |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | +> On the one hand, the scholar denies his roles |
| 44 | +as literary creator and craftsman, on the other hand he or she claims to be |
| 45 | +"original." On the one hand, the scholar elevates his role to that of the |
| 46 | +primary creator (devaluating the standpoint of the voices he is claiming to |
| 47 | +report), on the other, he or she skirts the responsibilities that come with |
| 48 | +usurping the primary voice. |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +> Humanistic scholarship stands in a no-man's land between tradition and |
| 51 | +criticism, between community and individual preferences. It cannot seek |
| 52 | +and cannot lead to agreement. The greatest mistake we can make is to try |
| 53 | +to be the fabled "last man" who has "the last word". Our role vis a vis community is not one of deciding the issues |
| 54 | +once and for all but one of keeping more than one voice alive. |
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