[Buddha-l] Jung and Dignaga

[Dan Lusthaus]

Joanna,

> Psychoanalysis, and the later varieties of human psychology that
> emerged in the past sixty years, have all been influenced one way
> or the other by the prevailing weltanschaung, whatever it was and
> is today.  Insisting on imposing guilt, for whatever
> sins--personal or political--in such cases is submerging oneself
> in vindictiveness, a mental affliction in the Buddhist roster.

On the contrary:

"Brethren, if outsiders should speak against me, or against the Doctrine, or
against the Order, you should not on that account either bear malice, or
suffer heart-burning, or feel illwill... If, when others speak against us,
you feel angry at that, and displeased, would youthen be able to judge how
far that speech of theirs is well said or ill?"

..."But when outsiders speak in dispraise of me, or of the Doctrine, or of
the Order, you should unravel what is false and point it out as wrong,
saying: "For this or that reason this is not the fact, that is not so, such
a thing is not found among us, is not in us.

"But also, brethren, if outsiders should speak in praise of me, in praise of
the Doctrine, in praise of the Order, you should not, on that account, be
filled with pleasure or gladness, or be lifted up in heart. Were you to be
so that also would stand in the way of your self-conquest. When outsiders
speak in praise of me... you should acknowledge what is right to be the
fact, saying: 'For this or that reason this is the fact, that is so, such a
thing is found among us, in us'."

Brahmajala sutta, Digha-Nikaya.

No sweeping under the rug here, no making "contextual" excuses, no
vindictiveness, but a scrupulous acknowledgement what is the case.
Acknowledge what is right and what is wrong among us, in us. Otherwise, no
improvement, no "self-conquest."

> Jung's alleged collaboration [...] appeared to be mainly to
> promote his institutional ascendance within the new profession.

This has been one theory used to minimalize. He was just playing along,
didn't really buy that crap... just trying to advance himself.
Unfortunately, it doesn't fit the facts.

> If he included anti-semitic remarks in any of his writings, he
> was no different than hundreds of other distinguished writers
> outside Germany or Switzerland, including across the channel in
> UK and in the USA.

That is still no excuse. It was among them, it was in them. According to
Buddha, they need to own up to that, and not eel-wriggle their way out. Was
it possible for any "writers" or thinkers (or others) at that time to think
otherwise? You bet, and plenty did. That Jung didn't is a "fact." His
antisemitism did not simply slip by as an occasional, unguarded, or
inadvertent remark. He deployed his considerable theoretical tools, the
notion of the collective unconscious among them, to forcefully argue for the
racial inferiority of Jews and others. Given the times in which he wrote,
this was hardly an insignificant indiscretion free of impact.

> Jung's views about weltanschaung, about cultural influences in
> psychology, survived right into the mid-20th c. in anthropology,
> in the specialisation referred to as "personality and culture",
> and during WW2, led to the production of such (later strongly
> criticised) books as Ruth Benedict's _Chrysanthemum and the
> Sword_ about the Japanese, plus several others, all commissioned
> by the US OSS (early CIA) during the war to shed light on the
> psychology of our "enemies". There was one on the Germans, one on
> the Russians, and a few others whose titles now escape me. If
> these were published today, they would be labeled both
> scientificially shabby and also racist, and tend to be so-labeled
> today in  retrospect.

As you say, ideas don't arise in a vacuum; they are subject to causes and
conditions, and tastes -- what is considered appropriate or inappropriate -- 
do change, like fashions. Buddhist practice involves becoming increasingly
clear about the causes and conditions of one's mental constitution and
habits, and purifying them (visuddhimagga). While evaluating the thoughts
and attitudes of one time by the standards of another can be problematic,
there are standards that one can apply across time/cultural frames. I lost
my ability for extreme cultural relativism many years ago in a museum while
studying the Aztec sacrifice culture. Daily, a victim (sometimes more than
one) was taken to the top of the pyramid, held down on a stone table,
his/her chest cut open, and the beating heart pulled out and held up to the
sun. With all due respects to relativism and the importance of avoiding
absolutisms, this is simply wrong, unhealthy, and dangerous (whether or not
it was a major contributing factor to the fall of the Aztec empire, as some
have argued).

Antisemitism, racism, islamophobia, religious intolerance, murder, etc., are
as morally pernicious as Aztec sacrifices -- regardless of time, place, or
contextual excuses. That's what it means to determine whether it is a fact
that such and such a thing is in us, or is not in us.

Dan