Journal of Dharma

THE PULSE OF POWER IN SPIRITUAL DIPLOMACY

2025-09-21T07:11:02+00:00

As power is often understood in hard terms—military might, economic leverage, political negotiation, we need to realize that beneath these visible structures, there beats another current: the pulse of power in spiritual diplomacy. It is less noisy than summits and less dramatic than sanctions, but it carries a subtle force that can reshape relationships and heal wounds where conventional diplomacy fails. Spiritual diplomacy does not deny the reality of politics; rather, it seeks to transform it. Its language is not one of coercion but of conscience, not of domination but of dialogue. When the prophet Isaiah envisions nations beating their swords into ploughshares, he is describing nothing less than diplomacy animated by spirit—a covenantal politics where humanity’s deepest yearnings for peace take precedence over its shallowest instincts for conquest. The pulse of power in spiritual diplomacy does not throb in clenched fists but in open hands. Think of the gentle authority of Mahatma Gandhi, who negotiated with empires through fasting rather than force, or the moral courage of Martin Luther King Jr., who shifted the American conscience through the cadence of a sermon rather than the command of a state. Their power lay not in weapons but in witness, not in threats but in truth

WATCHING AND BEING WATCHED: POWER, SURVEILLANCE AND AGENCY WITHIN THE DEVADASI SYSTEM

2025-09-21T07:28:42+00:00

This article explores the devadasi system in India through the dual thoughts of Michael Foucault’s Panopticism and Agency Theory, examining how power dynamics and social control mechanisms were both enforced and resisted. The devadasi system, originally a revered religious practice, evolved into a complex structure of exploitation and marginalization, where women dedicated to temple service were subjected to pervasive surveillance and disciplinary practices. By applying Panopticism, this study reveals how the British administrators and the nationalists maintained strict control over devadasis, ensuring their subjugation within the social hierarchy. Simultaneously, Agency Theory illuminates how devadasis challenged these oppressive structures, asserting their autonomy in subtle but significant ways. This analysis not only deepens our understanding of the devadasi system but also contributes to broader discussions on the intersections of power, control and agency in marginalized communities. The study also highlights the importance of examining historical systems of oppression through critical and theoretical frameworks to uncover both the mechanisms of control and the resilience of those subjected to them

THE THERAPEUTIC POWER OF MUSIC IN CONTEMPORARY CHINESE SOCIETY

2025-09-21T07:38:14+00:00

Musicality is a vital practice for becoming the voice of the voiceless in marginalized communities. It extends beyond instruments merely labelled as drums and bells, embodying instead the art of restoring harmony to a broken world. This paper argues that musicology, in any cultural setting, offers a profound pathway toward social prosperity. Unlike contemporary Western music, Chinese musical traditions are deeply rooted in a selfless aspiration to exemplify moral and cultural excellence through performance. This research explores how music fosters hope, healing, and peace, particularly through the act of attentive listening. It examines methods of cultivating harmony via musicology, engaging with the diverse artistic expressions found in the Chinese context. The study traces the historical foundations of Chinese music, drawing upon literary sources—especially those informed by Confucian principles—and evaluates the balance between theory and practice within this tradition. Emphasis is placed on practice as the transformative element, surpassing mere theoretical engagement. Finally, the discussion turns to the challenges of the technological age, where a blurred, fragmented world compels reimagining musicology not merely as academic inquiry but as a therapeutic and transformative practice capable of renewing hope, fostering healing and nurturing peace.

THEORIZING THE GHIBLI EFFECT: A CRITIQUE OF AI, AESTHETIC THEFT AND THE CRISIS OF AUTHORSHIP IN THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

2025-09-21T07:45:46+00:00

This article theorizes The Ghibli Effect, a techno-cultural phenomenon where generative AI simulates the visual style of Studio Ghibli while eroding its emotional, ethical and ontological depth. Drawing on Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Theodor Adorno, Donna Haraway and Michel Foucault, it conceptualizes AI’s aesthetic theft that severs artistic authorship from lived experience, memory and intentional labour. Studio Ghibli’s celebration of slow life, relational existence and patient creativity is contrasted with the mechanical reproduction and capitalization of artistic forms. Through the frameworks of aura, authorship and situated aesthetics, the authors argue that algorithmic reproduction destabilizes cultural memory and signals a crisis in contemporary art. The Ghibli Effect is not mere stylistic mimicry but an ethical rupture in creative labour displaced by extractive automation. It highlights paradoxes of slow existence, commodified sensibility, and the loss of memory in machine-made art. Ultimately, the phenomenon is situated within broader socio-religious and philosophical voyages of power, revealing how technological infiltration undermines cultural heritage and spiritual imagination, while placing artistic equity at risk as subaltern voices and human creativity are overshadowed by algorithmic authority.

CONTEMPORARY RECONSTRUCTION OF THE YELLOW RIVER MYTH: THE POWER OF RELIGIOUS NARRATIVE IN SHAPING CULTURAL IDENTITY

2025-09-21T07:53:16+00:00

This article investigates the transformation of the Yellow River myth from its religious and cosmological origins into a contemporary symbol of Chinese nationalism and cultural identity. Once revered as a sacred locus of divine power, the Yellow River has, over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, undergone significant reinterpretations and reconstructions. Employing an interdisciplinary approach drawing on mythology, anthropology, political history and cultural studies, the article traces the river’s shift from a religious signifier to a cultural icon embedded in China’s collective consciousness. Particular attention is given to literary works, state-sponsored narratives, media portrayals and diaspora discourses, which illustrate how the myth has been continually appropriated to serve evolving social, cultural and political purposes. By highlighting this dynamic process, the authors focus on the enduring power of religious narrative to bridge ancient traditions with modern identity formation and to shape the cultural imagination of a nation

THE SUPERVENIENCE OF POWERS: A PARADIGMATIC INTERVENTION OF OFO IN THE EXERCISE OF DEMOCRATIC POWER IN NIGERIA

2025-09-21T08:08:17+00:00

Nigeria’s democratic experience has been characterized by persistent challenges including corruption, electoral malpractices, abuse of power, and legitimacy deficits that undermine effective governance. The inappropriate exercise of democratic power reveals a fundamental disconnection between imported democratic institutions and indigenous spiritual foundations that command genuine reverence from the Nigerian people. This paper examines how democratic power can achieve legitimacy and effectiveness by supervening upon indigenous religious power systems, specifically the ofo religious symbol of the Ukwuani culture. Using philosophical analysis and hermeneutics, the paper demonstrates that the religious power of ofo, embodying truth, justice, ancestral wisdom, and cosmic accountability, provides the moral foundation necessary for authentic democratic governance. The supervenience relationship establishes spiritual accountability mechanisms that transcend human institutional limitations, ensures democratic power reflects moral principles, and creates collective acceptance. The paper concludes that integrating ofo religious ceremonies and principles into key moments of democratic governance—including oath-taking, policy-making, judicial proceedings, and electoral processes—offers Nigeria a paradigmatic pathway toward legitimate, accountable, and effective democratic governance that synthesizes universal democratic principles with particular African spiritual realities

MARXIST VIEW ON RELIGION: AN AUXILIARY APPROACH TO POWER AND JUST SOCIETY

2025-09-21T08:15:23+00:00

This article explores Karl Marx’s view on religion through the framework of his developmental philosophy, situating it within the cultural and ideological landscape of Western Europe, where institutional Christianity exerted deep social influence. It contends that Marx’s critique targeted distorted and complicit forms of religion that, in his view, reinforced unjust power structures. Adopting an auxiliary approach, the study neither dismisses religion wholesale nor embraces it uncritically, but considers its potential as a resource for praxis and social transformation. The discussion traces Marx’s methodological transition from Hegelian idealism to a materialist, practice-oriented analysis, shaped by the political and economic realities of his era. Comparative reflections on Chinese ethical traditions and the broader discourse on alienation reveal how religious and secular currents can converge in the pursuit of justice. The paper concludes that Marx’s social analysis remains a vital instrument for exposing concentrations of power and forging pathways toward equity and a just society

ECHOES OF POWER: BIAS, OBJECTIVITY AND CULPABILITY IN ALGORITHMIC AND STATISTICAL WORLDS

2025-09-21T08:21:02+00:00

Algorithms, increasingly deployed in domains such as welfare, credit, hiring, policing, and healthcare, are often celebrated as neutral tools of efficiency and rationality. This study argues otherwise: algorithms do not merely process data but inscribe and reproduce the values of their designers, amplifying existing inequities and diminishing human agency. Drawing on Nietzsche’s deconstruction of truth as a myth, Foucault’s analysis of power relations, and Kierkegaard’s concept of responsibility, the article contends that algorithmic outputs are not neutral projections of reality but socially sanctioned fictions—echoes of entrenched power that present themselves as objectivity. Philosophical critique is set in dialogue with technical accounts of decision-making, including Kochenderfer et al.’s Algorithms for Decision Making (2022) and Christian and Griffiths’ Algorithms to Live By (2016). These works reveal how optimization under uncertainty translates complex moral and political questions into ostensibly technical procedures. In doing so, algorithms reshape normative life: reducing ethics to efficiency, justice to probability, and responsibility to statistical thresholds. The analysis challenges the persistent belief that bias can be eradicated through better data or technical refinement. Instead, it argues for a reconfiguration of objectivity—not as detached neutrality but as reflexive responsibility. By reframing culpability as distributed across coders, institutions, and societies, this study develops a theoretical grammar of socio-technical networks. Algorithms are not judge-like arbiters standing above human affairs but narrative actors embedded within them, shaping and reflecting humanity’s moral order. They echo existing structures of power while amplifying new forms of asymmetry. To engage them critically requires listening to these echoes, recognizing where they distort, and reclaiming responsibility for what is projected through their seemingly impartial voices.

CONTEMPORARY CHINESE MARXISM: FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH ORIENTATION

2025-09-21T08:27:12+00:00

This review examines Chengbing Wang’s Contemporary Chinese Marxism: Foundational Research Orientation, which brings together nine essays originally published in Educational Philosophy and Theory (2022). The collection explores the domains of Marxist theory, Chinese cultural traditions, and contemporary socio-political challenges. Covering themes from aesthetics and axiological research to dialectical logic, British neo-Marxism, and the integration of Chinese and Western traditions, the anthology reveals how Marxist thought is continually reinterpreted in the Chinese context. While the book’s breadth sometimes stretches thematic coherence, it offers rich insights into the sinicization of Marxism, its intellectual evolution, and its role in shaping Chinese identity and modernization

THE ETHICS OF (IN-) ATTENTION IN CONTEMPORARY ANGLOPHONE NARRATIVE

2025-09-21T08:36:15+00:00

This review examines The Ethics of (In-)Attention in Contemporary Anglophone Narrative, edited by Jean-Michel Ganteau and Susana Onega, a timely anthology that interrogates how contemporary fiction engages with the ethics of attention and inattention in an era dominated by distraction. The volume’s contributors analyze Anglophone narratives across diverse contexts—historical, ecological, political, and cultural—highlighting how literature brings neglected, silenced, or marginalized realities into focus. Divided into four parts, the collection explores theoretical frameworks, overlooked histories, the dynamics of attentional economies, and ecological ethics. While the book is ambitious in scope, its greatest strength lies in showing how fiction not only represents but also performs ethical attention, urging readers to cultivate a more responsible and responsive mode of perception. This review outlines the major contributions of the volume while assessing its significance and limitations.