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

[Richard Hayes]

On Dec 29, 2009, at 5:17 PM, JKirkpatrick wrote:

> RH:
> 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. 
> 
> I would appreciate some examples or refs here...thanks. Somehow,
> I can't share this view, but then I'm not a Buddhologist either. 

My claim is essentially negative in character in that I am claiming that there is an absence of critical appraisals of Buddhism. It is hard to provide a reference for an absence. But I can give two examples of ways in which Western scholars of Buddhism have been blind to shortcomings. One would be the reaction to Paul Swanson's translation of two Japanese authors who made the claim that 1) Zen Buddhism is not authentic Buddhism but is in fact diametrically opposed to Buddhism in important ways, and 2) Japanese Buddhism as a whole has had an abysmal track record on being on the right side of such moral issues as war and helping the poor and disenfranchised. The claims of the so-called "critical Buddhists" in the book 'Pruning the Bodhi Tree' were met with more than the usual amount of academic scepticism. I witnessed people literally screaming at each other over this issue. My impression was that some scholars are quite resistant to hearing Buddhism portrayed in a negative light. But why?

A second example comes to my mind because it involves some of my own work. I have written articles claiming that there are logical fallacies in the writings of some Buddhist philosophers and that there are passages in which even sophisticated Buddhist thinkers show signs of uncritical dogmatism. This is hardly a bold or radical claim. I have never met a single philosopher anywhere who has not produced at least a few fallacies. Moreover, most of the students in my freshman class on reasoning and critical thinking can easily spot the fallacies in some Buddhist arguments I have shown to them. That there are fallacious arguments and dogmatic moments in Buddhist texts is pretty close to indisputable, I think, and yet there are Buddhologists who strenuously deny this fairly obvious fact. In religious studies circles, people are more likely to respond to such claims with embarrassment, as if it is a breach of good manners to say that even Buddhists (indeed, even the Buddha) could make mistakes. Again, I ask why that is. 

I am not sure that Quli provides an answer to my questions, but I'm willing to consider the possibility that she may be on to something.

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