Month: May 2009

Dissents Of The Day

A reader writes:

You wrote:

Carrie Prejean has had to go through some really bad stuff she didn't deserve, just for inarticulately expressing a valid opinion in front of Perez Hilton.

But it's not a valid opinion Andrew and you know it.  It's an opinion, yes, but valid?  Come on now.  Let's say the same thing had happened during a beauty pageant in say, 1965, and the contestant had said, essentially, I don't think whites and blacks should be able to be marry because that's just not how it should be and the Bible said and blah blah blah.  Now say said contestant was vilified by liberals and the civil rights movement for expression, and in turn conservatives and libertarians and First Amendment hounds complained she was being attacked for her "valid" opinion.

Now flash forward almost 25 years.  Do you think anyone short of KKK members, and maybe those people we all saw going to Palin rallies last fall would look back at that answer and think it was actually valid?  Dated/a sign of the times, probably.  Bigoted, maybe.  An opinion, of course.  But just because someone thinks something and has the god and Constitutional given right to say something (say anything!) does not make their opinion valid.

I'm sorry.  But I think you know that.  And I honestly think the reason you are hedging around this Carrie Prejean thing a bit is because her answer had a Christian bent, not because of free speech, or because you think we need to deal realistically with what people on the opposite side (you know, those who only want "opposite marriage") think or where they're coming from.

Another reader argues along similar lines:

Twenty years ago, I watched an interview with Anita Bryant on Larry King where she claimed that the gay community had destroyed her career.  "The very same thing they accuse me of doing to them, they did to me," she said in a paraphrased burst of self-pity.  It was apparently lost on her that she brought it on herself, that people will fight back and that her suffering was mild compared to the injury she inflicted on countless people who were already objects of hatred.

Perez Hilton (who I'd never heard of before this ridiculous beauty queen flap) strikes me as something of a jerk and a very bad "face" for gay marriage equality.  But come on – the insults that Prejean has had to endure are mild compared to the vicious and hateful invective I've been subjected to for being gay my entire life.  Hell, I get attacked and insulted more in five minutes on a chat room for being gay than Prejean has had to suffer since this entire affair began.

Millions of law-abiding, tax-paying citizens of California were stripped of their rights in a deeply insulting and grossly unfair vote fueled by bigotry, and the right wingers are upset because a beauty queen was treated a bit badly?  Please.

Patsy Dresses Down Brown

It was a scene reminiscent of Patsy Stone's lighting up a cigarette in a theater and refusing to put it out, "Oh don't be so bloody stupid!" The actress Joanna Lumley ambushed Gordon Brown's immigration minister today, over the Brown govenment's disgraceful policy of refusing to allow Nepalese Gurkha soldiers to reside in the UK. It was a performance worthy of Margaret Thatcher in full hand-bagging mode. Just look at the way she looks at him. The Daily Mail exults here.

The Buddhists Write In

A reader writes:

Yet another comment about the theology of Buddhism from someone who's "read a few books."  I promise I will quit spamming you with takes on Buddhism, but this one is really uninformed, and demands a last response:

"The second and most disturbing flaw, in my opinion, is that Buddhism essentially blames victims for their circumstances (karma)."

This is a common and understandable misreading of the law of karma.  But it's a huge misreading. 

For Buddhists, as long as we're trapped in cyclic existence (the wheel of reincarnation, known as samsara), we suffer.  The particular nature of our suffering differs, but there's not better or worse suffering.  Everyone who's trapped in samsara suffers.  For people who misunderstand the point, they look at a starving child and compare her to a wealthy American and draw a conclusion about who is being "punished" by karma.  For the Buddhist, both are suffering.  One of the central ways Buddhists engender compassion is to recognize this and try to see that all beings are trying to get past their own suffering.  Your reader has the point exactly backward.

Again, your readers may eschew Buddhism for any reason they wish without provoking a peep from me.  But presenting their reasons as legitimate representations of what we believe and practice isn't doing the discussion any favors.

Another reader adds:

I'm growing increasingly anxious as you roll out this new thread on Buddhism because so few of your critics are actual Buddhists.  This isn't a problem when discussing the behavior of Buddhists or the influence of Buddhism on the world, or any number of external comments about the religion.  But to refer to non-Buddhists as the source of information about the theology is troubling.

If you're going to discuss the theology, it needs to be from the perspective of the religion, not according to beliefs assigned from without.  (As a former student of religion and a Buddhist, this is a matter of scholarly integrity as well as a personal issue to me.)  In the most recent comment, the reader writes: "I'm tempted to think that these strenuously- and minutely-argued responses are the product of an understandable, if unfortunate, insecurity about the truth or worth of the foundations of the beliefs people choose to build their lives around, but in the end that's not really for me to say."

What about those of us who object to your original posts as being theologically inaccurate?  This isn't insecurity, it's a desire to have the theology presented as Buddhist doctrine, not a post-facto non-Buddhist critique of it.

To repeat my critique of the original post: Buddhists do not teach detachment to ordinary life.  The teaching is to use the practices of Buddhism to slowly wean yourself from the attachment to causes of suffering.  For Buddhists, this means our attachment to those unwholesome activities that cause us to suffer.  "Ordinary life," that is, the direct experience of the present moment, is actually the state Buddhists wish to live.  The practice of Buddhism involves meditations to cultivate joy, compassion, kindness, and equanimity–surely some of the building blocks to happiness.  There is nothing detached about serious practitioners.

It's worth noting an additional blindness non-Buddhists, particularly those raised in Christian countries, have about their own understanding of religion. Christianity is a belief-based religion.  To Christians, asking someone what they believe is tantamount to inquiring about the religion.  But Buddhism is practice-based.  In Buddhism, wisdom does not arise from belief, but from meditation, where insight is actually non-cognitive.  To a Buddhist, belief is often the obstacle, not the source of release.

Please consider posting comments from Buddhists–even those supportive of the initial critique.  Their views will be more meaningful.

One more:

I have been a loyal reader and follower of your blog for quite a few years now (I was an impulsive reader of The Daily Dish), but I believe that time is coming to an end.

The ridiculousness of how this whole discussion about Buddhism on your website has been moderated by you and your team has become very insulting and hurtful. I feel that in this particular situation your site is done a disservice by not having an actual comments section where readers can freely read comments and share with others. Instead your site picks and chooses those responses that you deem fit to print, and thereby exercises total control of the conversation. The tone that you have chosen, evident from the reader responses you have posted, has come across as completely insensitive and downright disrespectful towards the Buddhist tradition and those who identify with it. Post after post of criticism and opinion, but very little knowledge or direct experience.

I enjoy a good challenging debate, but when the content is moderated and filtered through someone's agenda, that's not really a debate. It's a message.

In the past you have had discussions framed around general religious belief versus atheism. These conversations have been intriguing and challenging, and always with a general feeling of even-handedness. But I have never seen you blatantly smear one religion specifically and for no apparent reason. To my knowledge there was nothing newsworthy about your post "Up From Buddhism." It wasn't even timely.

Obama Fires A Military Linguist

It's the commander-in-chief's first persecution of a servicemember critical to national defense and intelligence. The man is Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and officer in the Army National Guard who is fluent in Arabic and just returned from Iraq. Obama is firing him because he's openly gay. And he has no plans to change that policy, despite a clear campaign commitment.

Deploying Benedict Against the Theocons

The attempt by the far right of the GOP to co-opt the Catholic church for partisan purposes has been in full swing for a couple of decades, but reached real intensity under Bush and Rove. Some Jesuits are fighting back with an unlikely ally:

The sectarians’ targets are frequently Catholic universities and Catholic intellectuals who defend the richer, subtly nuanced, broad-tent Catholic tradition. Their most recent target has been the University of Notre Dame and its president, John Jenkins, C.S.C., who has invited President Barack Obama to offer the commencement address and receive an honorary degree at this year’s graduation. Pope Benedict XVI has modeled a different attitude toward higher education. In 2008, the pope himself was prevented from speaking at Rome’s La Sapienza University by the intense opposition of some doctrinaire scientists. The Vatican later released his speech, in which he argued that “freedom from ecclesiastical and political authorities” is essential to the university’s “special role” in society. He asked, “What does the pope have to do or say to a university?” And he answered, “He certainly should not try to impose in an authoritarian manner his faith on others.”