[Buddha-l] Zen War Guilt/Zen and the Sword

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Wed, 2005-08-24 at 12:27 -0400, curt wrote:

> This is quite a nice little image - a group of academics
> sitting around and congratulating themselves on the
> inadequacy of their critics. Sound like fun - but not
> very productive. What idiot came up with the curriculum for
> this seminar devoted to reading such obviously worthless
> diatribes? I want to speak to the chair of his or her department!

The curriculum was designed by the chair of the department I was then
in. The course was normally taught by another professor, but I sat in
for him one year when he went on sabbatical. All the critics of the
academic scene that we read were themselves academics. I couldn't agree
with you more that it's quite silly for academics to write screeds
dissing the academic enterprise. That's part of why I find Said so
pathetic. He's just part of this obsession academics have with
discrediting what they do.

-- 
Richard Hayes
***
"Where the clear stream of reason 
has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit...
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."
                             --Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)