[Buddha-l] Re: Buddhist social deconstruction

[Dan Lusthaus]

Eric,

> Never heared of hermeneutics in law? Sorry Dan, but this is a bit naïve.

That's precisely what implementing law entails. Of course it is
interpretive. That's what judges do: they wade through the conflicting
interpretations advocated by the opposing lawyers based on precedents, legal
principles, etc.

> I know some experts on Foucault, but no one would suspect Foucault of
> having Catholic nostalgia.

They need to read more carefully. Foucault's nostalgia is not a naive pining
for an arche when everything was whole and integrated rather than fragmented
and mutated -- he knows that wish is impossible and misguided, so it is
steeped in its own ironic impossibility. The shrewder readers of Foucault
see that everywhere in his writings.

> As a Buddhist I would say that no individual has a criminal nature
> (aatma, svabhaava) and therefore it's useless to develop hatred for
> something that doesn't exist.

It's not a matter of svabhava or atma-vada, but of vasanas, bijas and
entrenched karmic habits that can take lifetimes to work through.

Dan Lusthaus