[Buddha-l] Bourgeois Buddhism

[Jo]

>There is no need for selfincrimination by Western scholars by apologetic folks like Quli. That's a postmodernist approach to any scientific study.
Basically it attempts to reduce anything Western to 'power play' or 'heuristic totalitarianism' or marxist rhetoric. I have had enough of this European inferiority complex. 

JK
I agree with this position about western scholars although I don't see where Marxist rhetoric is relevant. Quli reminds me once of a conversation with my old college colleagues on the merits of the Garrison Keillor program on NPR. They--a Chinese ancestry and a Jewish ancestry couple--said it was "too white." That reverse racism sure got me going.  

>Western scholars have done a tremendous lot of work to study Buddhism and grant it its intellectual merit, putting Buddhism on the global map. Reducing Western buddhology to a 'colonialist strategy' is poisoning the well. 

JK
Those who have accused Buddhist scholars of poisoning the well, far as I could tell,  have been scholars who, after doing their work on Buddhism (texts mostly), touted the superiority of Christianity. THAT is indeed a colonialist and a prejudicial act. No scholars would get away with it today.
As for presuming to decide what is authentic and what not, the issue of authenticity has already come under useful deconstructive criticism in recent decades, its use lately limited to evaluating artifacts and objects for sale at auction--a habit which hasn't so far eliminated the passing off of fakes.

>So, I'm still very confident that the scientific study of Buddhism as initiated by Westerners is solid and trustworthy.

JK
This was not the issue.

>Scholars can describe, but they can also prescribe and it's intellectually dishonest,  even cowardly, and a missed chance not to take a position in such issues.

JK 
This IS the issue under review. 
I'd not go along with prescription unless the writer were personally involved in a cult or lineage or school and was making prescriptions relevant to that group. Otherwise, prescription is suitable if addressed to academic values, but otherwise prescription can open a can of worms that most scholars would prefer to put aside.
My 2 cents.
Joanna

Stefan

Antwerp, Belgium.
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