Interesting you say Westerners when my experience with the “Stop saying all religions are bad, Buddhists never did anything wrong” people are typically Asian.
Can they typically read Chinese history books? Because the person portrayed in the OP can’t. I think it’s pretty clearly implying someone from a different cultural background who is unfamiliar with Buddhist history, like most Westerners whose deepest thought about Buddhism is usually along the lines of ‘peaceful monk’.
People in the west who also know nothing about buddhism, also tend to do a lot of hand-waving and virtue signaling about western misconceptions of buddhism.
Do a lot of misconceptions about buddhism exist in the west? Yes, of course. Is every notion of buddhism entertained in the west a misconception? Not by a longshot. And unless you know which is which, it’s kind of chauvinistic to go around declaring every statement made about buddhism to be “orientalist.”
There are people in the west, both scholars and practitioners, who understand buddhism on a much deeper level than the average normie who only knows about a few miscontextualized concepts that were appropriated by the “self-help” industry. As well as on a much deeper level than the smugly dismissive not-your-average-normie who responds to every mention of buddhism with an overplayed and poorly thought-out accusation of romanticized orientalism.
This is a really bizarre set of assumptions to make based on ‘I’m pretty sure the meme is just saying the average westerner doesn’t know much about Buddhist history’, which is just true if you aren’t a religion nerd or a history nerd. Good luck with all that, though
It sounds to me like the people making assumptions are the ones trying to depict buddhism as violent merely because they can point to one or two extremist factions, while ignoring the entire rest of the history and context of it and the fact that those extremist factions are aberrations and not the norm.
We all know of edgelords who think “anti-religion” is a virtue to signal, but let’s be honest with ourselves and admit that it’s just another form of bigotry, ignorance, and hate.
You’re the one engaging in bad faith. The whole basis of the rhetoric from this post is an attempt to brew hatred and intolerance based on ignorance.
I’m critiquing that, and instead of engaging with that critique, you’re attempting to rationalize the rhetoric and dismiss the critique with handwaving about how some ostensible genius found an example or two in history of some righteous jerks misusing surface-level appearances of buddhism to commit atrocities.
But by confusing those surface-level appearances for actual buddhism, you’re revealing your own ignorance. That’s like confusing zionism for Judaism. It’s the same exact cognitive distortion.
I mean, I’m going to continue studying and practicing buddhism because it’s been of benefit to me in my life, and also because I believe it has a lot to offer the world. If you won’t even try to engage with its actual content because you’d rather stoke ignorance-based fear and hatred from an anti-religious moral pedestal, that’s fine. I don’t proselytize.
I just feel sorry for you in that case, and I feel sorry for everyone who won’t receive the benefit of buddhist teachings because of the rhetoric used by people like you.
Interesting you say Westerners when my experience with the “Stop saying all religions are bad, Buddhists never did anything wrong” people are typically Asian.
Can they typically read Chinese history books? Because the person portrayed in the OP can’t. I think it’s pretty clearly implying someone from a different cultural background who is unfamiliar with Buddhist history, like most Westerners whose deepest thought about Buddhism is usually along the lines of ‘peaceful monk’.
People in the west who also know nothing about buddhism, also tend to do a lot of hand-waving and virtue signaling about western misconceptions of buddhism.
Do a lot of misconceptions about buddhism exist in the west? Yes, of course. Is every notion of buddhism entertained in the west a misconception? Not by a longshot. And unless you know which is which, it’s kind of chauvinistic to go around declaring every statement made about buddhism to be “orientalist.”
There are people in the west, both scholars and practitioners, who understand buddhism on a much deeper level than the average normie who only knows about a few miscontextualized concepts that were appropriated by the “self-help” industry. As well as on a much deeper level than the smugly dismissive not-your-average-normie who responds to every mention of buddhism with an overplayed and poorly thought-out accusation of romanticized orientalism.
This is a really bizarre set of assumptions to make based on ‘I’m pretty sure the meme is just saying the average westerner doesn’t know much about Buddhist history’, which is just true if you aren’t a religion nerd or a history nerd. Good luck with all that, though
What part of what I said was an assumption?
It sounds to me like the people making assumptions are the ones trying to depict buddhism as violent merely because they can point to one or two extremist factions, while ignoring the entire rest of the history and context of it and the fact that those extremist factions are aberrations and not the norm.
We all know of edgelords who think “anti-religion” is a virtue to signal, but let’s be honest with ourselves and admit that it’s just another form of bigotry, ignorance, and hate.
If you don’t want to engage in good faith I can’t make you, have a day 👍
You’re the one engaging in bad faith. The whole basis of the rhetoric from this post is an attempt to brew hatred and intolerance based on ignorance.
I’m critiquing that, and instead of engaging with that critique, you’re attempting to rationalize the rhetoric and dismiss the critique with handwaving about how some ostensible genius found an example or two in history of some righteous jerks misusing surface-level appearances of buddhism to commit atrocities.
But by confusing those surface-level appearances for actual buddhism, you’re revealing your own ignorance. That’s like confusing zionism for Judaism. It’s the same exact cognitive distortion.
I mean, I’m going to continue studying and practicing buddhism because it’s been of benefit to me in my life, and also because I believe it has a lot to offer the world. If you won’t even try to engage with its actual content because you’d rather stoke ignorance-based fear and hatred from an anti-religious moral pedestal, that’s fine. I don’t proselytize.
I just feel sorry for you in that case, and I feel sorry for everyone who won’t receive the benefit of buddhist teachings because of the rhetoric used by people like you.