[Buddha-l] Re: Filtered Buddhism

[curt]

Richard Hayes wrote:
> If anyone is making any smug assumptions at all, it tends to be 
> that Western culture has nothing much of value to offer anyone and that the 
> only place to turn for wisdom is to non-Western cultures. I think some form 
> of neurotic cultural self-loathing is much more common among Western 
> Buddhists than smug assumptions of cultural superiority. 
>
>   

A neurotic self-loathing is not at all incompatible with smug 
assumptions of superiority - in fact, wherever you find one you'll find 
the other. Insecurity and arrogance always walk hand in hand. And few 
cultures, if any, have more reason for insecurity than that of the west.

It is a big mistake to assume that only dimwits like George Bush and 
reptilian shape-shifters like Dick Cheney - and the people who 
enthusiastically support them - are guilty of assuming cultural 
superiority. The insidiousness of this mentality is well-illustrated by 
T.H. Huxley's writings on the subject of race: 
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/B&W.html .Warning, reading this 
might make you think twice about the man who gave us the word 
"agnosticism". Anyone who believes that oh-so-very-much has changed in 
the few decades that separate us from Huxley, and that well-educated 
"liberal" minded, right-thinking folks no longer hold such outrageously 
wrong-headed ideas, is, well, deluded. But hey, how isn't?

- Curt