ABSTRACT
The Canadian academic Jordan Peterson and his Keralite counterpart C. Ravichandran have led their legion of followers into a rabbit hole of post-Heideggerian populism where the uncovering of artifice appeals to juvenile sensibilities. Peterson, with his quasi-Jungian posturing, insinuates a diabolical selfhood and self-presence that asserts the integral psyche of man. The rationalist leader C. Ravichandran draws upon Richard Dawkins’ arguments of biological determinism to justify fait accompli hierarchies. The self-reinforcement techniques of meditation peddled by such neo-gestalt gurus purports to bloom the proverbial lotus from the surrounding morass of suffering. Dialectical relations are sought to be subsumed into already existing givens. Thus, the Indic middle class secedes into outer space, on the wings of meditative self-aware bliss. The neo-advaitic holism, pseudo-Spinozist “non-alienation” and therapeutic aloofness on a mass scale, which is supposed to engender vibes conducive to peace and happiness, can also create solipsistic oases of affluence.
