[Buddha-l] Iconochasms

[Richard Hayes]

On Friday 15 December 2006 01:52, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> It's a bogus test, Joy. Notice that virtually no one occupies the
> bottom-right quadrant. However the Western Republican states in the US are
> filled with economically right-wing but socially libertarian folks (they
> want no govt intervention in ANYTHING), and that sort of popularism has
> always had a significant following in the states, and, perhaps in somewhat
> smaller measure, in Europe.

I'm not sure what you mean that nobody is in that quadrant? Nobody on 
buddha-l? Or do you mean there are no names in that quadrant on the website? 
I suspect that may be because few people who think that way run for office 
and become famous. Therefore, nobody occupies that quadrant but Ayn Rand. The 
last politician in the USA to be for deregulation of everything, individual 
and corporate, was probably Barry Goldwater in 1964. Also to be borne in mind 
is that the website is managed in the UK, and they may not be as painfully 
aware of all the anti-government libertarian rednecks in the western part of 
the USA.

> That Olmert -- who is a moron, a mediocre politician, an inept leader, and
> who was elected on a platform of promising to unilaterally withdraw from
> the West Bank in the next two years (that was before Hizbollah precipitated
> the recent war, so that's now off the table) -- should end up virtually in
> the identical space as Hitler also suggests that the way they are
> classifying "heroes" leaves a lot to be desired as well.

I don't know. Just about everyone in that NE quadrant is a moron, a mediocre 
politician and an inept leader. In that respect, Olmert seems to fit right in 
with George W. Bush, Hitler, Chirac, Stephen Harper and John Howard.  Yes, 
their policies may differ, but they all get similar scores on the moron 
index.

> Like most other buddha-lers, however, I ended up in the vicinity of Gandhi
> and Mandela

I have been a little surprised at how just about everyone but Benito has 
landed in the same quadrant. Does this tell us anything about Western people 
who poke around the edges of Buddhism, or does it only tell us who survives 
on buddha-l?

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes