Re: [microsound] adorno essays

[Store <store@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

billashline@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>
>
> dkl37@xxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>> Hi Aaron. I see you've stirred up SOMETHING. ;-)   I would be willing to
>> bet that your brother's inclinations toward "political action" are more
>> geared toward his own temperament and less so on Zen Buddhism.
>>
> I'll leave aside your points on the Tao, Dale, and focus on Buddhism 
> instead.  Westerners have a very partial view about Buddhism in 
> general. In our last election over here in Korea, a Buddhist monk ran 
> for president.  He didn't get many votes, but he was certainly on the 
> ballot.  A few years back, the Chogye order had such horrid factional 
> infighting that riot police had to be called in before the monks 
> killed each other.  In the 19th century, Buddhist monks fought 
> invaders from France and the US.  Then there's also the 
> self-immolation of monks in Saigon in the early 60s to protest against 
> Diem.  Now I go to temples a lot and they're usually some of the most 
> peaceful places on the planet--but only on the surface.

I agree... westerners take a look on Buddhism with a romantic idea of an 
unchangeable buddhist theory, that condemns practising buddhists to a 
peaceful rigor mortis, but buddhist practise in the far eastern 
countries looks quite different and has to orientate on political 
realities instead of the holy books.  
    On the other hand, regarding the self immolation of Thich Quang Duc 
1963 in Saigon, it seems obvious that this protest act contained no 
violence towards any enemy and had a very different quality than 
political actions (mis)guided by other religions. This kind of political 
action may depend on mass media and is therefor pretty new. Indeed it 
underlined judgments and prejudices of westerners how "peaceful 
buddhist" protest works. It may refer to Gandhis political fight more 
than to the way religious professionals teamed up with more or less 
despotic emperors all around the world  in the past. This kind of 
political action seems to be used a lot by groups like Greenpeace  and 
ATTAC in a less radical way in the last years and got discredited 
recently as contributing to the same praxis of spectaculum that the 
"Empire" (as described by Negri/Hardt) uses to stabilize itself.  Don't 
know if that's true.

    Hmm, just a small thought, as I'm just back from a journey through 
Vietnam and Cambodia and was pretty impressed by a vivid buddhism that 
is much more powerful than we Hesse-influenced amateur-buddhism-lovers 
can imagine. Though I don't know if this sets a light on anything...

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