Search - Eastern Philosophy on DVD

Biased

A. Dimitracopoulos | Dubai, United Arab Emirates | 11/13/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"First of all this DVD drifts from philosophy to religion, by starting off with Confucius and ending up with Judaism and Islam in their purely religious form - nothing is said of the Sufis for example, who are a truly philosophical dimension of Islam. The drift to delving into religion stopped, astonishingly, short of mentioning Christianity either in this or in the Western Civilisation DVD. The sections on Judaism and Islam are unnecessarily biased as they are presented by a Rabbi, in the case of Judaism, telling us of that incident where he accidentally switched the light on during Sabbath and, in the case of Islam, by a pleasant looking but rather biased sounding lady, telling us that burgas and chadors are worn voluntarily by Muslim women. All other aspects of eastern Philosophy are presented by objective experts who are generally well spoken - with the exception of a very unfortunate choice in a Chinese chap who stutters and struggles to utter a comprehensible sentence - but who is not nevertheless biased - in the Confucius section. The section on Hinduism is excellent and the section on Buddhism also interesting and informative, given the short period of time allocated to it. I think the sections on Judaism and Islam were unnecessary in the way they were presented and that the producers probably decided to stick them in out of political correctness. This resulted in a poor finish on two otherwise informative DVDs on Eastern (and as part of a set) Western Philosophy."