the indologist as an expert in forcefitting ie, "empiricist"

Two different respondents noted the incongruity between Elst's transformation of Karma into "Just world theory" versus[a] the traditional understanding:

@yoge[...]
1 day ago
Very myopic view of things. 1:06:02  For eg: reward & punishment are a human personification. The existence of Dharma doesn't make The universe 'Just' in the sense of righteousness. The universe is 'Just' in the sense of cause & effect, everything will bear the consequences of its actions/choices, period. Good/bad actions are man-made personifications.

@rohi[...]
1 day ago
Karma is just consequence
It does not have moral value attached to it

My response noted that Elst's moralization of Karma situates karma in a normative framework that imparts colonial value to Karma; The flow of Karma is implicitly moral, but is not used as point of colonial harangue by Jivas[b] (in contrast to western normative "just world theories" deriving from the similar/approximate christian "just war" theories and "God is just" deontological theories/theologies). My response was as follows:

@darkprince2490
3 minutes ago (edited)
One instance. When ISKCON founder Prabhupada was pruriently asked about morality by westerners, he responded that the dharma was not about morality - morality is a trifle concern; that is, right conduct is taken as a given in Dharma and built-in. It does not require a separate theory, which is only needed in course of social engineering, which is of course the primary concern of the west and its abrahamism.

Morality emerges or rather is implicit in Dharma. 

Elst's entire talk here about "just world theory" is just another case of "thopna" of christian derived theology/theory (in this case specifically, christian utopia) into our Dharma. Of course, Elst, always soldiering on, will respond there is nothing particularly christian about a "just world" - but he is just ignoring the historical development from christianity to Enlightenment.

It is [only] in response to Elst's exercise in anachronistic theological force-fitting that we as heathens need to resort to such concepts as "personification" and "man-made", diabolical invention, etc.[c]

[a] Note that it is Elst who through his colonial reinterpretation of Karma induces an Aristotelian dichotomi-zation/dialectic-ization when the native necessarily responds to his mischaracterization. The native response impinges upon abrahamist catagories like symbolism, personification, amorality (utiltarianism; utilitarian normative ethics), and so on. The discourse is pulled in the direction of Abrahamization and can possibly serve as an inoculum for abrahamization, at least in "academic" (western) discourse about Hindu"ism". Karma gets transformed into an ideology. Another case of this is where Karma and other native categories are interpreted in social darwinist colors by some deracinated types. Note that the two Hindu responders to Elst incorporated both intentionalist (agent-intensive; nearly synonymous with the deontological (moral) duty that requires a primary agent) and utilitarian (agent-free; situational ethics that structure agent response) elements in their responses. Elst's initiation of the Aristotelian dialectic as he appropriates heathen elements into his discourse also reflects the historically colonial nature of Aristotelian discourse/ethics that either fed into or was appropriated and transformed by colonizing monotheism. We see here another path for creation of "moral cretins" (SNB) out of Hindus: their traditional ways of going about are divested of morality by incorporation into a foreign utilitarian framework or conversely made ideological by incorporation into a foreign deontological framework.
[b] The jiva is thus quite different from an agent/soul that carries/evinces ideology/belief as seen in abrahamism.
[c] Note that the heathen response incorporates monotheist categories of the Devil's invention/creativity. Elst incorporates karma into Just world doctrine (theorizing/theologizing) and then the heathen response gets structured by aristotlian dialectic; thus, a colonial dialectical discourse about karma gets initiated. Also reflected here is the appropriationist and corrupting nature of western empirics that posits explanations/theories claiming to describe the devilish or diabolical inventiveness of the natural heathen world. Thus positivism has both millenarian (social engineering) elements and explanatory (discursive) elements, and these are complementary and essential in the framework of positivism/empiricism. Aristotle both authored works on ethics and rhetorics, recalling their identity/unity in western (colonial) practice.

Reference: Sangam Talks video titled "Bhartiya Chaturashram: Historicity And Extrapolation" by Koenraad Elst" published on April 20, 2024