[Buddha-l] iNTERESTING US MAP GRAPHIC SHOWING %AGE OF THE VARIOUS RELIGIONS

[Scott A. Mitchell]

Well, who am I to deny Franz a rant.

I don't want to rehash the whole "who should 'count' as a Buddhist" debate that's cropped on on buddha-l from time to time. Frankly, I've always been of the opinion that if someone claims to be a Buddhist -- even if I think their understanding of Buddhism is wildly divergent from some made-up standard of what "real" Buddhism is -- I'd like to take them at their word. Now, that's a personal preference and, I'll be the first to admit, not particularly useful when doing academic/sociological research. And to me that's the real issue. That is, underlying the debate of how to do the counting is the deeper issue of the inherent biases in our categories and methodologies. Examining those things can be revelatory.

Which brings me to what I really wanted to say which is this: the Pew report (as all surveys do) begins with a certain assumption about religious identification and affiliation. It asks people which religion they belong to. The very nature of this question is rooted in a particular (Anglo-American) way of conceptualizing religions which may not account for all persons who either (a) may be influenced by Buddhism in all sorts of both subtle and overt ways or (b) hold some sort of dual or multi- or nuanced identity regarding their religious/spiritual/ethnic/cultural selves. In terms of (b), I think there's plenty evidence that people both in Asia and "the West" actually do have more complex and nuanced ideas of the (non-Buddhist) self that rigid either/or categories are blind to, and these complexities and nuances are really interesting and worth talking about. In terms of (a) I'm thinking both persons of Asian heritage who may participate in Buddhist-derived services or rituals or whose world-views or values or ethics may have been informed by Buddhism, regardless of how much they "identify" as Buddhist for the purposes of some silly academic survey. But I'm also thinking of the ways in which Buddhism has permeated the culture at large and what the effects of that might be.

It's that last point that I think is really interesting. How has US mainstream culture been impacted by non-Anglo or non-European ideas? I was told this morning that on last night's episode of the TV show 30 Rock, the main character Liz Lemon takes up meditation. I haven't seen the episode yet, so I have no idea if her meditation practice is explicitly referred to as Buddhist or what, but I always think it's interesting when such ideas pop-up in mainstream culture. How are they treated? Do they have any obvious referent to a real-world Buddhist practice or community? What do these instances of pop-cultural "Buddhism" or Asian-influenced spirituality tell us about US culture more broadly? What's the reverse effect? i.e., do these instances of pop-cultural "Buddhism" set up expectations (either positive or negative) in the minds of potential converts to the tradition? and so. There's a lot there, and it would be worth it, in my view, to explore those questions, to take them seriously.

If we dig our heels in and remain attached to rigid categories of who is and who isn't a Buddhist -- well, I can see the appeal of that from a purely intellectual point of view. It can be fun to debate and argue with people on the Internet. But it seems to me that it also misses this whole other world of how Buddhist ideas (and I'd argue culture more broadly) don't give a hoot about our abstract conceptualization and instead flow about from place to place and community to community. It might bother the purists among us that some folks "aren't practicing the right dharma" or, as Franz worries, that we'll have nothing but tricksters and shysters out there. And that's an important conversation to have -- especially if you're in a position of leadership within a Buddhist community. Defining what is and is not "really" Buddhism in that context is deadly important work. But, as far as I'm concerned, that's not my job (lucky for me), so I'll leave it to other folks.

Long story short, if we just look at the raw numbers, the number of self-identified Buddhists may be increasing or decreasing or shifting about the country. But numbers by themselves tell us very little. And real-world Buddhists do not existed in isolation. They live in a world of complex cultural influences both Buddhist and non-Buddhist. Contextualizing these issues can be more fruitful than merely looking at the numbers.

Anyway. That's my two-cents. Have a good weekend everyone!
Scott


On Mar 30, 2012, at 10:18 AM, Franz Metcalf wrote:

> Dear Scott et al.,
> 
> Thanks for the persnickety post. You've prompted me to find and review my notes from Melton's AAR session. Here's the upshot:
> 
> 1) Polling suggests roughly 1.5 million Buddhists in the USA, a fraction of the previous estimated 3.5-4 million. Census data (for reasons Scott mentions) may supplant the polling estimates with actual data supporting the higher figures.
> 
> 2) Despite potentially higher numbers of cultural Buddhists, going through temple/center/group data from some 200 denominations, Melton et al. estimate 970,000 officially Buddhist-affiliated Americans. Of course those with Buddhist influences and no cards to carry (folks Scott may describe in a later rant) may be missed in this estimate.
> 
> 3) If we find the estimate low, consider that many--for some cultures even most--Asian immigrants were not, or are no longer, Buddhist. At this point only 20% of Chinese Americans report as Buddhist. 20%!
> 
> 4) 90% of Buddhists in the USA live with 50 miles of an international airport. Two-thirds of American counties have no Buddhists groups within them. Buddhist groups tend to be in suburbs (cities are too expensives, rural areas have no Buddhists). One interesting aspect of this lack of diaspora is that Vietnamese who immigrated after the war, were forced by law to reside in every state of the union, in numbers proportionate to the state's population. Many have rescued themselves from those backwaters (note: this is me talking, not Melton), but if you take the Vietnamese Buddhists out of the equation, the already vast blank areas of the US without Buddhists grow much larger.
> 
> I find this all quite depressing but shoulder on, recalling that Buddhism, itself, is subject to anicca. On the other hand, if American Buddhism leads to such products as Genpo Roshi, who needs it?
> 
> Franz
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