Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation • Hacker News Board

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#251

Post by vkou » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

RicoElectrico wrote: post #229

toyg wrote: post #14

In Italy, in the '90s, we had a popular tv program with comedians doing sketches. One of those sketches was written and interpreted a guy who used to work in important advertising agencies. The sketch had a corporate manager who always started as a calm and devout supporter of buddhist-like tranquility in the workplace, all meditation and zen and care for personal wellbeing; by the end of the sketch his schizophrenic…

> I bet such a sketch would cause outrage these days. I remember the times when people whose pastime was to get offended at stuff were ridiculed by most of the society. For all our social progress in this millennium, we regressed in many ways people don't readily notice. This was mostly an American thing in the past; but it spilled into Europe over time.

> I remember the times when people whose pastime was to get offended at stuff were ridiculed by most of the society.

Which specific time period are you speaking about? The time period when the existence of gay people (not even speaking about married gay people) was offensive to the point of intolerance? Or perhaps the time period when interracial marriages offended the majority of the United States? Or maybe the time period when half the country was offended by a black person sitting in the front of a bus? Or by a flag hanging upside down?

People taking offense at stuff that does/doesn't affect them isn't some woke 21st century invention.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#252

Post by markdown » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 9:35 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #242

sg47 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have regressed by overturning abortion, enacting subversive election laws and in general destroying the fabric of democracy.

> overturning abortion More accurately, the US Supreme Court returned the situation in the US to the status quo in most advanced countries: regulating abortion as a legislative matter, not a “right.” It did what the EU Court of Human Rights has repeatedly done in declining to recognize a “right” to elective abortions,[1] that can override legislation. A putative right that, 100 years from now, may well be seen alongs…

Did you just liken abortion to eugenics?

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#253

Post by markdown » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

prox wrote: post #116

emptysongglass wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a coworker recently tell me I was culturally appropriating the Buddha (I'm a Buddhist) presumably because I am "from the West". Apart from being one of the most offensive things I've ever been told (before anyone jumps on me for this: I can still observe it as offensive regardless of my attachment to the offense) it confirmed for me that whatever is going on in the US with identity politics has jumped the shark…

Indeed. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding on the word “appropriate” , “to make it your own.” Basically the more academic wording of “you made this? I made this.” meme. As long as you don’t pretend you created Buddhism or are an infallible authority of Buddhism it’s not appropriation. Personally I find the word not really appropriate with what we are trying to convey which I assume would be something along t…

I think "appropriation" is when you take cultural ideas from colonised places of the world and use them in inappropriate ways.

Cultural appreciation = wearing a chinese cheongsam in a culturally appropriate situation because you think it's beautiful and you love the dress.

Cultural appropriation = wearing grass skirts and coconut shell brassiers and getting wasted at a "tiki" frat party.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#254

Post by djokkataja » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

routerl wrote: post #192

In the 21st century, in the West, "Buddhism" is treated as a set of stress-relief techniques and slogans. This isn't strictly limited to the West: at least two of Taiwan's Four Great Mountains (i.e. schools of Buddhism) are similarly inclined, with additional cultish elements thrown in for good measure. The cultish elements had already developed independently within corporate cultures, but adding Buddhist slogans and…

> Buddhist cults focus on fate, inevitability, acceptance, detachment. You are helpless against the world, which by the way, works the way we say, because we are the enlightened bearers of the great tradition. And because of this helplessness, here's a set of doctrines you should follow.

Reading this, it struck me how closely this fits with the popularity of Lovecraftian fiction in our current era. If we see corporations as monolithic, inhuman, malignant entities that trample humans simply for being in the way, with little concern for consequences for themselves (because "they" are too far beyond "us", too big to fail), and if we see the universe as ultimately not even apathetic towards humans, because there is no mind there at all, just incomprehensible vastness that swallows us all in eventual oblivion -- then this superficial Buddhist take makes a great deal of sense. An inevitable fate, nothing to do but accept it and detach ourselves to try to minimize the unpleasantness.

But then, accepting this perspective personally makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy for oneself.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#255

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 9:47 PM UTC

namlem wrote: post #185

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only narcissists and not very aware people are able to "enjoy the world as it is, in all its messiness." Because that's what it takes to ignore abusive levels of inequality and systemic threats to the continued survival of the species. The point is not about what happened in the past, it's about what is still happening now - and how the narratives from the past continue to be used to justify it. Ignoring this is neit…

Obsessing over injustices you have no control over is neither normal nor healthy.

Except we do have control over it, if we didn't people wouldn't be complaining so loudly about being shunned for the biggotted and ignorant crap that comes out of their mouths.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#256

Post by sg47 » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 9:50 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #242

sg47 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have regressed by overturning abortion, enacting subversive election laws and in general destroying the fabric of democracy.

> overturning abortion More accurately, the US Supreme Court returned the situation in the US to the status quo in most advanced countries: regulating abortion as a legislative matter, not a “right.” It did what the EU Court of Human Rights has repeatedly done in declining to recognize a “right” to elective abortions,[1] that can override legislation. A putative right that, 100 years from now, may well be seen alongs…

Should US also offer free healthcare like most advanced countries? Why compare where it's convenient? I'm talking about progress.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#257

Post by mekoka » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #139

>It feels anti human. Because it is. The zeitgeist on the left (so, academia) is consumed by personal shame, guilt, and self-loathing, and a great deal of intellectual work has been done to post hoc rationalize these feelings and package them in catchy phrases. Terms like "cultural appropriation" and "privilege" or "systematic racism" or "toxic masculinity", may have some technically useful meanings to anthropologist…

The goodie-goodies are the thieves of virtue - Alan Watts, attributing the original thought to Confucius.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cegl1BZ-0tI

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#258

Post by stn8188 » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

markdown wrote: post #252

rayiner wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> overturning abortion More accurately, the US Supreme Court returned the situation in the US to the status quo in most advanced countries: regulating abortion as a legislative matter, not a “right.” It did what the EU Court of Human Rights has repeatedly done in declining to recognize a “right” to elective abortions,[1] that can override legislation. A putative right that, 100 years from now, may well be seen alongs…

Did you just liken abortion to eugenics?

I'm no expert on the topic but there are articles that contain both words...

https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/14/43208...

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#259

Post by merlincorey » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

markdown wrote: post #252

rayiner wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> overturning abortion More accurately, the US Supreme Court returned the situation in the US to the status quo in most advanced countries: regulating abortion as a legislative matter, not a “right.” It did what the EU Court of Human Rights has repeatedly done in declining to recognize a “right” to elective abortions,[1] that can override legislation. A putative right that, 100 years from now, may well be seen alongs…

Did you just liken abortion to eugenics?

The history is that it did start that way and one of the current discussion points is whether or not to allow people to abort children that are found to have genetic abnormalities such as pre-natal screening for Down Syndrome.

Oxford Languages defines eugenics as "the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable."

Of course the unspoken corollary here is that to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics one must prevent the reproduction of undesirable heritable characteristics.

It's plainly obvious to many of us today that such a policy is dangerous if we decide to select on characteristics such as color of skin, but as the GP says, maybe in 50 years we will find that people with Down Syndrome will consider today's approved abortions for their condition to be just as barbaric.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#260

Post by pmoriarty » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 9:54 PM UTC

routerl wrote: post #192

In the 21st century, in the West, "Buddhism" is treated as a set of stress-relief techniques and slogans. This isn't strictly limited to the West: at least two of Taiwan's Four Great Mountains (i.e. schools of Buddhism) are similarly inclined, with additional cultish elements thrown in for good measure. The cultish elements had already developed independently within corporate cultures, but adding Buddhist slogans and…

"Acting correctly always requires brutality towards oppressors"

This directly contradicts a central tenet of Buddhism: ahimsa (or non-violence).