Subject: AUT: Re: response to tahir Re: Re: Re: Star Wars and Archetypes
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 14:22:46 -0500


> you are seriously confusing the notions of destroying alienation and
> creating community in a sense familiar to revolutionaries (and which
appears
> in taoist and zen buddhist literature) with this weird cultish thing.
>
> Tahir: So the other religions I mentioned are mere cults in relation to
Buddhism. Interesting.

no... you said something about buddhism being a cult, and i was responding
directly to that. don't put words in my mouth. its very annoying.

> But if what you say above is true then by the literal content of what you
have said, Buddhism is a (an almost?) revolutionary way of destroying
alienation. Yes you do know much more here than I do, very much more.

well, history speaks for itself here: during feudal and early capitalist
stages in eastern asia, taoists and zen buddhists often made up the bulk of
revolutionary movements. in my estimation, this has everything to do with
these philosophies openly attacking alienation. or some such.

thus, it is possible to extrapolate revolutionary content from all of this.

> the absence of any possibility of transcendence into an after-life
certainly
> does change things a bit, methinks.
>
> Tahir: I simply don't believe you on this one, but i'm not about to rush
off to the library so I must defer to your superior bookish knowledge of
arcane doctrines.

its all there: there is no soul, there is no god, there is no heaven or
hell. "nivana" literally means extinction... that is: when you die, you die.
that's it. all the ideas attributed to gautama buddha are geared toward how
to live well here and now since there is nothing else.

see: the tripitaka, the dhammapada, etc. etc.

> Tahir: OK this is what you said (and I'll let the members of this public
list decide for themselves whether this is a 'conservation of energy' view
or not, I don't think that you can help me further with this one). You said:
> "the closest would be the
> dispersal of physical energies [which can not be created or destroyed,
> remember] into everything else when we die)."
> Remember now?

what the hell does this have to do with the "conservation of energy?" this
was refering to death... that is: since energy can not be created or
destroyed (only transformed) according to physics, what happens to all the
physical energy in our bodies when we die? according to buddhism it simply
disperses into everything else. and that "it" is not "you", since there is
no consciousness, no affectations of being a living being left there. its
just electricity, etc. transforming and moving on.

> i'm not terribly interested in purity, and i could prolly point out more
> problems in buddhism than you have so far...
>
> Tahir: If you're not into purity then why do you make such a big
rhetorical issue out of the issue of "perversions" of Buddhism?

because there are clear contradictions between schools of "buddhism"...
tharavadan and zen tend to be a little closer to what the gautama buggha
proportadly taught, etc. its just a statement based on opservations i've
made, and on arguments between "buddhists".

one of your major problems here is that you keep trying to streamline
"buddhism" into some kind of easily containable thing that you can hate.
but, unfortunately, the more you talk the more clear it becomes that your
limited knowledge is completely based in your own prejudices and have
nothing to do with any attempts to understand buddhism or taoism in a
materialist fashion (which would call for, first and formost, recognizing
the intense differences between schools of buddhist thought).

> we'll, we've not gotten around to talking about this aspect... i just
> suggest checking out the tao te ching and the chaung tzu (toaist texts,
> which are also important texts in zen buddhism)... there is a striking
> similarity with marx in the dialectics you'll find there (esp. in the
chaung
> tzu).
>
> Tahir: Yes this is what you said, and what I was responding to. There are
a couple of people on this list who in responding to me made out that I had
introduced this language into the debate. You said:
> "philosophical taoism and zen buddhism form the backbone of materialist
> and dialectical thought in asia"
> Right?

yes.

> Tahir: Not quite the same thing. Going to bars is UNromantic escapism. And
as such I find it a little more ... how shall I put it .... down to earth?!

how do you figure? most people i know of who are regulars at bars are either
traditionally romanticizing such things, or are romanticizing tragedy.

let alone the fact that 90%+ of bar activity is centered around alcohol,
which may be a lot of things, but "down to earth" is certainly not one of
them.

> is this necessarily revolutionary? no. can it have revolutionary
> implications? yes, in the sense that it can help us to understand some of
> what is going on, etc.
>
> Tahir: Well I'm also into like understanding what's going on, you know,
kind of like yeah.

what the fuck is this supposed to be? slip in some hippy on your way to type
that sentence or something?

> i know tons of marxists who purport to be materialists and dialectians who
> also openly state that they are not revolutionaries, than revolution is
> impossible at this point, etc. etc. this kind of thinking is possible
> anywhere, and is not indicative of any school of thought.
>
> Tahir: Well then any school of thought is more or less as good as another,
if what you say above is true. Why didn't you say that in the first place? I
wouldn't have bothered with this debate.

you know, you make a lot of fucking leaps of logic... how the hell did you
come to "any school of thought is more or less as good as another" from
"this kind of thinking is possible anywhere [etc.]"?

i wasn't saying that all schools are equal, but that no schools are above
criticism and reproach.



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