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

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

#301
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…

What a twisted version of reality you just presented. The US has in no way, shape or form returned to the "status quo in most advanced countries". Perhaps with some convoluted rhetoric you can argue that, but in practice the difference is undeniable. Policies regarding abortion have one gone in one direction in recent decades (in both advanced and less advanced economies) and there is only a single massive outlier that has jerked aggressively back in the other direction.

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

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's about 500 years of history that thoroughly explain why it is not considered appropriation when non-Western people adopt Western practices. Lots of things only "go one way" when we are dealing with massive power imbalances.

This is a really vague answer. Can you elaborate? What happened 500 years ago that explains why the authors are right in their attempt to ban certain ethnic groups from certain ideas?

The West violently occupied most of the non-Western world and forced its culture on to those peoples.

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

#304

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…

What a twisted version of reality you just presented. The US has in no way, shape or form returned to the "status quo in most advanced countries". Perhaps with some convoluted rhetoric you can argue that, but in practice the difference is undeniable. Policies regarding abortion have one gone in one direction in recent decades (in both advanced and less advanced economies) and there is only a single massive outlier th…

You’re confusing the concept of “status quo” (the current state) with the direction of change. Roe took the US outside the mainstream among developed countries. Just a couple of years after Roe, the German constitutional court found that legalized abortion violated the Basic Law’s right to life. In the intervening decades, only a handful of other high courts recognized abortion as a right, rather than a legislative decision. The EHCR repeatedly rejected the idea, even though the EU Convention on Human Rights has an explicit right to privacy.

So yes, undoing Roe returned us to the mainstream.

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

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you just liken abortion to eugenics?

Abortion legalization is an offshoot of the same early 20th century progressive anti-natalism as eugenics. Planned Parenthood was, of course, founded by a eugenicist. In most of the developing world, like my home country of Bangladesh, abortion is still justified primarily to avoid poor women having too many children. There’s other justifications for it now, of course, but I’m not drawing a novel comparison here. In…

Nice "Genetic Fallacy".

Abortion gives women control of their body, no more reason or justification needed.

I whole-heartedly disagree with elective abortions being one of those “what do we do that future generations will view as evil” things. I think the opposite is true and that forced birth is what future generations will view as evil. Younger generations are trending pro-choice. [1]

1. https://news.gallup.com/poll/246206/abortion-trends-age.aspx

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

#306

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…

Abortion has existed since before recorded history. Eugenics is 150 years old at most. I certainly wouldn't advance such a dishonest and immoral argument and it certainly illustrates why people like you should have little input into the definition of civil rights or society in general.

Sparta is much more than 150 years old.

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

#307

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…

Abortion has existed since before recorded history. Eugenics is 150 years old at most. I certainly wouldn't advance such a dishonest and immoral argument and it certainly illustrates why people like you should have little input into the definition of civil rights or society in general.

It looks like you need to edit the wikipedia page on the history of eugenics[0] because it is claiming that Plato was a proponent of eugenics and he was born over 2000 years ago which seems like a lot more than 150.

Similarly, you might want to contact Stanford so they can update the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which is the source for the above statement.

The way you are gatekeeping people while subtly insulting them makes me thankful that you are defending everyone's rights because you are so clearly thoughtful of everyone and forgiving.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_eugenics#cite_note-...

[1] Eugenics". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford University. Jul 2, 2014. Retrieved January 2, 2015.

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

#308
post #281

"Chen: What we see is the erasure of Buddhism as a religion or tradition that Asians or Asian Americans can claim or identify with." She writes from a race-essentialist framing to a degree and that drives me crazy. "white Americans" "white Westerners" x6 There's a sort of cultural appropriation shame being layered here---as if it's bad to have light skin and be interested in Buddhism, or adapt Buddhism to your existi…

Jokes on the writer because Buddhism originated in India and evolved from Hinduism and spread as far as Southern Russia and Central Asia in addition to East Asia and Southeast Asia where it become popular. Ignorant people everywhere these days get to write articles who don't have basic history lessons. We learned this in high school also about Ashoka and how the Indian emperor spread Buddhism literally everywhere in…

[deleted]

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

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really vague answer. Can you elaborate? What happened 500 years ago that explains why the authors are right in their attempt to ban certain ethnic groups from certain ideas?

The West violently occupied most of the non-Western world and forced its culture on to those peoples.

So, if I'm from a western country that was occupied, colonised and had a foreign culture forced upon it, it would not be considered appropriation if I were to adopt non-western schools of thought?

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

#310
post #281

"Chen: What we see is the erasure of Buddhism as a religion or tradition that Asians or Asian Americans can claim or identify with." She writes from a race-essentialist framing to a degree and that drives me crazy. "white Americans" "white Westerners" x6 There's a sort of cultural appropriation shame being layered here---as if it's bad to have light skin and be interested in Buddhism, or adapt Buddhism to your existi…

I don't think she's claiming that there's anything wrong with "white buddhism". In fact, she seems to explicitly deny that view

>I want to clarify, by the way, that I’m not necessarily critical of American Buddhist entrepreneurs. The problem is if you mistake this white American Buddhism for all Buddhism, or claim that this is the “right” or “only” way to practice Buddhism.

The idea that American Buddhism has been divided between Asian immigrants and white converts has been mainstream in buddhist studies for at least a decade or two now (and anyone who practices Buddhism in the US will see this divide immediately). This isn't anything Chen came up with on her own.

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