[Buddha-l] "Western Self, Asian Other"

[Richard Hayes]

On Dec 29, 2009, at 1:12 AM, L.S. Cousins wrote:

> There is no doubt that Suzuki and Dharmapala have often been dismissed 
> for the reasons indicated. The whole concept of 'Protestant Buddhism' 
> (and to a lesser extent 'Buddhist Modernism') is used in this way.

Aside from Gombrich, who uses the concept of Protestant Buddhism? If you have any references on hand, I would appreciate seeing them. As for Gombrich, does he use the notion of Protestant Buddhism in a dismissive or disparaging way? My impression is that he does not, but I may well be wrong. Of course I am aware of the (to my mind) overly sensitive reaction of Sangharakshita to the (to my mind) quite innocent and non-disparaging suggestion that the FWBO is an example of Protestant Buddhism. (I actually agreed with the assessment and was puzzled by Sangharakshita's response to it.) 

> I am not so sure about Orientalism. Since the work of Said, the terms 
> 'Orientalist' and 'Orientalism' have become negative ones in the Islamic 
> world and to a lesser extent among some Hindus. This is clearly much 
> less true among Asian Buddhists, especially in East Asia. In general, 
> much of what Said says is simply wrong, if applied to many nineteenth 
> century scholars of Ancient India or China.

I agree. I would go further and say that much of what he says is simply wrong even when applied to Western scholarship of the Islamic world. One of the most exciting intellectual events I have witnessed was a debate between Edward Said and Bernard Lewis. Rarely have I seen anyone's work for effectively demolished in public view than Lewis's critique of Said. But that aside, my impression is that Western scholars tend, if anything, to give Buddhism much more of the benefit of the doubt than it always deserves. My impression is that if Western Buddhologists have a fault (an outrageous thing to suggest!), it is that they tend to be as excessively blind to possible shortcomings in Buddhism as Said claims Islamicists are blind to the positive aspects of Islam. If anything, Western Buddhologists (and I include here those who do claim in any way to be Buddhist themselves) are the very opposite of Saidian Orientalists. 

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