Passion, Desire

Desire. The impulse to liberate our desires is a carefully camouflaged trap. Our desires are not singularly unique manifestations of some inner spirit. They are but the machinations of historical processes and guided interests that we internalize. Letting loose our desires atrophies our subjectivity, enslaving us.

Passion frees us from our own limitations and it transforms us. We must be wary of these mutations. Desire takes our passions and shapes us to its own will. Tempering passion, however, risks tainting it; a manageable passion may not be passion at all. Or indeed, it may only be wishful thinking that we can manage passions. Rationalizations atrophy spontaneity–and may be a more firm a cage than our entangling desires.

Instead of all this concern about desires, passions, CONTROL–we should be artisans who are concerned to shape and reshape our prisons. Denial about our own imprisonment is the most sinister trap of all. It is a bolder freedom to step in a trap of our choosing and to tool it into the shape we desire. All other choices mean that we leave other forces to guide our imprisonment. We become beholden to their manufacturing. Let us prefer our own, and decorate them well.

Crushed by Idols

I really like this excerpt from Nietzsche. It inspires me.  Psht. Whatever, read Ecce Homo.

BAM:

One repays a teacher badly if one always remains only a pupil. And why, then, should you not pluck at my laurels?

You revere me; but what if your reverence tumbles one day? Beware that a statue does not strike you dead!

You say you believe in Zarathustra? But of what importance is Zarathustra? You are my believers: but of what importance are all believers?

You had not yet sought yourselves: then you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little.

Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The Female Character Flowchart

While Smurfing, I came across this awesome flowchart from Overthinking it, which, after this post I will delve into to see how much I love it. Just sit back and enjoy the pop-culture sexism decoded in this flowchart:

As the commenter on the site I found the link through (Jezebel) says, this is even before we start applying the Bechdel test.

Our Sexuality

I’m teaching a class on sexuality and I thought I should collect all of my preliminary thoughts about it into one place and, hey, that’s what this blog is for!

So, to begin, I’d like to say that my perspective on sexuality is quite Foucaultian. I think taking into account the insights (whether one agrees or not) of Foucault’s History of Sexuality is necessary for an understanding of our contemporary sexuality. Not only does he provide a very interesting account of where our sexual mores and proclivities belong in a historical continuum, he provides a very interesting methodological perspective about how to think about sexuality. It is not whether we possess in some essential way a certain sexuality, rather it is that we should question where sexuality comes from and what effect certain discourses on sexuality have on producing that sexuality. It is less important, for example, to determine whether or not we possess a repressed sexuality: it is rather to ask what does the very idea that we have a repressed sexuality do? How does thinking we are repressed effect the way we think and act about sexuality.

So, the first insight of The History of Sexuality and probably the most famous is that:

1) Whether or not we are actually repressed, the very idea that we are repressed (which we buy into a lot) impacts us. It makes us want to be liberated from this repression. It allows for a whole swath of discourse and activities open up that make us more and more concerned about sexuality. Because we think we are repressed we intensify our concern with sexuality. The idea of Repression actually produces more and more discourse about sexuality.

Diagnosing American Politics

Jean Baudrillard was somewhat prescient in his analysis of the semiology of America. In his 1983 volume Simulations (which contains excerpts from Simulations and Sumulacra, made famous by its cameo in the Matrix) Baudrillard has this to say about the WTC:

Why are there two towers at New York’s World Trade Center? … The fact that there are two of them signifies the end of all competition, the end of all original reference. … For the sign to be pure, it has to duplicate itself: it is the duplication of the sign which destroys its meaning. This is what Andy Warhol demonstrates also: the multiple replicas of Marilyn’s face are there to show at the same time the death of the original and the end of representation. (135-6)

Here we see the major philosophical point that Baudrillard is making. Signs are representations that infinitely reduplicate an original. In Late Capitalism, or the stage of simulation, signs no longer refer to any original, but rather only to each other. For Baudrillard, this means that we no longer operate, at the level of meaning (and as we saw with the stock market crash, economic meaning is included), with the real. Rather, we are operating within a correlated system of simulations of meaning. Signs no longer refer to or represent anything real. Thus, he could title one of his works: The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. He continues:

[The two towers] and their twin altitude presents no longer any value of transcendence. (137) … power is absolute only if it is capable of diffraction into various equivalents, if it knows how to take off so as to put more on. (134) … You need two superpowers to keep the universe under control… and the equilibrium of terror alone can allow a regulated opposition to be established, for the strategy is structural, never atomic.(134)

His broader point about the Twin Towers is that they stand in for America.

Buddhism Does Not Exist

NOTE: This is a comment I posted on this post at feministe, by guest blogger Kloncke. I thought I’d like to save it, because reading it again, I liked parts of it. Especially the first sentence.

Buddhism does not exist. Buddhism is a figment of our individual and collective imaginations. The “Buddhism” that we know in the “West” has little to do with Early Indian Buddhism, much in the same way that Early Indian Buddhism has little to do with Chinese Buddhism. What Buddhism has become a repository for–since its construction by Europeans as “Buddhism” (say as opposed to buddhasasana or some such), some unitary “world religion”–is all of our desires and dreams. In the early 20th century Early Buddhism was the religion of ‘rationality’ that could replace a corrupt, institutionalized, superstitious, oppressive Christianity. Then it suited our desires for mysticism and existential angst with Zen. Now Tibetan Buddhism is popular for whatever reason. Ironically, in Korea, Buddhism is seen as decadent, and Christianity is a vital, rational religion. So, why Buddhism? I guess the point I am trying to make here, is that all this discussion about what “Buddhism” is, has little to do with Buddhism and everything to do with our own conceits.

Is Buddhism about meditation? Is it a philosophy or a religion? Is it about mindfulness, etc. etc.? The answers to these questions betray our own interests and desires. Why do we get upset when one person says Buddhism is X and another says it is not X? Why take sides?

I think what could be useful is to step back a bit and ask: “are we not becoming problematically attached to ‘Buddhism’ when we want to think Buddhism is a certain way and to argue against the idea that it is another way?” Buddhism is a vast religion, with too many iterations to count. For most ‘buddhists’ throughout history, Buddhism was a complex of gods, rituals, social norms, and platitudes to get through their daily life. Indeed, even meditation was a minority practice among monks! Much of what we think is Buddhism has been a haphazardly constructed Orientalist stereotype that meets the needs and desires of Western audiences. We are spoon-fed a Buddhism that meets certain of our desires. Ironic.

Given all this, the question should not be “what is Buddhism” or even “what does Buddhism say about X”? Rather, the question should be, “since every invocation of Buddhism is used for a certain end, is an appropriation, to what end am I appropriating Buddhism–and what are the consequences of that appropriation?”

A Short History of Buddhism and Orientalism

For the scholarly minded, or those who want to get a good resource for the Orientalist construction of Buddhism, I suggest this source that I just started re-reading: Jorn Borup, “Zen and the Art of Inverting Orientalism: Buddhism, Religious Studies and Interrelated Networks”, in New Approaches to the Study
of Religion, Volume I: Regional, Critical, and Historical Approaches, edited by Peter Antes, Armin W. Geertz, and Randi R. Warne, 451-487. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2004.

This is a great introduction and summary of quite a few different number of recent scholarly examinations of Buddhism, its construction, and its place within Orientalism and relationship to Orientalism. While, I would have prefered a more robust theoretcal or even critical analysis at the end of the paper, it is still quite good. I think it would have most impact on those scholars who haven’t yet encountered the counter-discourse arising in Buddhist Studies against its own ideolized projections (led by people like Donald Lopez, Almond, and others). Great for a intro to Buddhism course at university.

I’d like to know what others think of this piece.

The critical underpinings of everyday life

I’ve been recently reading about hermeneutics, in specific about Riceour and his interpretation of the Gadamer/Habermas debate found in “Hermeneutics and the Critique of Ideology”. It has made me imagine a new way of thinking of ideology and criticism that incorporates a potentially more robust understanding of the way people interpret the world around them. Keep in mind this is just a hypothesis, or a one-off insight that needs more thought, deliberation and research to reach more fruitful insight.

In short, it is to argue that with the onset of modernity, subjectivity has necessarily entered a critical mode of thought. My critique of the binary of modernity and tradition is comprehensive. These categories are purely ideological or conceptual. There is no modernity other than that which we give a name to and then act or think upon. There is no tradition anymore either, because of the power of the concept of modernity. The two concepts are now inextricably linked. Tradition no longer means the traditio of the Roman period. Tradition is always in critical dialogue with modernity. The two terms are tactics put into the play of discourse for people to construct the world in ways that suit their needs–and these terms are situated now as almost uniquely powerful tools for rhetorical sledgehammers to define reality in certain ways. These terms are, then, in many ways of thinking of the term, ideological. This is true even if we have different meanings of the terms modernity, tradition, and ideology.

That being said, we often have the “common sense” or even “critical” interpretive stance that those who we label conservative or traditionalists are not critical or self-reflexive about their own positions. This is what I would like to challenge. From a hermeneutic perspective, what we call “back-ward thinking” and “critical thought” are produced in subjects in very similar ways. Both are conditioned by upbringing, education, social norms, interpretive frameworks, etc. etc. The process by which subjects are constructed (or to be a little more nuanced, the process by which subjects take the available horizons of meaning to heart in their own self-constructions) are similar, it is rather that the varied inputs of biology, sociology, culture, education etc. on a subject differ for each in such a unique way as to produce very unique, contextually-dependent subjects who are nonetheless all undergoing similar processes of subject- and identity-formation. Whether one is born-again or a freethinker, one is inevitably shaped by one’s context and relates to and constructs oneself in/from that context in the same manner.

Religious Studies should be Ideology Studies

Caveat: I know the term ideology is quite loaded, and also has many expressions and meanings etc. etc. However, the most broad and non-judgemental meaning includes all the above. So that’s how I mean it here.

Caveat 2: this post is bitchy. and ranty. and nearly incoherent. But I gotta get it out! Maybe someone can translate for me in the comments.

So, I came across the video above at Sociological Images about David Harvey’s take on the economic crisis and blah blah. Interesting video and all that. At the end of the video, however, Harvey says we should be debate and discussing the issue and thinking differently and all that warm fuzzy stuff that makes critical thinkers think of rainbows.

My immediate reaction, however, was that nowhere is it more clear that ideology is afoot is when we think about economics and capitalism. While Marxists by no means have a monopoly on the term Ideology, they were a powerful voice in shaping what we mean by ideology. To be a jerk about it, this is how I think we tend to think about ideology today: everything you believe is ideology and what I believe is truth.

Foucault and Buddhism Redux

Caveat: Comparing two distinct trajectories of thought–considerably removed in time, place, historical development, context, background assumptions, socio-cultural surroundings etc. is a problematic endeavor. Why do it? One is essentially appropriating some aspect of each trajectory for one’s own uses. So one must be careful not to contribute to the various systemic forms of domination that play out: e.g. those that inform why we are choosing to care about these trajectories of thought as opposed to others and may not be independent from problematic interests; the way we speak about each may be impacted by forces that contribute to systemic oppression (i.e. orientalism); our goal in comparing is never separate from our own interests, and we must be careful about the potential productive use our comparing can do).

Taking these concerns and others into account, I’d like to compare Foucault and Buddhism to elaborate on why one would compare Foucault and Buddhism. Just as in the caveat above, any contribution to knowledge is the putting into play of a discourse for certain effects. In this (my) interpretation (i.e. for this post, this instance of comparative work) the intention is to speak about social justice. Social justice is many things to many people, so perhaps a working definition is in order. To whit: Social justice is the idea that domination should be eradicated, and socio-economic, gendered, sexual, racial (etc.) equity is a major part of combating domination. Domination comes in many forms, but the most productive forms of domination are institutional and structural and impact the individual lives of everyone. With this insight, social justice is the analysis of, critical engagement with, and strategic operation against the institutions and systemic processes within which domination operates.

From this perspective, when comparing Foucault and Buddhism, we can see prima facie (and understandably, given that idea of social justice is already heavily influenced by Foucauldian thought), that Foucault’s analysis of discourse, genealogical history, the construction of the subject and the disciplining of the self through institutions is an important and insightful examination of domination. One way we can think about Foucault’s answer to domination is to imagine that he is saying that these broader structures  are only continually reified in local instantiations–the sum and interrelation of which through history is what enables domination. Thus, strategically, and ethically, the opposite is true: it is only through local instantiations of strategic resistance to, and positive alternatives from, dominating relations that the work of social justice happens.

Buddhism’s concern is somewhat removed here. The telos of  Buddhism is different things to different people. Without going into the historical and comparative background, I think a plausible universal within Buddhism is the goal of the cessation of suffering, most commonly through the work of the cessation of attachment. How these two things play out in Buddhist history is exceptionally varied: from the 8-fold path, to the bodhisattva vow, to the six or ten perfections (depending on the tradition), etc. Two common themes develop in Buddhist history: the cessation of suffering at an individual level (in Foucauldian terms, the construction of the self that suffers less); and, the cessation of suffering at a universal level–that is, the goal of alleviating suffering for all sentiant beings (or sometimes just ‘the most one can reach’). The latter can speak to something similar to social justice: within the category of suffering are those things that lead to the more ‘mundane’ sufferings of poverty, illness, violence, etc., and also the more ‘existential’ suffering of uncontentedness engendered by, say, impermanence. The former theme of the cessation of suffering is a very local one: how does one produce one’s ‘self’ in such a way as to continually decrease one’s own suffering.

The trite part of my analysis comes in here: it seems to me, from the perspective of social justice, Buddhism only works at the level of the individual subject and at the level of a universal abstract. From this same perspective, Foucault’ s analysis works in between these, but only offers up the method for challenging and producing subjects and also leaves for continual re-imagining the goal (the abstract universal telos) of strategic work. In both cases, one could say that he leaves the end-product up to each of us. I would like to imagine, for this comparison, that these two ways of thinking about Foucault and Buddhism are complimentary. The open ends that Foucault leaves us, when filled with my abstract Buddhist analysis above, can be interpreted to speak towards social justice.

The work of re-imagining the subject could be predicated on constructing one’s subjectivity (through whatever practices) towards the goal of the alleviation of suffering. This subject-construction must work in tandem with the more abstract end of one’s reconstructions: the alleviation of suffering for everyone (or, in utilitarian terms: the least suffering for the most amount of sentient beings). What Foucault’s analysis allows us are the tools to interpret the systemic and institutional forces that shape domination and the expanding of suffering, and allow us a method towards which we can work for the cessation of suffering at an individual, local level for broad universal effects. Put another way, perhaps more negatively, Foucauldian analysis fills in the gap between the individual and the universal goals of dukkha-nirodha (the cessation of suffering) that is lacking in Buddhism. Buddhism can help concretize the open-ended nature of Foucualdian subject-construction.

Indeed, put in this light, I would argue that Buddhist goals and aims are on par with other social justice perspectives like feminism, post-colonialism, anti-racism, marxism, etc. that attempt to use Foucault to develop strategies of analysis and resistance to fight Patriarchy, Orientalism, Racism, and socio-economic imbalance, etc. Buddhism, when put within the list of social perspectives, could use Foucault for strategies to fight Suffering. Add dukkha to the list of intersectional oppressions, and use it in conjunction with feminism, post-colonialism, etc.–perhaps even include it, from this perspective, within the list of progressive doctrines. And, since we love labels, call it Progressive Buddhism.

Inspired by this thread: by Klonke at Feministe.