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

#331

Post by throwawayacc2 » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 11:58 PM UTC

NoraCodes wrote: post #322

throwawayacc2 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Am I correct, then, in thinking your response to people currently harmed by social structures they have no choice in interacting with is, basically, "I agree that this sucks, but I don't support changing anything to fix it."? I don’t know about the guy you’re asking but the way I would tackle this question is, first by point out in some cases the “harm” is only perceived. To give you an example of this, a claim oft…

> To give you an example of this, a claim often made is “trans kids are being harmed due to lack of access to hormones/surgery”. I find this revolting. I would consider, for this example at least, the current system is doing good in protecting them, certainly it is not harming them. Then I probably don't care about your opinion on this - we are almost certainly speaking from completely different ontological perspecti…

Fair enough. But, something has cough my attention.

> we are almost certainly speaking from completely different ontological perspectives

Do you consider me ontologically evil? Am I, as some people on the internet often refer to those with my sense of mortality, “a demon wearing human flash”?

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

#332

Post by markdown » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 11:58 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #264

markdown wrote: post #252

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…

LOL abortion has been done since before homo sapiens branched off into their own species. Christians believe that their god performs millions of abortions every day (they call them miscarriages).

Abortions are in every culture on every continent.

Claiming it stems from the 20th century is insane.

You have it wrong, future humans will look back and wonder why we didn't abort more when we clearly couldn't even meet the needs of the babies we already had.

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

#333

Post by makeitdouble » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 12:04 AM UTC

gedy wrote: post #323

makeitdouble wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you describing a kid living in the UK/US wearing their school uniform scolding an adult wearing dreadlocks ?

No was SFSU: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jDlQ4H0Kdg8

hmm...I was expecting a different context, but isn't it a bit tough to flag speaking English in a US university as appropriation ? Worse case scenario, her ancestry didn't chose to come to the US...

Was also expecting something way more Scottish from your description, when it's basically a uni-color classic cut orange sweater.

PS: also yes, what a jerky way to come at people.

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

#334

Post by messe » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 12:04 AM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #326

messe wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If that hypothetical makes you happy, sure. But I think most people can easily tell the difference between the widespread colonization that occurred for hundreds of years and whatever historical anomalies you have in mind with that leading question.

> But I think most people can easily tell the difference between the widespread colonization that occurred for hundreds of years and whatever historical anomalies you have in mind with that leading question.

I was referring to Ireland, whose colonisation[1][2] during the 16th and 17th centuries served almost as a prototype for future British expansion. Gaelic culture was nearly wiped out due to British policies, and even to this day, Irish is a severely endangered language. It remains the one of the few regions in Europe with a lower population in the present than it had in 1800.

But sure, let's call it a historical anomaly.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantations_of_Ireland

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwellian_conquest_of_Irelan...

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

#335

Post by tomc1985 » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 12:07 AM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #303

thisiscorrect wrote: post #300

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.

What about all the other times a dominant force occupied lands that weren't theirs? That's like... all of history. So are we going to cancel Roman and ancient Mongolian influence too? Or what about the time natives of north america wiped out whoever occupied it before them?

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

#336

Post by makeitdouble » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 12:11 AM UTC

thisiscorrect wrote: post #327

makeitdouble wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On going the other way, there is/was quite a reaction on China half-ripping off Disney (!) characters in regional parks or goods. I'd argue China making "knock-off"s or "stealing our IP" is pretty close to that as well. Then, it's pretty hard to culturally appropriate Christianity when it's setup with a doctrine of expansion and push to fit everywhere it can. That was basically the premise of colonialism in the early…

> there is/was quite a reaction on China half-ripping off Disney (!) characters in regional parks or goods. I'd argue China making "knock-off"s or "stealing our IP" is pretty close to that as well. Companies trying to make trademark, patent and copyright claims seems like an entirely different matter from people complaining about cultural appropriation. The former is typically by people who may have a legal basis for…

The reaction we were seeing about China knocking off US IP wasn't all from corporations though. It was, and still is, a pretty popular sentiment I think.

On the article itself, I went through most of it, but have a very hard time being emotional about corporate culture getting crossed with institutional religious entities. I see both as kinda toxic, and if they can spend some time fighting each other we might actually get a break for once.

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

#337

Post by lilactown » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 12:12 AM UTC

thisiscorrect wrote: post #293

pc2g4d wrote: 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…

Somehow these arguments about cultural appropriation only ever go one way. I've never heard anyone claim that it's cultural appropriation when non-Westerners adopt -- and benefit from -- various Western schools of thought. I've never felt the urge to gate-keep, say, the germ theory of disease from non-Westerners. What right do I have to do that? What right does the author have to gate-keep Buddhism? Why do people do…

The germ theory of disease is sprang up in many places of the world throughout history.

Setting that aside, cultural appropriation is something that just happens; it's not a moral good or bad, despite the way that it often gets talked about in culture war rants. It's an emergent phenomenon of different cultures mingling.

There are negative aspects of appropriation, such as decontextualizing something to the point of erasing its original meaning, or using it as window dressing to be "exotic," or to make fun of people. These things can feel especially crass to people when they're present in a system that denigrates or oppresses the people that they are appropriating those things from.

I can't speak for everyone, but to me it makes sense that the issue people have against appropriation of sacred customs or ornamentation of some cultures is that it seems disrespectful to the people who hold it sacred. I'm not even sure that's what the original article is saying, though.

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

#338

Post by spicymaki » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 12:13 AM UTC

shp0ngle wrote: post #8

I’m a Catholic (so I have … my own view on Buddhism) but I lived in SEA for a long time. I want to say, this article is very good. The buddhism as practiced in the west has very little to do with actual practices in the east. But, Buddhism is also very confusing, and it’s hard to say “what is the true buddhism” (mahayana, therevada, vajrayana and zen buddhism in Japan (formally mahayana) are all very different)

Theravada Buddhism is the oldest extant version of the religion. I find it to be rather straight forward and specific with the goals of the teachings. It is all summarized in the Four Noble Truths. It lists the fundamental issue of suffering and how to resolve it. Much of the confusion is in religious terminology which obscures the fundamental ideas. The basis for the religion is based on ancient ideas such as cycles of rebirth, heavenly realms, extrasensory perception, etc., but for me personally none of that is required to derive value from it.

When you read the Mahayana (later versions) it stops making sense at a fundamental level, because the ancient Mahayana were pessimistic and did not believe you could actually resolve the issue of suffering in human timespans. It inherits the early texts, but downplays them with newer texts, themes, and ideas. It adds a worship element (Bodhisattvas). After several interpretations and cultural adaptations it becomes less comprehensible and more performative. Zen is an example, it operates on the principle that you cannot understand the content logically, so you need to perform the rituals (mediation, chanting, etc.) to get to the ground unadulterated truth. It is non-rational, partially because it integrates Taoism which cannot be grasped conceptually. This is mainly what makes Buddhism so confusing.

The same thing has occurred with Christianity. Started as a Jewish sect of Judaism, Gentiles introduced newer ideas, becomes Catholic Church, series of church schisms (Council of Nicea, East West Split), hundreds of years of commentaries, Martin Luther triggers Protestant Reformation, the Church adapts to new ideas and becomes less and less comprehensible. Pentecostalism is a example of how far this can go (speaking in tongues, faith healing, ordinances, snake handling, etc.).

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

#339

Post by rayiner » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 12:14 AM UTC

clairity wrote: post #316

rayiner wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

abortion has been a natural right for thousands of years. women cerainly don’t need you nor the state to intercede in what is essentially a right to bodily autonomy.

It’s as “essentially” about human life as it is about “bodily autonomy.” As to “women”—they’re voting for these laws. The Mississippi electorate that voted in the 15-week ban at issue in Dobbs had 25% more women than men. And the large majority voted Republican.

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

#340

Post by throwawayacc2 » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 12:18 AM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #218

throwawayacc2 wrote: post #93

I stopped reading upon seeing at the very stop this “ Silicon Valley is the latest player in a history of Western appropriation of Buddhism” I was very curious about the article. I am wondering if it treats ideas such as “hire fast fire fast” - In a way a concept related to the Buddhist ideas of detachment, or the opposite, “bing your whole self to work” which in a way seems contradictory - you have attachments, cont…

I think this calls for a more nuanced distinction than I think your comment draws. Yes, cultural exchange and transformation is fundamentally how culture happens. Buddhism started from one guy in what we'd now call India, built on some ideas that were already in the area, and has shifted and changed as it moved across time and space. Buddhism isn't owned by any one people or place. But that doesn't mean that there's…

> If one population is able to profit off of communicating the cultural practices of others who are not able to access the same opportunities, would you agree that could be called "appropriation"?

No. Let me answer your second question first before formulating the answer.

> If not, what should it be called?

Getting lucky

—-

So, I don’t understand how “Buddhism isn't owned by any one people or place” can go together with “communicating the cultural practices of others”. Is buddhism “owned” by a people or not?

I am going to assume the answer is no. This transforms your statement into:

If one population is able to profit off of communicating an idea and another population is not able to access the same opportunity, would you agree that could be called "appropriation"

Certainly you can see now why no, it is not “appropriation”. Some people have an opportunity to do something, others do not. The conversation on access to opportunities is a separate topic.

Hence the answer to the second question. The first population got lucky.