[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[andy]

This is what puzzles me about the volume as a whole: the tone of the 
contributions suggests that westerners are that ignorant of history, and the 
introduction says  "The motivations for this volume are many, but chief among 
them is the goal of disrupting the social imaginary that holds Buddhist 
traditions to be exclusively pacificistic and exotic."   This is why I first 
reacted to the work (before I had the chance to read it) as reverse-
Orientalism.  (And maybe that should be "counter-Orientalism" or "alternative 
Orientalism")

	And I suspect more nefarious motivations, not necessarily of these authors, 
but by other state actors.  Could there be a concerted project to recruit 
traditionally Buddhist nations into the war on terra?   Religion was a 
powerful weapon in the Cold War,  and if we (the "West") could just get the 
Buddhists to fight . . .  

(If I recall, there was an attempt to Afghanicize Tibet when the Chinese first 
invaded. )

On Tuesday 13 July 2010 02:31:34 pm JKirkpatrick wrote:
> 
> BT
> "A general familiarity with their history suggests that the
> religious blood count may be lower than, say, Europe in the
> Middle Ages..."
> 
> JK	Need we go back that far? How about Europe in WW2?
> 
> Aside from Barnaby's discussion with which I basically agree, do
> "western" Buddhists really freak out over this dissonance as
> between Buddhism and violence? Are they/we that ignorant of
> history? Say it isn't so.........
> 
> Joanna
> 


-- 
James Andy Stroble, PhD
Lecturer in Philosophy
Department of Arts & Humanities
Leeward Community College
University of Hawaii

Adjunct Faculty 
Diplomatic and Military Studies
Hawaii Pacific University 

_________________

"The amount of violence at the disposal of any given country may soon not be a 
reliable indication of the country's strength or a reliable guarantee against 
destruction by a substantially smaller and weaker power."  --Hannah Arendt