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Nolan's Oppenheimer released this weekend, and I wanted to use this opportunity to both post an excellent paper about Bhagavad Gita's influence on the man and a short introduction to Hinduism to illustrate just how different it is from Abrahamic religions.
https://web.archive.org/web/20131114032416/http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/Hijiya.pdf
Hinduism is an umbrella term for a group of philosophical schools which is practised by people living east of the Indus River (the word Hindu is derived from the root word Sindhu, which was the Sanskrit name for the river). What is commonly understood as Hinduism in the west today (and India to a large extent) is the most popular school, called Advaita Vedanta (a monist philosophy that champions polytheism whose metaphysical view is panpsychist). Unlike Abrahamic religions, it is very difficult to define who a Hindu is, as the schools itself have very varied philosophies. In all, there are 10 major schools of philosophies, consisting of varied views from hedonistic atheism to monotheistic theism, with both dualist and monist views (there is also btw dualistic non-dualism). To quote the Supreme Court of India-
The diversity in schools and inherent intentional contradictions even in a singular school makes it difficult to distil an understanding to a western audience makes it difficult to explain Hinduism to someone who isn't brought up in the culture. So I will focus on explaining the concepts of Dharma, Samsara, Karma and Moksha, which are mostly (always an exception) common to the different philosophical schools.
Dharma - Ask any modern Hindu on what does Dharma mean, and you would almost always get the answer as religion, despite this word only recently taken on that meaning and despite being far removed from the real meaning. The fact that describing its actual meaning is also difficult because it is so tied to the culture hasn't contributed in correcting this error in the mind of modern Hindu. Dharma is tied to an inherent cosmological order called Rta, and is the behaviour that is in accordance with it. It has been translated as duty, law, virtue or an obligation towards the world, and though they come close, I feel none of them describe the essence of it. A better way to understand is "what is right" on an individual and contextual level. What that means is there is no universally prescribed set of behaviours for a person to be Dharmic. A person's Dharma depends on a wide variety of factors depending on but not limited to their personality, their background, the stage of life (ashram) they are in and can be in active conflict with another person's Dharma. The principle texts even are full of contradictions regarding it. For example, Mahabharata, the epic poem of which Bhagavad Gita is a part of, is littered with multiple characters arguing "Ahimsa parmo dharma" or "non-violence is the highest dharma" despite the Mahabharata being a story about war. Even the main antagonist of the Mahabharata, Dhuryodhana, routinely uses what the characters exclaim as Dharmic to do acts which are Adharmic (opposite of Dharma).
Samsara - Literally meaning the world, it is philosophically used to describe the wandering aimless journey of the soul (Atman) through cycles of birth and death, multiple lives as multiple beings through the universe. Tied very closely to the theory of Karma (more on that later), the samsara is the fundamental condition of living beings who experience pleasure, pain, joy, sadness tied to the material world. The conditions a person gets born in and the things a person experiences varies in different life, but the one thing that is certain is suffering (will cover this point more in the next section).
Karma - Commonly Karma is thought to mean as "what goes around, comes around", though it literally means "action". It's the theory of Karma that means your good deeds have good effects, and bad deeds have bad effects. If you do a good Karma you accumulate merit or Punya, conversely bad Karma begets you demerit or Paap. Mind you, Karma also takes in account the intention behind the action rather than the action itself. During multiple lifetimes, your Punya and Paap either gets you appropriate circumstances or you go to Swarga (heaven) or Narka (Hell). The heaven and hell in Hinduism differs from Abrahamic religions' concept of it in two ways. First there is no required belief you need to hold to get into there, even if you believe in a flying spaghetti monster if you live a Dharmic life you get into Swarga and even the fervent believers living an Adharmic life will get into hell. Second, it is not eternal, eventually your accumulated Paap or Punya will get exhausted, and you return to Samsara and the cycle of reincarnation again. This cycle of reincarnation is the real jail, you take birth, you suffer, you find momentary joy, suffer some more, again and again and again. Maybe in some birth you finally get Dharma, you do good deeds, and that reflects in your current or the other life, but take another birth and all the understanding is lost, and you start with scratch again. Samsara is eternally changing and living in Samsara means you will get attached, maybe to pleasures, maybe to people or to life. It is certain that things will end, or you would lose them and that will cause you suffering.
Moksha - If you are destined to suffer why accumulate good Karma in the first place, doesn't it seem all too pointless to just continue again and again. Hence, the highest goal in Hinduism isn't to accumulate good deeds, but to escape this cycle of reincarnation or attain Moksha. What the nature of it is and how to achieve it varies from school to school. Moksha is often equated to enlightenment and nirvana. In one school, it is described as a cessation of desire (Buddhism) in another removal of Ahamkara(a false ego created by oneself) or yet understanding your being. In Bhagavad Gita, the path to attain Moksha is said to lie in the 4 Yogas namely, Karma Yoga (acting without any attachment to the result of your actions), Jnana Yoga (pronounced as gyan meaning knowledge, it means understanding the nature of reality through knowledge), Bhakti Yoga (surrendering your ego and self to a deity) and Raja Yoga (introspection and understanding oneself using meditation).
This a very incomplete and limited explanation of the concepts which are vast and have a diverse set of views between different sects of Hinduism, so take that with a grain of salt.
PS- I have used a lot of words from Sanskrit and a lot of these words aren't pronounced as they are spelt(in many of them the a is silent) in latin script, so here's a list of how you would pronounce some of these words- Gita - Geet Advaita - Advait Vedanta - Vedant Swarga - Swarg Narka - Narka Karma - Karm Yoga - Yog Rta - Tr Samsara - Sansaar Moksha - Moksh Ahamkara - Ahankar(n is silent)
Why do you think this philosophy is so attractive to Christian westerners?
Is it a lack of responsibility for good deeds compared to Christianity?
Maybe a lack of understanding of the philosophy? Or just a rejection of Christianity and Hinduism is the easiest outlet?
Oppenheimer was Jewish, as pointed out by this salty opinion piece in Newsweek by "the editor in chief of Pasadena Magazine" (though looking at the latest issue online she seems to be a contributor, not editorial staff; however she is a features editor for Variety), which is "a bi-monthly lifestyle publication covering the people, institutions, and businesses of Pasadena and the surrounding San Gabriel Valley".
That article would make for a Culture War post in itself, as Ms. Saval seems to make a mini-speciality out of complaining about how Jews are treated in Hollywood. Now it's the turn of we Irish to be the most recent oppressors, by having an Irish actor play a (secular) Jewish character.
I feel a strong urge to go "Oy vey!" Or maybe "Faith an' begorrah!" A fella called Murphy from Cork with all belonging to him being teachers was raised Catholic? Plainly this is A Conspiracy!
Nolan is an Irish name too, you see how it all fits together? The Murphia in action to do down the Jewish actors who can't get a crumb of a part in any movie! We know this, because she says so:
All those poor, poor actors like Dustin Hoffman who just never got the chance for the big break because of the Irish in power in Hollywood keeping the best roles for themselves - look how Gabriel Byrne exerted his malign influence over the Coen Brothers when making Miller's Crossing.
It must be a conspiracy to do down Jewish actors, it can't just be that Nolan thinks Murphy is a good actor who also has the benefit of being extremely handsome with a fanbase from "Peaky Blinders" who might possibly turn up to watch this long biopic just to see him in it.
The CHEEK, she openly doesn’t care that no Chinese, nor Kurds, nor Poles, nor Englishman were considered for the role!! Now we know who is truly oppressed!
Yeah, it's not a case of "A black actor should play Othello, not a white actor in blackface", it's really getting near to "only X actors should play X characters".
Only a genuine one-sixteenth Cherokee triracial trans non-binary deaf wheelchair user from this one specific small town actor should play the character who has all those elements as described, no you can't get somebody who's deaf but not in a wheelchair to do it, that would be discrimination and racism!
This is precisely the attitude that killed the Scarlett Johansson movie:
The trans activists complained about it so she dropped out, and then it turned out the movie - which they wanted so badly for Representation - wasn't going to be made if there wasn't an A-list actor associated with the part, because guess what? If you're going to make one of these indie-type small movies that about four hundred people globally will go see, you need a Big Name to draw in the audience or else the studio knows it will sink like a recent Disney live-action remake and not even make the costs back. Oscar bait alone isn't good enough to persuade them to fund this. And they were shocked, shocked! that some unknown trans man actor wouldn't be good enough (maybe if Elliot Page had been out at the time and wanted to do the project, but who knows?) but they had cut off their noses to spite their faces.
What's even more laughable is that casting Murphy is supposed to prove anti-Semitism in Hollywood. Hollywood, of all places.
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Oh, that’s good!
Man, that article is one of the clearest illustrations of the “the Jew cries out in pain as [s]he strikes you” trope I’ve seen in a while. Imagine being somebody who writes about Hollywood for a living, but whose main takeaway is “this industry is unfair to Jews.” The… I won’t even call it lack of self-awareness, because at this point it’s gone beyond that to a perceptual failure so catastrophic that it causes you to reach a conclusion 180 degrees opposite from the correct conclusion based on the data all around you on display here is jaw-dropping.
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