Zen at War

[erudito]

Brian Daizen Victoria’s Zen at War is a study of how Zen Buddhism became deeply complicit in Japanese militarism

Brian Victoria, a Soto Buddhist priest, directly challenges the “touchy-feelie” good image that Buddhism has in the West. Especially Zen Buddhism in the US. Zen at War is particularly confronting in what it shows about D T Suzuki’s

Comments

[taavi]

Thai buddhism has a lot of these problems as well - it is consistently supportive of an extremely repressive social order. Notoriously so during the 70s. One prominent monk, Kittiwutho, broadcast radio shows saying that "to kill a communist is not a sin" and threw students who had sought refuge from a public massacre out of his temple to get shot

Resonances

[erudito]

Victoria discusses the use of the law of causality to justify social inequality--such as many sects shameful support for the stigmatisation of outcasts (burakumin) until very recently. On the other hand, that one sees similar uses for the concept in Thailand and Japan actually argues against lacking a common element across cultures.

Part of the point of study was, surely, to understand concepts by shedding preconceptions. Which is not to say they then don't get embedded in social contexts and re-interpreted, of course they do. But it is far from the only thing that happens.

And yes, Derrida deserved his problems.

[korgmeister]

I must admit I have been finding Schopenhauer's philosophy increasingly interesting of late. However, you do illustrate a good point that philosophies such as his and Neitzche's become dangerous when they become a "worship of the will". (Although in my case, I think my will could do with a little bolstering at present)

I remember Ayn Rand commenting once in Atlas Shrugged something along the lines that will was like a car, no matter how powerful it was, it was useless without a good driver to give it direction.

increasingly succumb to worship of the will.....

[wizard_foots]

You have put your finger on something which has been vaguely bothering me about Steyn for quite some time. And you are correct. He is a Triumph Of The Will guy after all.

Is this the Projection Thing happening again? As in: I will become an intellectual follower of the guys I hate the most, because... I spend too much of my life obsessed with them....

Re: increasingly succumb to worship of the will.....

[erudito]

It became much clearer to me when I decided that the key issues in Iraq apropos the Coalition intervention were competence and capacity.

I think projection is very much part of it. It is surprisingly easy to end up mirroring the logic of those you are opposing. See French Revolutionaries/Communism and Catholicism/Orthodoxy. Or, for that matter, American theocons and the Left.

But it also simplifies things in all sorts of encouraging ways. Determination Is All You Need and If Only Folk Were As Determined As I, All Would Be Well are not complicated ideas ...

Re: increasingly succumb to worship of the will.....

[deathbeast]

Hey all,

I would be interested to hear more about Steyn/Hanson and the 'worship of will' tendency, I'm not sure I totally understand it.

cheers,

deathbeast

Re: increasingly succumb to worship of the will.....

[erudito]

Both Steyn and Hanson have this tendency to write as if it is all about Just Having The Courage To Stay The Distance. On the basis that the person with the Bigger Will Wins.

Without denying that determination matters, this is not a good way to look at things. It is the Anglosphere's enemies who operate like that. Both Hitler and the Japanese Militarists were all about how they were going to be victorious because their Wills were greater. (The Americans in particular were discounted because they were all weak and materialist and decayed by the good life and lack of racial/cultural fibre.) There is a fair bit of that among the jihadis as well