Buddhism as an apology for late capitalism

Alan · 05-18-2011, 12:29 PM

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes...e-violent-than
Q: It’s hard to accept that Buddhism supports violence. Buddhism is growing very fast in the west and very few people will agree with you...

Slavoj Zizek: Buddhism is the predominant ideology in the west now. It plays a very conformist function. It makes you feel good in global capitalism. I read an analysis why all the top managers in the US like to practice Zen and all. Because things are so confusing now with one speculation you can lose billions of dollars in a minute. The only thing that can explain this is Buddhism which says that everything is an appearance and be aware of the inner reality and all that. You are dealing with just fake appearance. The tradition European thinking doesn’t help in explaining the world in a flux. This new age Buddhism gives authenticity to global capitalism. That’s why Dalai Lama is popular in Hollywood. I hope he is aware of what kind of game he is playing there, maybe he is not aware. He is providing them a cheap spiritual path so that you can basically go on with your life -- seducing, sex orgies, drugs, earn money -- but it gives you a feeling that I am aware I am not really that. It helps you to normalize and neutralize the schizophrenia we live in.

JCC · 05-18-2011, 02:07 PM

I love Zizek, and he is right. The Western preoccupation with appropriating Buddhism is unbearably cynical.

PorlNecklace · 05-18-2011, 10:42 PM

Agree with the excerpt as well, and am skeptical of westerners who scoff at occidental theology yet seem to fetishize eastern ones; this topic today being a successor of Victorian exoticism, I shall opine.

CptSternn · 05-19-2011, 12:01 AM

As I said before, it is quite humorous that Buddhism is a religion based on the idea of moderation, yet it is known around the world by their icon of a fat man.

HumanePain · 05-19-2011, 04:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CptSternn

As I said before, it is quite humorous that Buddhism is a religion based on the idea of moderation, yet it is known around the world by their icon of a fat man.

Actually I know it by this:

Ooops, there I go appropriating again, I must opine.

HumanePain · 05-19-2011, 06:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoubleK

...

Also, I don't think it's a safe assumption to say that Hollywood defines the west.

Thank you.

Alan · 05-19-2011, 07:52 AM

How is it that it doesn't? What better reflection of the west is there than Hollywood?

Alan · 05-19-2011, 08:43 AM

All this tells me that you:
a) need more Hegel and hermeneutics in your life. There are narratives in life, and these narratives are what define that life.
b) think each minuscule difference is infinitely large and therefore must be accounted for. Do you think just because there were black people in the 40's America's narrative actually was inclusive of black people?
c) and ironically end up making your own arbitrary generalizations (Russia and Turkey are not a part of the west in any significant historical, geopolitical, or cultural way)

Alan · 05-19-2011, 07:47 PM

I can't speak for Zizek's definition of violence.
But I just can't understand how you can't see that Hollywood is a reflection of the West. That's what tropes are. They are elements of discourse that play with the understood values and expectations of a culture.
Scratch that. What I can't understand is how fucking stupid it is that you would demand a "definition/representation" of a concept IN ITS ENTIRETY and then immediately talk about the concept 'West', a generalized concept. Either you don't understand it or you do, say which it is.
If I sound offensive, it's because the double standard is so offensively glaring to me.

Alan · 05-19-2011, 08:02 PM

Sorry about the cursing, I was upset. But tell me the double standard is as glaring to everyone else.

Grausamkeit · 05-22-2011, 11:49 AM

I don't think that Hollywood represents the West or even America. 1% of a people do not represent the whole.

JCC · 05-22-2011, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grausamkeit

I don't think that Hollywood represents the West or even America. 1% of a people do not represent the whole.

Hollywood is a multi-billion dollar industry operating across a greater scope than just the Western world to provide a product which it thinks audiences primarily Western or Western-influenced audiences will like based on beliefs and values and taste. The enduring success of Hollywood means that Hollywood represents what the West generally wants to see and thinks. Take the increase in film narratives to do with the confusion of identity since the late-90s to now and how it coincides with development in internet technology or urbanisation or data surveillance or the white-collar sector. They give us what we, as a society, want, and reflect what we feel and in that respect they are representative, even if you don't feel represented.

Grausamkeit · 05-22-2011, 12:59 PM

So you're saying that they represent the idiots who are keeping them rich? I'm firing all of their asses. Where are the pink slips?

JCC · 05-22-2011, 01:41 PM

You think people having identity crises in a changing world are idiots? Some of the things that Hollywood presents are ridiculous and most of those things are politically motivated. Others are just more honest than we care to admit. Where the influence of Buddhism on Hollywood is concerned, it has a lot to do with misdirection of identity like Zizek says, and trying to justify things we can't really justify. Hollywood exists to try and comfort us and that's why it's so popular. As a study of the West I think that makes it indispensable. I definitely don't think it means everyone's an idiot.

Grausamkeit · 05-22-2011, 04:20 PM

This Zizek person sounds like some psuedo-intellectual who needs to actually do something with his time besides watching movies. I have little patience for philosophy or philsophers, all of the people I've known who have fancied themselves as such have always been full of horseshit.

No, I do not think that Hollyweird represents/reflects/is the voice of the West. Yes, I do think that adults going through identity crisis are idiots. If you do not know who and what you are with all of your worldly possessions/titles stripped away then you are truly lost. You have to know yourself to be true to yourself. Most of the things that Hollyweird represents are stupid. Seldom do you see anything politically motivated. I don't understand what you're saying about it comforting or being indespinsable to the West. I could happily live without all of the idiocy and ridiculous movies and TV shows coming out these days. The ones I watch I could count on one hand and it would not damage my psyche to have it taken away permanently. Hollywood is not some fundamental part of our psyche.

Alan · 05-22-2011, 05:17 PM

I love how the goth up his ass with individualist pop rhetoric is saying one of the biggest Lacanian theorists is the pseudo-intellectual here.

Grausamkeit · 05-22-2011, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan

I love how the goth up his ass with individualist pop rhetoric is saying one of the biggest Lacanian theorists is the pseudo-intellectual here.

Personal attacks are immature when you have nothing of substance to say. You really believe that dumbass Zizek has anything of substance to say? Some kernel of 'truth' to impart to humanity? You are grasping at straws.

I'm sorry that you have chosen to delude yourself with his drivel, Jillian.

Alan · 05-22-2011, 08:40 PM

OH no! He bolded my name!
It's not a personal attack, it's just a fact. Just as the hilarity that you're whining about personal attacks and then call Zizek a dumbass for not agreeing with him, despite, you know, this being his are of study.

JCC · 05-23-2011, 04:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grausamkeit

This Zizek person sounds like some psuedo-intellectual who needs to actually do something with his time besides watching movies. I have little patience for philosophy or philsophers, all of the people I've known who have fancied themselves as such have always been full of horseshit.

No, I do not think that Hollyweird represents/reflects/is the voice of the West. Yes, I do think that adults going through identity crisis are idiots. If you do not know who and what you are with all of your worldly possessions/titles stripped away then you are truly lost. You have to know yourself to be true to yourself. Most of the things that Hollyweird represents are stupid. Seldom do you see anything politically motivated. I don't understand what you're saying about it comforting or being indespinsable to the West. I could happily live without all of the idiocy and ridiculous movies and TV shows coming out these days. The ones I watch I could count on one hand and it would not damage my psyche to have it taken away permanently. Hollywood is not some fundamental part of our psyche.

You're on a forum for people who identify as goths, you have no place saying identity crises are idiotic.

Grausamkeit · 05-23-2011, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JCC

You're on a forum for people who identify as goths, you have no place saying identity crises are idiotic.

Really? I was under the impression that most of you here had abandoned or 'grew out of' being Goths and were so much more mature than the rest of us.

I did not disinclude myself when calling such people idiots. I was such an idiot as an adult, but I recognize it as what it is.

Jill, you are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. Just because you think that Zizek is an intelligent person and that I am 'up my own ass' does not make it so.

Alan · 05-23-2011, 08:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grausamkeit

Jill, you are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. Just because you think that Zizek is an intelligent person and that I am 'up my own ass' does not make it so.

Or... you know:
"You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Just because you think that Zizek is a pseudointellectual and a dumbass does not make it so."

The fact that it's so easy to inverse what you say proves how arbitrary and pompous your words are.

Grausamkeit · 05-23-2011, 10:22 AM

Hey, I'm not the one who got all up in arms about someone bashing a bloke I look up to over the internet. Apparently I am not allowed to have an opinion that differentiates from yours without being 'up my own ass'. That is the thing that is pompous. Just grow a pair and deal with the fact that some people are going to think that the people you look up to are idiots. You are being churlish because I attacked your precious 'theorist'. Get over yourself.

JCC · 05-23-2011, 11:18 AM

I think he's getting mad because you don't really seem to know what you're talking about. You've certainly never heard of Zizek if you think he's just some pseudointellectual who likes movies, and the tedious faux-superiority of pretending like everybody else is stupid because they like Hollywood whereas you're some kind of epic iconoclast is exactly the kind of tedious shit we've come to expect from someone whose avatar is a guy with a chain on his face as a symbol of rebellion against very little.

Grausamkeit · 05-23-2011, 01:04 PM

I tire of both of your foolish assumptions about me so let's end this like adults before it turns nasty.

I read the interview. The guy sounds like a pompous ass. I stated my opinion and was attacked for it. You both make snap decisions about me and my beliefs based on...my avatar and a few posts. Grow up. If you both can't take a little criticism without making snap judgements about people how the fuck do you expect to get through life? You probably won't if your skin is that thin.

JCC · 05-23-2011, 01:23 PM

Man, you're misreading if you think I'm flapped by all this. Alan might be but I'm not concerned if you see yourself as extraneous to mainstream society or if you think Zizek's a hack. I just think you're wrong.