… This warm, cosy – and smug – feeling is fed on the assumption that ironic distance is automatically a subversive attitude. What if, on the contrary, the dominant attitude of the contemporary “postideological” universe is precisely cynical distance What if this distance, far from posing any threat to the system, designates the supreme form of conformism, since the normal function of the system requires cynical distance?
EDIT: The following comment thread is long, winding, and confused. I was thinking of breaking it up and move parts of it to a new page, but that would probably make things even worse, so I’ll leave it as it is. If someone wants to write a new blog post, dealing with some of the themes brought up here, I’d be happy to post/host it and have it as an introduction for a new discussion.
Pingback: Kenneth R. Lingam, DVM, Arhat: Mastering the Core Teachings of Pharmacological Meditation | tuttejiorg
What these people don’t get is that what Grandmaster Wachtmeister is doing here has nothing to do with irony or parody. For what is the function of parody if it unveils that the true parody is that what these self-acclaimed enlightened and awakened masters of a universe of foolery are doing? – And whereby their fulminant oafishness is finally shining forth for all to see in glaring vividness! The only way for a guy like Kenneth Folk (to put him here just as an exemplar of all the funny guys doing the fuck-you-up-enlightenment shop) to follow in the footsteps of somebody like Grandmaster Wachtmeister is to embrace once and for all the seriousness of his parody and to shun their businesses. His parody is no parody because making visible the games of the funny guys with their so called “fundamental shifts in consciousness” (quote Kenneth Folk) and their (again just as an example) Pragmatic Dharma Bullshit is the only serious business here.
Kenneth Folk: I request you to step forward to acknowledge the superiority of Grandmaster Wachtmeister by decommissioning all your businesses which try to teach people something other than humbleness towards Grandmaster Wachtmeister Tutte the One and Only. Go ahead and be a true role model. Demolish your fake talk about being something other than just another idiot of esotericism. Shut up and succumb. Bow before the true insight – the only one you’re able to have: That you are nothing but a liar and that the only road to salvation for someone like you is to shut the fuck up! The only way to show that there are residues of humaneness left over in your boring being is to never say again a word in the function of the self-acclaimed teacher you feign, to shut down all your miserable and obscene online presence and to go to real retreat – which is the search (and for you nearly impossible task) to become a human again!
To try this is the only true “fundamental shift in consciousness” which is left feasible for you!!
Bow to the master!!!
From Matthias Steingass’ comment, above:
“Fulminant oafishness…”
Beautiful use of language.
Just to be clear, this isn’t meant to be sarcastic. I really do think it’s beautiful use of language. (Sometimes it’s hard to tell in online discussions.)
More substancial comments, anyone? Beautiful use of language encouraged but not required. Let the wild rumpus begin!
I get info that Kenneth is canceling his Pragmatic Dharma Retreat. He experienced a fundamental shift in consciousness. Congrats to Kenneth. You did it.
fulminant
Pronunciation: /ˈfʊlmɪnənt, ˈfʌl-/
adjective
Medicine (of a disease or symptom) severe and sudden in onset.
Origin: early 17th century: from French, or from Latin fulminant- ‘striking with lightning’, from the verb fulminare (see fulminate)
oafish
Pronunciation: /ˈəʊfɪʃ/
adjective: rough or clumsy and unintelligent:oafish behaviour
Derivatives
oafishly
adverb
oafishness
noun
Fulmminant oafishness: let us say, then, ‘diseased stupidity’. Diseased because it spreads like a pox and stupidity because in attempting an insult the really stupid person always manages to shoot himself in the foot. Fulminant oafishness . Beautiful indeed. By the way Tutte your proposal sounds interesting. Please email me with your thoughts.(adress available on my gravitor)
Mathias, can you reframe your criticism in more structured way? In other words, what specifically would you have me do or not do with regard to my meditation teaching? And why is it important to you? Clarifying this might form the basis for a useful discussion.
Kenneth. Just to give a preliminary answer (in my no-joke-mode).
I am skimming through this wired article this morning. It’s all about what has been repeated a thousand times on the SNB-blog: Mindfulness is used to enhance an unjust and absolutely self-embracing autistic capitalistic system which lives separated from the majority of the world population on exactly the resources this majority has to provide.
What you and others do is absolute nothing new. In fact Timothy Leary referred to it as the “Neurosomatic Circuit” half a century ago. What has changed though is that the CIA-agent who chased Leary then and who would not understand his insights, would do now exactly this: Yoga, breathing, deep conscious relaxation for fast recovery, in one word bio-feedback etc. They are using this ‘technology’ to their avail. You are on the same side now. You are supporting an unjust self-obsessed politico-economic system.
You, you buddhist geeks, all you oh so smart cute awareness holders, you are absolutely politically unaware. And you are only able to do as you do because you (as me) life in gated communities.
Mathias, you assume too much.
You wrote: “you are absolutely politically unaware.”
Given that you and I have never discussed politics, this is a curious assertion.
Skimming a WIRED article is not likely to give you any deep insight into my views, political or otherwise. In fact, I share some of your concerns. I worry that “mindfulness” is being co-opted by corporate power as yet another tool to squeeze profit from the common folk. Meditation is not, in my opinion, best understood as a productivity tool. I wrote about it here:
http://kennethfolkdharma.com/2013/07/why-meditation-is-not-a-productivity-tool/
I’d like to see something emergent in this discussion. Let’s begin by listening to each other rather than downloading. I must go now, I have a busy day; I’m meeting with a rich and powerful Silicon Valley venture capitalist to discuss a collaboration involving a meditation app. (I’m smirking and virtually winking at you, but I’m not kidding. I’ll let you know how it goes.)
Kenneth, Matthias,
This latest comment from Kenneth could be seen as another example of what was discussed earlier today in a thread on FB. I can’t figure how to link directly to it, and am too busy to write something, but you can find a copy here.
Kenneth,
I believe it when you say that you’re interested in having a ”useful discussion”, and that you find the kind of critique formulated by SNB interesting and relevant. I also appreciate that you took up the challenge to show up at the trollfest here. That is also one of the reasons that I created these sub-pages. They are intended as a trolling-free zone, and I hope to see some meaningful dialog taking place here.
As the theme of the current discussion is ”irony as conformism”, and you present yourself as a ”meditation teacher interested in social justice, human rights, and understanding resource depletion”, I’m puzzled by your latest comment about ”meeting with a rich and powerful Silicon Valley venture capitalist to discuss a collaboration involving a meditation app”. Would you care to flesh it out a little (preferably in a non-ironic way)?
Is this ironic stance (like your professed interest in SNB) a way to maintain a cynical distance to systems that are destructive, oppressive, harmful, and so on, but which allow you to live what I imagine is a rather comfortable life?
Please see this as an invitation rather than a challenge.
Kenneth. Would you like some criticism of your approach? There’s a shitload of it here: http://speculativenonbuddhism.com/2012/12/09/x-buddhist-provocateurs/. I went through the trouble of commenting on a link you sent–at your request–and then, like a rare bird, you flitted off. Here it is:
Kenneth (#285). I just listened to your talk, “The Power of Potty Training.” If I were to employ a non-buddhist critique in a way that does not require what to many readers on this blog would amount to needless explanation and repetition, I’d have to use a bunch of terms and concepts that you are most certainly unfamiliar with. So, can I request that you do some homework first? In saying what I mean by that, I’ll be offering a mini-critique of your talk’s basic rhetorical frame, not the details. The reason I ask you to do this prior work is that I think that, once you do so, you will be able to see for yourself (wink, wink) what a non-buddhist critique would tease out of your presentation.
First, please read Richard Payne’s piece . That essay is a response to another one. by Matthias Steingass, called “Aggressive Buddhist Appeasement.” I see your presentation as a clear instance of an intangible commodity. I assume you will respond by saying, no, I am offering tangibles. To which I would then say, maybe, when it concerns the relatively trivial (if nonetheless potentially far-reaching) business of feeling sensation, knowing thoughts, etc. But these trivialities are encased in a rhetoric of (here comes the non-buddhist terminology) thaumaturgical intangibility. (See Matthias’s article “Biography of an X-Buddhist Thaumaturge” for starters.) This involves a rhetorical suggestion that some sort of special, wonder-working knowledge is on offer. Sure the figure in the parable claims to be offering the shit-stained fools something that is as accessible as it is obvious. But still, the fools need him to tell them that. Extrapolated out into the real world, it is you, of course, who are the dharmic thaumaturge. So, you commit what Matthias calls the “esoteric fallacy.” Recourse to this very common gesture in x-buddhist discourse is possible because of two (at least) additional facets, or really presumptions, of dharmic argumentation illuminated by the non-buddhist heuristic: the principle of sufficient Buddhism and anti-humanism. As human beings, the Shit-Stained are lacking something that only the dharmic thaumaturge can provide. And until the person subscribes to the dharmic path, however articulated by the thaumaturge (i.e., by you), he will remain insufficient. Your chosen simile in the opening parable that frames your presentation–that of the potty trainer–is not an innocent one. It is itself loaded with anti-human beliefs. It sets the logical stage for your thaumaturgy. Note that it–your specifically-chosen metaphor–and not reality, sets that stage. This x-buddhist axiom of human insufficiency, which I term humophobia, is in direct contradiction to the non-buddhist axiom of subject irreversibility, which states that “reversibility between the person of flesh and blood and the x-buddhist subject is impossible.” You can read more about that in my piece “Sutras of Flesh and Blood”. It is true that what follows the parable of the potty trainer is a discourse on satipatthana-ish coping strategies. Several of Tom Pepper’s essays are relevant to this quasi-psychological aspect of your rhetorical frame. Since those Shit-Stained Ones of the parable (and, you presume, of the real-life audience in front of you) are addicted to their shit-stainedness, you can start with “Cessation of Craving: Buddhism as a Cure for Addictions.”
Really, Tom, Matthias, and I have created a ton of tools for giving thought to x-buddhist material like your talk. I ask that you read around for a while. You will find common keywords such as subjectivity, subjugation, ideology, desire, praxis, alongside of more technical ones like buddheme, thaumaturgical refuge, network of postulation, rhetorics of self-display, and spiritual narcissism. I think you’ll find all of these tools useful in analysis of yourself as a modern-day x-buddhist thaumaturge. That is not to say that the message of your talk is not valuable and worth the saying. It is just that once you perform a non-buddhist self-analysis you will never say it like that again.
So, how will you say it?
Kenneth Folk’s talk The Power of Potty Training can be found here.
Kenneth.
Do not take it so personally. The article in Wired is all about enhancing productivity via meditation techniques. My point is not so much about you.
I admit, the phrase of someone being
is a bit misleading. But not in the way you might think. To make it clear: I am not a leftist, marxist or something equally esoterrifying.
What I mean with “unaware” is about one central assumption of Speculative Non-Buddhism I just mentioned to Vince Horn: We are not aware (enough) about what make us think as we think!
A central term which leads into thinking about this problem (in my case, as differentiated from Tom Rinzai Pepperspray and HH Glenn Wallis) is Society of Control.
I have written about it. You may google about it. You may familiarize yourself with this thought. Then and only then I am willing to have, as you say
But for the time being, what I just wrote to Vince goes to you as well: Neither you Kenneth, nor Vince for that, took it upon you to go into the SNB-material. At least I never saw anything in this regard. But still we are asked in such discussions to discuss “topics in a more transparent way”. It is there. If you are interested: Read!
The point Tutte the One and Only is making is really a great one. You Kenneth do not get the irony of, for example, saying that you experienced “a fundamental shift in consciousness“. Tutte makes visible that this declaration ultimately is an irony (a kind of semantic territory-marker, a kind of dharmic currency, which does not say anything substantial at all) whereby suddenly Tutte’s irony makes a real fundamental shift into being a true critique – a critique that goes to the heart of your being as a awakened one.
The crazy thing here is: you know it. It is visible from your reaction and a lot of other dharma-teachers – however they may address themselves. You know it. That is visible when you admit that Tutte’s visionary irony is working.
Now, what are you doing about it. The emperor is naked and for the first time in the history of the last forty years of Buddhism in the west he admits it. That’s more than we at the Speculative Non-Buddhism page ever achieved.
This is realization. Your realization – and you really should be thankful to Tutte the Wachtmeister for this gift.
Where do you go now? Business as usual? Trying to stick your head in the sand again?
Interestingly Kenneth Folk no longer has “fundamental shifts of consciousness“. The page I linked to above has been changed to the effect that the self-display of Kenneth a person which underwent “a fundamental shift in consciousness in 2004” does not exist anymore. Does the cure we administer work? Is Kenneth Folk – finally – on his way to true awakened enlightenment?
I forgot, half of the page is still visible:
It’s great that Kenneth participated somewhat here. I would love to see more Buddhist icons get stuck in, I think it would do them and you good to thrash out ideas, perspectives, experience, practice, critique, thoughts, lifestyle choices and the rest. Grist for the mill and all that.
By the way Tutte, your London bikes are crap and the damn machine wouldn’t accept my debit card! Perhaps I should meditate on that…
Hi Matthew,
We’ll see if Kenneth Folk comes back. He hasn’t responded to my invitation to engage in a serious, non-lulzy dialogue, and Vince Horn seems only interested in having a conversation on his own, high-tech terms. I know several other Buddhist teachers read this blog, but so far they seem to prefer to stay in the shadow. This doesn’t really surprise me. How many of them have shown any interest in responding to critique, or engage with those not willing to play by their rules?
Instead of waiting for them to show up, I guess we should focus on formulating better (or funnier) critiques. Having said that, I admit that I don’t know what I should do with this blog now that I’ve come out as (some kind of) “nonbuddhist”. Any suggestions or (even better) contributions are welcome.
Matthew, if you believe that Kenneth Folk (or Vince Horn) are interested in any genuine dialog you miss a fundamental point: They are players in a world of delusion who want to stay ignorant about what makes us think as we think. It is a mistake to think they have any interest in this just because they name themselves Buddhists. If you look for genuine dialog about thinking the rules of thinking by the search term “Buddhism” you only get crap. It’s simply the wrong signifier.
While I appreciate the value of “saying fuck occasionally” (or engage in aggressive trolling) and thereby challenge the inhibiting norms of “right speech”, I also see a problem with calling guys like these “delusive peddlers of snakeoil”, or whatever. It gives them a simple excuse to avoid engaging in the kind of serious talk that could have the potential to expose their ideology.
Tutte, their ideology already has been exposed (in the thread Glenn is referring to above for example). These people simply do not have anything important to say.
The problem for us is: as soon as we realize that buddhism in the west doesn’t hold what we fantasized about it we have to leave it. If we still hesitate and try to talk to these people, what is holding us back?
Is it that we still want our delusion about buddhism to become true?
Hi Matthias,
I don’t understand… If things were that simple, if everything has been exposed already, why then come back here to challenge Kenneth Folk? Why do you spend all this time working on your own blogs?
There are several reasons why one would want to engage x-buddhist teachers in public dialogue or debate, and I don’t think the desire to do so is necessarily motivated by the kind of hesitation you’re talking about. As I’ve said before, I have little hope we will see many such debates, however.
As for your last question, I guess few people would engage with this kind of critical work unless motivated by a sense that there is something in ”Buddhism” that has been betrayed or misrepresented, or that there might be something in there worth salvaging. Perhaps this is mistaken and a waste of time. But so is juvenile rebellion (lots of kicking and screaming, but little substance).
Hi Tutte, I see the contradiction you mean. It was there from the beginning. There wouldn’t be Der Unbuddhist without the Buddhist, for example.
Re people like Kenneth or Vince or the German Buddhist Union (which I criticized heavily again recently): I suggest to differentiate between talking about them and with them. The latter is most often impossible for several reasons. Perhaps most generally because they are subject of the principle of sufficient buddhism. To talk about is a necessary critical work – at least for people who have, for certain reasons, contact with this phenomenon. But in this case it is necessary to define exactly what one does. “Buddhism” then is to be seen as a subset of the emerging capitalist culture of eternal wellness for the few (disguised as the definite take on the real, which makes it capitalism’s ideal accomplice). “Mahayana”, to use the term as an opposition, then is incompatible with “Buddhism” because it already showed a certain relationship between the real an the relative which is lost to “Buddhism”. So it is not about the conversation with these people but about – how they are corrupting, commodifying and ultimately cannibalizing certain asiatic religious and philosophical traditions. Only if these people come back to the invitation to sit down at the table of the great feast of knowledge, it becomes possible to talk with them.
One more point – for us! – is that everybody involved in this field of topics should make it clear why in the first place s/he came to “Buddhism”. For example, I have for a lot years, before I really came into contact with “Buddhism”, fantasized that it is about an open minded culture of people investigating the astonishing phenomenon of consciousness in universe. And I was mostly interested in technologies which “Buddhism” might provide for this investigation. I was never interested in salvation (if so, I would have been saved already when one of my best friends became an evangelist 30 years ago). As it came out “Buddhism” isn’t about consciousness in universe and it is not about technologies of investigation in this phenomenon (and certainly not about a science of consciousness). Then, what are the consequences? I have to leave “Buddhism” behind. Plain and simple everything else would be a waste of time. But it is necessary to come out and talk about our own misapprehensions. A kind of confession.
Then, why come back and troll people like Kenneth. Well, I have some lower instincts like everybody else, I want top smell some blood every now and then. Especially in these infantile times of like. Also, as I said before, your take Tutte on the thing provides us with a certain fundamental shift (that’s the only thing I like about Ken, this superb term!): They are forced to see for themselves that they are indistinguishable from the parody you provide. That’s why you should think further how this could be developed. How they could be forced more and more to look into the mirror – but that’s not for the naked emperor, it’s for the onlookers, to break the spell of silence. It is for the audience to see how they try to evade the insight that they sell nothing but snake-oil indeed, how they recoil or try to counteract with their consent and how they finally flinch cowardly when confronted that there is no way out but through the realization that they are nothing but an effect of the real with absolutely no means of control. Nothing but an interference pattern already in the state of dissolution. But it’s for the audience. Nor for them – as long as they want to be saved.
At last about the x-buddhist strategy of not going into any real conversation. Vincent Horn seems to invite non-buddhism to talk here. He says, no one has taken me up on my offer to speak in a different setting. Personally, I’d love to see that change. What looks like a warm invitation lacks one essential point: the proof that there has been a confrontation with the non of non-buddhism on their side. For what should we talk about if not about the pre-formatting of thought by, for example, the historical situation? The x-buddhist invitation to talk is suffocation by embracement.
It is always the same, they, in their superior generosity, invite to talk. But about what? I am invited by the editor of the German magazine Buddhimus aktuell (Ursula Richard) to write there. But at my blog she tells me in a comment to eventually stop my DBU-bashing (DBU = German Buddhist Union). I have written three articles about the DBU. About the DBU and sexuality, DBU and critical thinking in art about Buddhism and about the DBU and her stance as the herald of the Buddhism of the 21st century. Roughly 15.000 words I guess. Under what preconditions I am invited? Implicitly under the condition of no further discussion about all the preconditioned thought of the DBU (which is the publisher of Buddhismus aktuell). What are the preconditions implicated in Vicent Horn’s offering to speak in a different setting. If we look at the total lack of any discussion of the non in non-buddhism on their side we can only conclude that a different setting means no non allowed.
So instead of taking this offer and swallowing its hidden bait (some kind of blue pill), they have to show that they want more than being accepted as a subset of capitalist wellness for the few. They have to show that they want to step out.
As I wrote to Vincent: “If you are really interested in transparent discussion anyway then take your time, read the material, think about it, write an article somewhere, show us that you are really interested, put forward a list of related questions and ask for an interview for your podcast series.”
As a kind of journalist, Vincent has to show that he knows what he is going to interview about.
I doubt that this will happen, it would mean to talk about decision.
Hi Matthias,
Obviously there would be no “non” (or “un”) without the “x”. But I was thinking about a couple of specifics here. The first being the issue of inviting x-buddhists to public debates, the second your statement that “their ideology has already been exposed”.
As for the first, I don’t agree with your distinction of talking to (or with) them, and talking about them. As long as the conversation takes place in public, the purpose (as I see it) is very much to demonstrate where they’re coming from, before an audience (those 20 or so people who actually take an interest in these things). I also think even their refusal to participate in such dialogues (or their demand that we play by their rules) is interesting.(That’s why I haven’t deleted this thread.)
As for the second, I certainly don’t think the work of analyzing the relation between x-buddhism and capitalism is over, or that eveything has been said. If that was the case, we could just sit back, have a few beers and slap each others’ backs, right? No reason to spend hours on these blogs, except they give us an excuse to indulge in some ludic sadism.
I agree that it is good to be clear about one’s motivation for getting involved with x-buddhism in the first place (not least because there is always the risk one repeats the same kind of mistakes in a new setting). On the other hand, I don’t see why some kind of public confession should be necessary. (Now, I don’t know exactly what you had in mind, but the whole idea of public confession makes me cringe.)
Perhaps you should write something for that publicaton, as an experiment, and see what happens. (I have some interesting experiences dealing with mainstream Buddhist press; we could compare notes some time.)
Tutte, re x-buddhists and talking with them. One more reason not to talk with them is simply that there are a lot of people much more interesting. I have seen enough of Ken and Vince to know that I am not interested in them. It’s like in a book store: Fifty Shades of Grey or Post/Porn/Politics – I prefer the headache the latter gives me (I haven’t read either, it’s just for the example – apart from the point that you wouldn’t find these two books in one store). “Buddhism” is trivial… or not even. It is plain sugar, it is not even ice-cream.
Re ideology and “Buddhism”. I’d rather should say “decision” – an operation of transcendence which believes in a naïve and hallucinatory way in the possibility of a unitary discourse on Reality (cf. Cruel Theory p. 104). In this all is said about “Buddhism”. “Buddhism” is sufficient. And it operates only with the presupposition of its own superiority.
Re confession. I love it. A term which makes you cringe. But why? If we are totally determined and not even in charge of our own biographic narrative which is always rearranging to always readily be accustomed to the normative requirements it is subjected to, why not ‘confessing’ everything. It will be a lie anyway. The worst thing that can happen is me becoming my symptom.
Thinking aloud:
– I find the NSB critique valuable. I have been influenced by some of the ideas I’ve heard/read from Glenn and Matthias.
– Glenn and Matthias, you often seem bewildered by the fact that no one wants to “engage” you in discussion. It is not a mystery; ad hominem attacks, boorish condescension, and an unwillingness to consider other points of view are not traits highly valued in discussion partners. Your opinions about how the world “ought to be” don’t matter here; it is a purely pragmatic issue. If you want people to engage you, don’t alienate them.
– Matthias, your repeated insistence that you find “x-Buddhists” [sic] uninteresting is not consistent with the observable fact that you follow us around the internet trying to get our attention. It reminds me of a little kid throwing rocks at the big kids in the schoolyard, all the while telling everyone that he wouldn’t play with the big kids even if they were willing. I am holding up the mirror for you. Are you a big enough kid to take it in? If you and I compete for who can be less interested in the other, I will win. Let’s not go there.
– Glenn, Matthias: You have something valuable to say. I am glad you are saying it. But you seem to believe that the lens you are looking through is the only valid lens. This displays a lack of sophistication. Check out Robert Kegan or Suzanne Cook-Greuter for an understanding of how the ability to embrace multiple points of view is the leading metric on a continuum of psychological/emotional development. The level of group think and confirmation bias within your group is high. I haven’t seen much evidence that you are individually or collectively aware of this. Your critique will be more effective if you are also able to turn the mirror back on yourselves. People I have spoken to, almost without exception, find you easy to dismiss, largely due to their perception that you are lacking in self-awareness. Can you prove them wrong? Tutte, this goes for you, too. When you pretend to know how this emergent discussion should be, you appear naive and brittle to the people you wish to influence. Drop the arrogance and condescension, and show some vulnerability. (I’m talking not about your parody, which is well-done, but about your conversational tone in the comments sections here and on Facebook.)
– Here then, is the mirror, in all its bright harshness. How honest should I be? The Speculative Non-Buddhists are generally perceived as angry, bitter, socially inept, mean-spirited, and frankly irrelevant. Is this how you want to be perceived? Think about it carefully, because no matter how important your message, no one will hear it if they have already dismissed you as unworthy of their attention. There is a way for you to become relevant to the culture you so wish to influence, and it is much more challenging than anything you’ve done so far. You are going to have to turn the light back on yourselves. Whatcha gonna do, little brothers? Level up or step off.
Kenneth,
I have seen your repeated statements that you find the SNB critique valuable, that you have learned from it, and that you want a constructive dialogue. To me and, I suspect, others who have read these and similar statements, they seem to be empty words, or a way of deflecting a critique that is probably more radical than you understand. Something similar could be said about your praise for the Tutteji satire, and attempt at playing along with it. And this is what the original post is about: How you uphold what seems to be a critical distance or ironic attitude towards a system (x-buddhism), while maintaining status quo. I asked for your comments about this, but so far you haven’t responded.
Another thing: You obviously don’t understand what is meant by argumentum ad hominen. Calling the manager of an online enlightenment service a snake oil peddler is not and ad hom. On the other hand, dismissing substantial critique because the online personae of those formulating it appears ”angry, bitter, socially inept, and mean-spirited” is a perfect example of a genuine ad hominem.
@Tutte: You wrote, “dismissing substantial critique because the online personae of those formulating it appears ‘angry, bitter, socially inept, and mean-spirited’ is a perfect example of a genuine ad hominem.”
You left out “frankly irrelevant.” But never mind. Read my comment again and show me where I have dismissed the critique. (I haven’t.)
For thoroughness, what is the definition of a straw man?
Kenneth,
It’s kind of silly of me to respond after I said twenty minutes ago that I would ignore you until you come up with something substantial.But OK:
I never said that you disimissed the critique because of a perceived nastiness (although you’ve actually done exactly that.) I used this as an example of an ad hominem. What I did say, is that you avoid engaging with the critique offered by the SNB crowd and myself in a serious way. I see a lot of whining about tone and manners, but that’s totally beside the point, and I can’t imagine you are so stupid you don’t realize this.
So … Now we may perhaps to begin. Yes?
Kenneth. I can understand that you’re feelings have been hurt, and your ego bruised. Still, I would prefer that we keep our interaction focused on my critique of your NYC dharma talk, rather than hover around your pain. In discussing that talk and my response to it we can get at some substantive issues. Matthew and Tutteji are also offering pointed, concrete criticisms. So, what do you think about them? That someone may be perceived by you as boorish or arrogant is irrelevant to the argument being made. By the way, THIS is the nature of ad hominem: discounting an argument of the basis of some perceived flaw in the person making the argument (Nietzsche was nuts, hence wrong.) So, how about it: back to the substantive points?
@Glenn: Wrong answer. I’ll check back from time to time to see if you’d made any progress. Anyone else care to try?
It’s a quiz?
Glenn, I am deliberately power-tripping you in order to make a point. You have no power in this relationship; you are currently playing the role of parasite to my host. I don’t like having my vital forces sucked out, so I will go away… unless you can upgrade to symbiosis. A good relationship is a quid pro quo. You’ll have to give me something I want. Your critique is not enough, as I already have it.
Here is what I want in return for engaging in the discussion you want to have: I like to see people grow, and I like to grow together with them, rather than a top-down flow of “wisdom” in either direction. Tell me what you are learning. Show me that you are listening to my critique of your communication style. Stop pretending to have all the answers. Ask aloud, once in a while, “what am I missing?” Don’t always default to defensiveness and snark. Resist the temptation to speculate about my motivations or internal state. What I am asking of you is nothing more than I am willing to give you.
I have heard you say that those big, bad, x-buddhists only want to have discussions on their own terms. Right. Stop whining. These are my terms. You get what you want, and I get what I want.
Hi Big Brother. I suspect that you simply don’t understand the critiques being offered you here and elsewhere. Is that possible? Here, I’ll give an instance of substantive dialogue. I will use a single sentence from my well-considered critique of your NYC dharma talk” ” I see your presentation as a clear instance of an intangible commodity.” I am referring, of course, to your claims that “people are getting enlightened here,” and yourself as a a qualified speaker concerning “Intersubjective Awakening” and even “Post-Awakening.” Not only are no such qualities ever demonstrable, claims to them are not even coherent. They only have force within a particular ideological domain. And they have power–and meaning–only to a person who is subjugated by that domain. You are an agent of x-buddhist subjugation. What IS demonstrable, by contrast, is that you are not a very careful thinker. I suspect you are not very well educated. And you do not seem to be very bright. I can offer numerous pieces of evidence that this is the case–your website and your dharma talks are saturated by unsophisticated thinking, and a general ignorance of our shared intellectual cultural. I would normally never say such things to a person. But you and your x-buddhist cronies claim exigent human knowledge. I would think–and hope–that BASIC human knowledge would precede such exalted knowledge. I would guess that in your mind your enlightenment justifies your bypassing of everyday knowledge. That’s the ancient Buddhist/spiritualist ruse. There is nothing in your visible record–written or spoken–to indicate any special wisdom or knowledge on your part. By all visible evidence, you are a huckster, kind of like Oprah Winfrey or L. Ron Hubbard. Your “enlightenment” is wholly hidden. But your ignorance is on full display.
@Glenn: Hmmm… You think that I don’t understand what you are saying, and I think that you don’t understand what I’m saying. I suspect that both are true, at least to some extent. The difference seems to be that I am willing to learn, and you are not. And your willingness to learn, as I indicated above, is something I need from you if we are to continue our discussion. So let’s give it a rest for now.
Kenneth. Do you really want to argue that a person who has been engaged in the study and practice of Buddhism since 1975, without pause, even getting a Ph.D. in a Harvard Buddhist studies program, who learned Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, as well as the Burmese, Lao, Singhalese and Thai scripts in the philological mecca of Germany in order to read the primary Buddhist literature first-hand, who has read widely in western, Indian, and Chinese philosophy with world-renowned philosophers in India and Germany, who has–should I go on, big brother?–IS NOT WILLING TO LEARN? You are convinced that you have something to teach me and, indeed, all of humanity. The visible evidence suggest otherwise. I will repeat: you and all the other x-buddhist teachers on the scene today are no different from your facile, ineffectual, platitudinous Self-Help forebears. Like Matthias says, know your history, know where you stand in relation to what has come before. You will not be able to keep up the ruse of “enlightenment” for much longer. Until then: All hail Tutteji!
Give it a rest? You wish, big brother.
..I should probably add, to satisfy what I suspect satisfies more fully your epistemological requirements, studied with Zen, Dzogchen, and Vipassana teachers, blah, blah, blah whose names just might give you a dharmic hard-on.
Kenneth, my point of departure in this thread was my assertion that the function of parody and satire is a very serious one: It makes visible the ridiculous insubstantiality of that what the satire is about. With this Grandmaster Tutte has been very successfully. Your talk is the attempt to squirm your way out again of the exposure Tutte managed to do with you. The only regrettable thing on my side is that I allowed myself to be lured back into an ‘ernest’ discussion. And I find regrettable too Tutte’s breaking of the format. King Lear’s fool is already talking the truth. If he’d try to talk truther than truth he’d be real a fool.
You are smart and well educated, Glenn, and that is good. But you use your intelligence and education to bully people. Bullying is your signature, and your bullying pervades the blogosphere like a bad odor. Bullying is detestable behavior. Bullies deserve to get their asses kicked. And that is why I kicked your ass. Keep bullying, and I will kick your ass again. Nothing personal.
Ironically, it is you and your ilk, Kenneth, that stink up the internet! You sell ‘the relaxation response’ to the droves deluded people seeking relief from capitalist induced suffering. Glenn is no more a bully than the ‘Buddha’ was. Of course you’re pissed off at him, he’s torn down your entire foundation and has asked some very serious questions that you and your ilk continue to ignore. You come here and complain about lack of discussion and Glenn makes a genuine response and all you got is to call him a bully? What type of shift of consciousness did you have? Seriously. What’s it worth if you can’t deal with feelings, respond to cogent arguments or not make an ass of yourself. All of you are the same. You spout this nonsense about enlightenment and ultimately show yourselves to be either flesh and blood humans.
Hi Craig,
Why do you think I sell “the relaxation response”? I would rather you didn’t put other people’s stuff on me. Just so you know, I think the relaxation response is silly.
“What’s it worth if you can’t deal with feelings, respond to cogent arguments or not make an ass of yourself.”
It’s a good question, Craig. As for making an ass of myself, I’m pretty sure enlightenment will not protect me from that. But why do you think I can’t deal with my feelings? I don’t see how that follows. In other words, I don’t believe that dealing with my feelings precludes my expressing anger toward Glenn, or even criticizing him with gleeful malice.
Whether I can respond to cogent arguments remains to be seen. You will judge for yourself. But keep in mind that everyone will have an opinion about this and there may not be consensus.
“You spout this nonsense about enlightenment and ultimately show yourselves to be either flesh and blood humans.”
Right. We’re flesh and blood humans. Who told you enlightenment would change that? My contention is that enlightenment is a natural aspect of human development. It happens to humans, and after people have it they are still humans, still imperfect, still subject to wrongness and foolishness. I’ve been working for years to present an alternative to what I call the cartoon saint model. I’m interested in developing a practical model of enlightenment based on observable reality. Enlightenment isn’t a panacea. It is a mode of perception. For some people, it is something to value, to systematically train for, and in many cases, to achieve. Where is the controversy?
I can’t seem to reply below, so I’ll do it here.
Meditation IS the relaxation response. You and all the other meditation teachers are selling ‘breathing’. Then you add on all this mystical BS. And the talk of enlightenment being some sort of individual shift in consciousness is just nonsense. If enlightenment is not increased awareness of the causes of worldly suffering, not coping with feelings, not seeing the error of your ways….well, I’m just at a loss. Y’all say, ‘well yes us enlightened folks are just humans’, but then you turn around and spout all this about consciousness shifting. It all just adds up to nothing. You’re selling nothing. That’s my point. What’s it worth. No one really takes this shit seriously unless they are making money off of it. The question then is this peddler stupid or intentional.
Who’s next? Matthias? Better bring your A-game…
Kenneth,
I don’t see you kicking anyone’s ass but your own. Seriously, the only way for you to save face now would be to give a response to the challenges/questions you asked for yourself. I will ignore further comments from you until you do. As you know, actling like a jerk is perfectly acceptable here, but you need to add some substance to the jerkiness.
Tutte wrote, “the only way for you to save face now would be to give a response to the challenges/questions you asked for yourself.”
In that case, let the face-saving begin!
I’ve been given lots of opening gambits, so let’s start with this one from Glenn: “Your ‘enlightenment’ is wholly hidden. But your ignorance is on full display.”
I agree on both counts. My ignorance is fairly robust and easy to expose. Point conceded. As for my ‘enlightenment,’ if such exists, it is not so easy to demonstrate, or even to define. My current favorite definition is “seeing experience as process in real time.” Since this is a purely subjective phenomenon, it may not be able to spot from the outside.
People who have this ability to see experience as process tend to value it highly. My observation is that this ability can be systematically trained; people who don’t have it yet can train to get it. Once they get it, they nearly always become advocates for “enlightenment” or “awakening,” etc., and sometimes become teachers to help others get it too. All of this happens without any proof that enlightenment exists. So far so good?
Edit: I wrote “Since this is a purely subjective phenomenon, it may not be able to spot from the outside.”
Replace “able” with “easy”
“Since this is a purely subjective phenomenon, it may not be easy to spot from the outside.”
Of course experience is a process in real time. What’s new about this? This is basic human life.
It’s all a slippery slope man. All your proclamations and undefinable experiences, when examined, have no substance.
At the beginning of this discussion, you asked if it might be possible that ironic distance is the supreme form of conformism. This point has been often argued—that ironic detachment is the “cultural logic of late capitalism,” that it is the ultimate capitalist ideology, the most completely deluded one can be—because the cynic doesn’t even know that this belief in irony is a belief, and the only one that he must be “in earnest” about.
But I would suggest that, pace Zizek, nobody is really so ironic. The “postmodernist” is only postmodern when he cannot defend a favorite position (oh, every point of view is valid), but he is never so completely postmodern as to not take seriously his own delusions—whether it is the universality of romantic love, the naturalness of capitalism, the eternal bliss of the substrate consciousness. Satire always satirizes only to strengthen allegiance to some other position—there is no exception to this. Sometimes, we may be blind to the position we are trying to strengthen, and think we are completely ironic, but that’s always a mistake.
So who is it for? Certainly not those like Folk, who wouldn’t possibly understand any criticism of his position. This isn’t a matter of genetic stupidity, it is simply ideological stupidity—the inability to see one’s own ideology as an ideology, that so often prevents real thought. When I criticize Think Not Hanh or Mark Epstein or Thanissaro Bikkhu, I don’t expect them to respond. It isn’t a challenge. I know what the response would be: you are mean, you use big words and think too much, and you don’t respect my ‘point of view.’ I will always appear mean to tell the truth, like telling a child that there is no Santa Clause. I don’t want to be “nice” and engage with those who want to believe in Santa Clause; for them, to be polite and use ‘right speech’ means to never make them work hard, think, read anything, or consider something that conflicts with or calls attention to their unexamined assumptions. Someone like Folk is willing to learn (as he says), but only if that doesn’t require any thought, and only if what you have to tell him doesn’t conflict with his ‘point of view.’ If we want to discuss what social function the Santa myth serves, we can’t do it while a bunch of true-believers keep saying we are mean and their belief in Santa is just as valid as our denial of him, or if they keep returning the discussion to whether his “real” name is Kris Kringle or St. Nick.
So, my response is to take the approach of Vimalikirti or Rinzai, and just refuse to engage people on stupid terms—I won’t begin by accepting stupid errors and then waste my time debating what the real names of the reindeer were. The audience for satire is not the true-believer, you will never persuade her or him. The audience is the person who has begun to be dissatisfied with the x-buddhist crap, and isn’t yet aware that there is more to Buddhist thought than mindless bliss and fortune-cookie platitudes. This has always been the way satire works—on the audience, not on the target. Pope certainly didn’t hope to convince Colley Cibber to give up writing; he aim was to redirect an audience who kind of thought that Cibber seemed like an idiot, but maybe thought, well, he is the poet laureate, maybe I’m missing something? Satire lets these people know that no, you aren’t wrong, this is a bunch of crap—and it usually works to strengthen our attachment to real critical thought in the process. Even the satirist must be in earnest about something—if he thinks he isn’t he is the ultimate dupe.
I tend to take everything seriously, to be ironic about nothing. Because it is never, not ever, just a ‘matter of opinion.’ Terry Eagleton somewhere said that not everything is ideological, some things are just a matter of subjective taste—and his example is whether one prefers pork pies or bananas. Well, can you think of anything more obviously connected to imperialist economics than this particular supposedly subjective “taste” in food? Because I always point out the causes and effects of such ‘mere opinion’ I’m sure I seem to be always mean and angry, and that’s fine with me. And I have no patience with someone who says we should respect the belief in Santa (or the soul, or any other myth) as equally valid. So I tell them to stop being an idiot or stop talking to me. Eventually, maybe Santa won’t bring them what they want and they’ll say to themselves: hey, wait, maybe I can think?
Sorry for the ridiculously long comment.
Hi Tom,
Ridiculously long comments are fine (and I notice this comment thread is getting ridiculously long as well).
That brief comment at the beginning is actually a (slightly manipulated) quote from Žižek. So is this fake text on Tutteji. The latter is a kind of ”hypertranslation” of an essay dealing with two kinds of irony: cynical distance as conformism, and the (at least potentially) subversive strategy of over-identification with a system. The original text uses the Slovenian group Laibach as an example, but I think it serves quite well as an analysis of Tutteji’s pranks. (And, frankly, I couldn’t resist to take the joke to this dizzying level of meta-trans-post-irony.)
Now, as you may have noticed, something very strange happened on this site a couple of weeks ago. Tutteji ”published” a book satirizing Daniel Ingram’s and Kenneth Folk’s ”hardcore” or ”pragmatic” take on meditation practice. Just for fun, I approached Ingram and asked if he’d like to provide a blurb for this ”book”. Which hed did (self-irony as a form of resistance, or an admirable ability to laugh at himself, or both?). Soon enough, Kenneth Folk submitted his own blurb, and I included both in the ad.
So now we had a situation where the two kinds of irony actually met, and after I stopped laughing, I created this sub-page in the naïve hope that it could be a place for discussing, in an explicit, non-ironic way, what was going on.
The purpose of the Tutteji project has obviously never been to disabuse the true believers of their delusion, only to annoy them (And I’ve been surprised by the success: Tutteji has probably been banned from more discussion boards than both you and Glenn). The funniest (and most shocking) aspect of it all has been the number of x-buddhist teachers, ”integralists”, and others who didn’t realize it was satire. As I said somewhere else, this makes me wonder if these people are incredibly stupid, or incredibly cynical about their own profession, or both.
As I said earlier, I do see some value in at least trying to engage x-buddhist representatives in some kind of dialogue. Of course, it wouldn’t be ”constructive” in the way I assume Folk meant above. But it could be a splendid opportunity to have them expose themselves, and – I believe – even their refusal to participate in such debate is quite telling. (All this was proven by the SNB project, of course.)
As I’ve followed that project almost from the beginning, I know that you tend to take eveything seriously, and often appear as ”mean”. And that’s why I invited you to participate here; I am genuinely curious about what happens when irony and lulz meet seriousness and analysis. The insane experiment with Transintegral Scholars shows that some interesting things can happen in such a meeting.
Tutte wrote: “As the theme of the current discussion is ‘irony as conformism,’ and you present yourself as a ‘meditation teacher interested in social justice, human rights, and understanding resource depletion,’ I’m puzzled by your latest comment about ‘meeting with a rich and powerful Silicon Valley venture capitalist to discuss a collaboration involving a meditation app.’ Would you care to flesh it out a little (preferably in a non-ironic way)?”
Yes. I make my living as a meditation teacher in a capitalist system. I provide something that both my students and I hold valuable (instruction in meditation techniques and supporting conceptual frameworks), and receive money in return. Much of my teaching is one-on-one coaching, in which case I charge for my time. I’m also interested in scaling up my teaching to reach more people, and one possibility for that is a mobile app. Hence the possible collaboration with a venture capitalist who shares my interests in education and meditation, and has experience in app development as well as access to funding for such a project.
“Is this ironic stance… a way to maintain a cynical distance to systems that are destructive, oppressive, harmful, and so on, but which allow you to live what I imagine is a rather comfortable life?” -Tutte
In a word, yes. That is one valid lens through which to see it. I am ambivalent about the system I am part of. On the one hand, it is the only system I know, and it is as hard for me to see it as for a fish to see water. On the other hand, I am sensitive to the fact that most people in the world, through no fault of their own, do not share my affluence. I am also uncomfortable knowing that my lifestyle (in an upscale neighborhood in San Francisco) is disproportionately resource intensive and contributes to the trashing of the planet. As you suggest, one way to deal with the feelings of guilt and confusion that can arise in such a situation is to deflect them through through cynical distance.
Kenneth,
Thanks for your response, I appreciate it. As you say, it is hard to see ”the system” and the ideology we’re part of. I guess one difference between you and the others participating in this conversation is that they (we) see meditation (and Buddhist practice in general) as a potentially powerful tool for understanding capitalist ideology as ideology, and de-naturalize it. (This is not simply a question of ”political activism” in the trivial sense; it has to do with how we are created as subjects, the causes of dukkha and the realization of anatta.) Now, I say “potentially” because, as has been pointed out over and over again, “Western Buddhism” as it’s commonly practiced and understood, rather functions as a perfect ideological supplement to capitalist dynamics.
Ah, I see what you’ve done there Ken. So, teaching people to reify their perceptual experience, which in turn helps prevent them from ever being able to see the ideological structures they inhabit (which, of course, shape those “real time processes”), then just re-labeling this delusion and ignorance as “enlightenment.” Then, people will pay you lots of money for individual training in how to get and stay deluded and ignorant, with the hope that this will make them happier–no more of that difficult stuff like being a better person or making the world a better place (nobody could see outside the “system they know” enough to bother with such stuff. And, then, design an app for that, and Buddhism is now the ideology of late capitalism!
Now really, it is sad that some people will fork over money for this, but we can’t really hope to persuade someone who is stupid enough to insist that ignorance and delusion just IS enlightenment, right? Someone like Ken will never have any hope of seeing his errors until the money stops coming in. We can only hope that those who pay him for this nonsense eventually learn their lesson, the hard way.
If I may quote from Robert Pippin’s recent book Hegel on Self-Consciousness, we need to understand that “the physiological and the normative aspects are inseparable in perception itself,” and “attentiveness is subject to a certain sort of strain when it threatens not to fit” the totalizing norm (what I would call ideology). For a Buddhist, the goal would be to focus on those points of strain, and not to seek comfort or the illusion of smooth closure (or “pure perception”) in our experience. This will help us begin to break through our ideological blindness. And, as you’ve said Tutte, for some of us, it is exactly being able to see the system we inhabit as a system, to grasp its structures and effects, is the goal of enlightenment–and this cannot be done in purely subjective experience which cannot be communicated. If it is “purely subjective,” it is purely ideological, and the very opposite of awakening.
And like you, Tutte, I do get some enjoyment, sometimes, from how easy it is to get an x-buddhist teacher who makes claims about his level of attainment to resort to name-calling and pathetically listing his credentials or naming his teachers, with just a few questions about anatman. Maybe this proves I’m an ass, but I like to think that although those observing may hate me, I’m fine with that as long as some of them will realize what a jerk the teacher in question really is. I don’t need to attract a following of deluded fools, and I would never charge anybody to teach what I know about Buddhism, online or in person. But my kind of teaching would require hard work, a lot of studying, and wouldn’t produce states of “mindful” bliss or make anyone a more efficient capitalist cubicle dweller, so I don’t expect my schedule to ever get too crowded.
“I do get some enjoyment, sometimes, from how easy it is to get an x-buddhist teacher who makes claims about his level of attainment to resort to name-calling and pathetically listing his credentials or naming his teachers, with just a few questions about anatman.” -wtpepper
You seem to have me confused with someone else. I haven’t said anything about my teachers or resume. Your associate Glenn, on the other hand…
Reproduced here for your convenience:
Glenn Wallis: “Do you really want to argue that a person who has been engaged in the study and practice of Buddhism since 1975, without pause, even getting a Ph.D. in a Harvard Buddhist studies program, who learned Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, as well as the Burmese, Lao, Singhalese and Thai scripts in the philological mecca of Germany in order to read the primary Buddhist literature first-hand, who has read widely in western, Indian, and Chinese philosophy with world-renowned philosophers in India and Germany…”
Glenn Wallis: “I should probably add, to satisfy what I suspect satisfies more fully your epistemological requirements, studied with Zen, Dzogchen, and Vipassana teachers…”
Sober up, Pepper, and give it another go in the morning.
Yes, that last bit wasn’t addressed to you, and didn’t refer to you. To my memory, Ken, I’ve never engaged you on any issue anywhere. I was only speaking about a thing I do sometimes. But thanks for the great advice about sobering up. You really are a complete fucking idiot. I notice you can adress anything I actually said about you or your assinine teachings. It is sad that even a con artst as stupid as you can get money from people when they are in enough distress.
Go get an education, Ken, and try again in about four years.
Nice try, Pepper. I will not let you off so easily. It is not a coincidence that you reference me by name in two paragraphs, quote me in a third (“purely subjective”), and then make the mistake of responding to Glenn’s resume-pounding from just a few posts up-thread as though it were from me. I believe you misread the post and responded to it as though it were mine. Having now embarrassed yourself and Glenn, you are lying to save face.
I have been repeatedly asked by Glenn and Matthias to engage them (and you by extension) in discussion, and to respond to their critique. I am here, and willing. I’d like to see something from you other than self-destructive nonsense and pointless venom.
[Note to folks who wonder if I’ve lost my mind as I bicker with these fellows. In reading the comments and essays on the Speculative Non-Buddhist blog, I have watched this gang of mean-spirited individuals run roughshod over one commentator after another. Glenn, Matthias, and Tom are almost always given a free reign because most people are shocked by their behavior and in any case unwilling get into the gutter with them. I have come to the conclusion that Do Not Feed The Trolls is not always the best course of action, as it leaves the entire field open to the pathology of a few bullies. Although it tips my hand to say so, I am deliberately giving it back to them to see what happens. Tom Pepper’s behavior is particularly noxious, although Glenn Wallis and Matthias Steingass are not far behind. The name-calling and venom you see from these gents is not unusual, it is simply what they do when people disagree with them. I’ve been curious to see how they would respond if they were met on their own terms. So far, I have seen Matthias stammer in bewilderment, Glenn melt down, and Tom babble foolishly and embarrass himself in response to my admittedly cynical baiting. The fact that I am also embarrassing myself is not entirely lost on me… Yikes.]
“So, teaching people to reify their perceptual experience, which in turn helps prevent them from ever being able to see the ideological structures they inhabit…” -wtpepper
This is a straw man, Tom, or a confused interpretation of what I wrote, so I am not able to respond to it, willing as I am to do so. I don’t teach people to reify anything.
Kenneth,
I don’t think Tom’s comment was directed at you personally, and you’re taking Glenn’s listing of his credentials out of context. Perhaps you could stop being so childish and try to contribute to that “useful discussion” you say you’re interested in?
What is, for example, your response to the following comment from Tom:
“So, teaching people to reify their perceptual experience, which in turn helps prevent them from ever being able to see the ideological structures they inhabit (which, of course, shape those “real time processes”), then just re-labeling this delusion and ignorance as “enlightenment.” Then, people will pay you lots of money for individual training in how to get and stay deluded and ignorant, with the hope that this will make them happier–no more of that difficult stuff like being a better person or making the world a better place (nobody could see outside the “system they know” enough to bother with such stuff. And, then, design an app for that, and Buddhism is now the ideology of late capitalism!”
“I don’t think Tom’s comment was directed at you personally, and you’re taking Glenn’s listing of his credentials out of context.” -Tutte
I believe you are mistaken, Tutte, as I point out just up-thread.
“Perhaps you could stop being so childish…” -Tutte
Perhaps. I must say I find that a ridiculous comment given the milieu we find ourselves in. Perhaps you are joking. In any case, I also address my own childishness just up-thread.
My next stop is to give a look to Glenn’s critique of my talk “The Power of Potty Training,” and respond to it here. Be right back.
Yes, Kenneth, this is a strange milieu, but please remember what I’ve said numerous times: this is supposed to be a trolling-free zone. Still, what I see you doing all the time is trolling: avoiding the real questions while distracting yourself and others with OT remarks (like in your response to Tom’s critique above). Of course, this is the problem with calling your opponent an idiot or a conman – it gives him an opportunity to get off the hook, and most readers will be so shocked by the invectives they won’t notice.
I told Matthias yesterday that I don’t like the idea of public confessions at all. I don’t expect you to realize, much less admit, that you’re behaving in a childish and stupid way here. On the other hand, the purpose of this site is to expose people like yourself. So far, I’ve used parody and satire but you are adding a whole new dimension.
So, Ken, you can’t read, and can’t understand philosophical arguments? You pathetics idiot.
Clearly, Glenn’s comment was meant to demonstrate that he was dedicated to learning-he did not cite his credentials to prove that what he said was correct or should not be questioned. I did not misread the comment, but was responding to Tutte’s comment about the fun of provoking x-buddhis teachers–which is why that comment is addressed to you. As I said, I don’t remember ever engaging with you before. If you weren’t a complete moron, and could read, you would have understood this. Your response to my criticism of your con game is pathetic–you don’t know anything about all that thinking and stuff, huh? What an ass.
So, I’m done with this dim bulb. But what can be done to let people know more about these idiot con-men before they part with any money? He’s already made an ass of himself here–I would suppose it would be easy to get him to expose himself as a moron and a childish jerk in front of prospective students, right? But, lookoing at his website, I can’t see that anyone who would be conned that easily, by that pathetic nonsense, would be disuaded by his being a moron.
Tom Pepper, your capacity to embarrass yourself is prodigious. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen your equal. You may go now.
Response to Glenn Wallis’ critique of my talk “The Power of Power Training.”
“I see your presentation as a clear instance of an intangible commodity. I assume you will respond by saying, no, I am offering tangibles.” -Glenn Wallis
I would say it differently. I am offering training, not unlike that offered by a personal fitness trainer at the gym. The conceptual frameworks I offer are not meant as ideology, but as support for the practice itself, which does the work. Think of lifting weights; it doesn’t much matter what you believe, you’ll get stronger if you pump the iron. The practice, in the case of developmental meditation, is to iteratively objectify whatever is currently functioning as subject. In some cases, as with this talk, my objective is to call into question a belief that might be common in Buddhist circles, but that I find unhelpful.
The Power of Potty Training is meant to de-mystify meditation practice. I believe at one point I say that meditation and awakening are no more holy or mystical than bicycle riding, guitar playing, or potty training. This is the basic theme of the talk. I also use the potty training metaphor to introduce Maslow’s four stages of learning, pointing out that at the fourth and final stage, “unconscious competence,” a skill that was hard-won over time suddenly becomes second nature. While it is tempting to think of this as some kind of magical or transcendent moment, it does not have to be seen that way; this is just the way this organism integrates learning, “burning it into the hardware,” as David Eagleman would say, at which point it no longer requires conscious effort. With this in mind, we can think of the process of human development commonly known as awakening or enlightenment as a thoroughly mundane affair. Thus stripped of it’s magical or holy status, it is no less valuable than before; the ability to see experience as process allows levels of wellbeing that were impossible before.
Not sure if I covered this in the talk, but I would add that this personal wellbeing can set the stage for better relationships, and although this is speculative, maybe even advances at the cultural level. An optimistic scenario would include a more humane and just society. It does not seem to me out of the question that this simple training in meditation might have such far-reaching effects, although I have no evidence for this. What I am confident of is the personal transformation that predictably results from effective meditation practice, and this is what I focus on.
“This involves a rhetorical suggestion that some sort of special, wonder-working knowledge is on offer. Sure the figure in the parable claims to be offering the shit-stained fools something that is as accessible as it is obvious. But still, the fools need him to tell them that.” -GW
Maybe. On the other hand, most people need a piano teacher in order to learn to play piano, and there is no need to posit wonder-working.
“Extrapolated out into the real world, it is you, of course, who are the dharmic thaumaturge. So, you commit what Matthias calls the ‘esoteric fallacy.'” -GW
Yes, good point. I have, at times, allowed or encouraged people to project upon me a special status that I do not feel, believing that this would enhance their motivation or somehow jump-start their meditation practice. As you point out, this is common practice among meditation teachers. I have in recent years been increasingly reluctant to allow this kind of projection, and I find it an interesting challenge to teach meditation and awakening without recourse to the esoteric fallacy. One of my ongoing projects is to offer a definition of awakening/enlightenment that does not involve holiness or perfection. While some have suggested that it would be better to drop such charged language altogether, my contention is that there has always been awakening for those who trained to that level of contemplative excellence, and it wasn’t any holier then than now; it is and was a natural process of human development.
“Your chosen simile in the opening parable that frames your presentation–that of the potty trainer–is not an innocent one. It is itself loaded with anti-human beliefs. It sets the logical stage for your thaumaturgy.”
It’s an interesting point and not without merit. Still, the potty training metaphor is highly effective for making the points I wanted to make, and I wouldn’t take it off the table based on its presumed ant-human implications. My basic orientation is pragmatic. If something works, I’m highly inclined to use it even if it has some potential downsides. My teaching is not as driven by a complex ideology as by a simple value; I value awakening, as I define it. Ideologies have to fit into that framework, rather than the other way around.
Overall, a good critique, which I have found useful. Thank you for taking the time.
Kenneth,
What does ‘training in meditation’ mean? How are people changed by it? I know you’re trying to de-mystify it and make it non-ideological. To that I say that when meditation is deflated (demystified?) there’s nothing there. What specifically is it? This meditation? Also, you may think it’s non-ideological, but it is and that is the aporia. Everything is ideological and seeing this IS awakening. When you don’t see this, reification runs rampant. This is the point, Tom was making above (at least in part :-).
And, as far as the potty training metaphor goes, I can’t think of a more infantilizing simile. If I’m not enlightened I’m shitting my pants?
Actually this thread reminds me of this thought Lacan had: The unconscious is expressed in what one person reads in another’s person writing (or talking or whatever kind of expression is used).
Pingback: Constructive Debate | tuttejiorg
Thank you, Ken, for you kind permission to leave. But I’m having fun, so I’ll stick around while I drink my morning coffee.
Your response to Glenn’s critique proves that my critique is correct. You simply redefine “awakening” as a particular form of delusion and ignorance, then sell people “training” in how to become deluded and ignorant in this particular way. This interests me most because it is what the entire “mindfulness” industry does–you simply do it, well, a little worse.
The point of Maslow’s “unconscious competence” is exactly the successful interpellation into an ideology–to the extent that one no longer can see it as an ideology, it becomes completely automatic, completely at the level of unquestioned assumptions about what is “natural.”
Pragmatism is, of course, one capitalist ideology. The belief that we can have pure, non-ideological, unconstructed, perceptions of the processes of experience is another (it is the empiricist ideology, what Eagleton has called the “official ideology of British capitalism,” but I would include American capitalism as well). Our perceptions are ideologically created, and mindfulness, like your approach, Ken, attempts to reify and naturalize those perceptions, teaching us to tune out or ignore those that “threaten not to fit,” in Pippin’s phrase. The structure of our perceptions is organized by our ideology, by a “totalizing” system which is never fully successful, and we need practices to keep it in place. Training such as Ken’s, or CBT, or mindfulness meditation, can reinforce this totalizing ideology, help naturalize our perceptions, and help us keep out any threatening realization of their failures, aporias, or contradictions. This isn’t exactly “selling nothing,” because it often will work, temporarily, to restore delusion and make the person more comfortable in their state of ignorance. It usually does require a kind of transference (this is why, in CBT, the therapist is the most important factor in the success of treatment–he or she must be someone capable of invoking transference). The meditation teacher’s role as thaumaturge is a good way to produce this unexamined transference, and restore proper ideological interpellation.
So, my suggestion would be, if the client is in enough distress, or lacks education or intellectual capacity, this might very well work to repair their interpellation for a while. It can successfully prevent the real insight, the actual awakening, that is making them uncomfortable.
Simply relabeling this combination of delusion and ignorance as “awakening” is a clever sales gimmick. Sort of like relabeling poor education as teaching “emotional intelligence,” instead of all that thinking and stuff. And since it works to reproduce capitalism, it is sure to be popular.
Ken: I will return the favor, and give you permission to go now. Please don’t feel the need to respond to something you surely won’t understand at all–it is okay to take some time, do some reading, look up some words, and understand something before you respond. Please note that dismissing something as wrong because you do not understand it is not an acceptable answer, and your paper will be returned for revision.
Kenneth. Several comments ago, you returned to one of the arguments and criticisms being made in regard to your work.
Yes. This is progress. I’ll say how I see it as such, using technical terms from my critique.
First, in formulating the basic value as you do–training others in “seeing experience as process in real time”–you step out of the crumbling x-buddhist fortress and into the no-man’s land of shared, brute human culture. In other words, as Craig put it: “Of course experience is a process in real time. What’s new about this? This is basic human life.” I respond like Craig to your work as a whole and in general, at least what I have read and heard on your website. To point out that you say nothing new is not to claim that what you say has no value. But we won’t know what value it has until we do a certain kind of work. In stating things as you do, you implicitly, and probably unintentionally, invalidate the warrant provided by the x-buddhist Magistrate, The Dharma. And cancelling the warrant entails many crucial additional ramifications. It dislodges your claims from the complex network of x-buddhist postulation, whose juice had previously given them their particular sense, direction, and authority. This, furthermore, exposes them to a form of unprotected scrutiny, such as is the critique you are responding to. In transparently stating your goal in the terms that you do, it shouldn’t be difficult for you to take the next step: joining the Great Feast of Knowledge. There, you will discover a wealth of resources to help you see the broad cultural-historical context of your beliefs, claims, and goals. Go over to the group of people considering “experience as a process in real time.” There, you will enter into dialogue with an incredible range of thinkers: Whitehead, Hume, Emily Dickinson, Lao-tze, Emerson, Lacan, Bohm, Artaud, Rimbaud, and many, many more. If you are paying attention to these people, you will begin to have the transformative realization that your “enlightenment,” namely, being able to see experience as a process in real time and all that that entails, is a (i) a brute human postulate and (ii) a postulate necessarily encased in an ideology. Seeing your “enlightenment” in this way will silence the screeching x-buddhist/spiritualist vibrato in your brain. In this silence, you will find yourself lost in a vast field of aporia–fissures, gaps, impassable divergences, irresolvable dichotomies. That should be a moment of shattering for you. Unless you retreat back into the x-buddhist safe house, your decisional commitments—cognitive and affective—will have been exposed to you, losing their force once and for all. As I asked earlier, how, then, will you talk about “enlightenment as the ability to see process in real time?”
So, admitting that your, apparently, main contribution is, from a broader perspective, nothing new and arguably even quite trivial, is indeed progress. But you have to keep going. In your response to my earlier remarks on your “potty-training” talk, you fall back into a decisional (ideologically blind) stance. By the way, your examples there serve to expose serious flaws in your view. You say, “The conceptual frameworks I offer are not meant as ideology, but as support for the practice itself, which does the work.” You give the example of a trainer teaching someone to lift weights, and later teaching someone to play piano, also mentioning bicycle riding, guitar playing, and potty training. First of all, “practice” here must include “ideology.” You are not communicating in a void, are you? You are employing ideas, concepts, theories, value judgments, and on and on. These ideas, etc., are inextricably woven into the practice. You cannot determine what is “doing the work.” Your examples, furthermore, do not serve your intention of uncoupling “pure” practice from “corrupting” ideology. Yes, if someone lifts weights, he will build up muscle regardless of his ideological stance. But that example only puts into glaring light that your “enlightenment” is nothing like this. There is no real-life, observable, ideologically-free corollary to “muscle.” To claim there is, and then proceed to point it out, is to communicate an ideology. You know, you really could learn a lot from Tom Pepper here.
That you probably won’t learn anything from him brings me to my last point. Matthias quotes Lacan:
“The unconscious is expressed in what one person reads in another’s person writing (or talking or whatever kind of expression is used).”
When you say things like I—or we—are “mean-spirited” and all of that (I could probably cite twenty such accusations), do you not realize that you are merely revealing your own decisional commitments? I am not at all surprised that, as you present it, the x-buddhist community is shocked at our bad behavior, rudeness, arrogance, etc. Why? Because I know how the force and function of their beliefs concerning “right action.” When the Korean Buddhist monks I work with express dismay at the American staff’s bluntness, they are exposing nothing about the Americans. They are exposing their own cultural biases, prejudices, values, preferences, and all the rest. So, your accusations just serve, in my eyes, to help me understand you better. I remain perfectly unscathed. Can you not understand that? Seeing the way you sling these accusations, thereby exposing yourself, I doubt that you do.
Anyway, Kenneth, let’s call it quits. I will risk hurting your feelings and sounding arrogant here by saying why. Communicating with you feels to me very much like communicating with a college undergrad, who simply lacks the apperceptive mass for fruitful discussion. It’s very tedious. Another simile is this: it feels like talking to someone who doesn’t speak English very well. I don’t mean this as an insult. And I would never normally say it to a person. But, as I have said many times before, you and all the other x-buddhist gurus, traditional, secular, pragmatic or otherwise, claim to have something very important to offer people. It is, according to your rhetoric if not your explicit statement, something not otherwise available. And yet, you are all so unimpressive as people. None of you shows any but the thinnest interest in the work of thinking. None of you—and I personally know or have interacted with hundreds—has any but the most basic grasp of cultural goods that should be of great interest to you. I have never met an x-buddhist teacher who has the slightest understanding of his or her place in the history of ideas. Again, if he/she did, everything would change—the warrant would be canceled, the vibrato of the soul’s heartstrings would be silenced, the safe house would be exposed. But none of this ever happens. I see you and people like Schettini, Batchelor, Meissner, Horn, Wallace as similar to mid-level managers of a company. You just keep things in working order. You don’t innovate. You have no fresh ideas. You’re taxing and deadening to those employees who have vitality and intelligence. None of you can imagine how vast the gap is between your professed gifts and the littleness of what is on display.
That’s all.
While I appreciate all the comments here, and respect anyone’s decision to calling it quits, I’d very much like to see a response from Kenneth (or anyone else) to Glenn’s last comment. I have a feeling something interesting may come out of all this, one way or the other.
To those who care about me or are interested in developmental awakening,
One of my intentions in participating here was to out-bully the bullies. It didn’t work. Although I was able to revel in my own nastiness for awhile, I could not sustain it. The SNB fellows are masters of the medium, and I was outmatched. On hindsight, I regret having taken that approach, and I don’t think anything good came of it. The main lesson for me is that it’s better to model the behavior you’d like to see than to try to bludgeon others into submission. You may not change anyone else’s behavior, but neither will you have to regret your own. I do regret my behavior in this case, and I hope to do better in the future.
As for the content of the discussion, even assuming one is willing to wade through the insults and posturing, I don’t see that anything new or interesting emerged. If you wan’t to learn more about what Glenn, Matthias, and Tom are saying, I recommend that you go to their blog(s). If you want to learn more about what I am saying, go to mine.
All best,
Kenneth
Too bad you’re butting out (in both senses of the expression), but thanks for participating. BTW, I think you’re wrong about something: people wanting to learn about SNB and what you are doing, will probably find this discussion informative.
All best
Pingback: On Being an Irrelevant Dick « Speculative Non-Buddhism
Kenneth: bullying, posturing, nastiness, insulting–you just keep compounding the accusations. Did you not read my comment? I know it took you many months to read my critique of your dharma talk. Should I assume the same waiting period here?
That anyone would pay for contact with you as self-professed enlightened adviser would be incomprehensible to me if I hadn’t seen for myself how the x-buddhist Land of Oz rolls. Having seen that, I am not surprised that your curtain is still intact. I only hope that your students or clients or disciples or whatever they are can find their way back to Kansas.
This, by the way, is neither bullying, posturing, nastiness, insulting or anything else you have accused me of in this thread. It is a claim that your self-professed prodigious offerings to the public do not align with your actual, verifiable spoken and written text.
I hope you will learn to think more carefully. There is no need to be afraid of the force of thought, big brother. May you find courage.
At least Kenneth tried. Therefore he should by applauded. Because, where are his comrades? He alone bravely tried to stem the fierce attack against his believe system – which for a moment touched his heart of stone (sein steinernes Herz). To open some chinks. To let in some light – before, finally, the pull back set in. The peer pressured force to confess: I did wrong!
Because that’s where his peers are, these cowards. In the dark, behind the curtain, prompting him to use the right words again. To behave again. To regain composure. To lie again. For it is clear that Kenneth has seen the light: The thought that all his enlightenment trash is quackery.
We can be sure that he received lots of advice to not do this. Don’t talk to the grubby urchins. Do not sing their songs. Do not go for the slum to talk to rotten white niggers.
We can be sure the neat and decent guys – the geeks and tiers beyond from uptown, from the concrete gated community where the true knowing live – guided him out of his fallacy. That there is truth in the claim that his decision is nothing but hallucination.
We can be sure that what we witness here is not Kenneth’s fear that he might break through to the other side but plain and simple peer pressure: Come back! Be quite again! Do not wake the dormant dogs. Don’t spoil our game. Do not leave the fucking cave. Sit down and shut up.
Ken deserves applause. He faltered. But he tried. Scorn should be upon the gutless geeks with their pussy buddha swindle and their pulpy business of delusion.
“I spit on your crapulous creeds.”
Hi Matthias,
I won’t speculate in Kenneth’s reasons for butting out, but you have to admire someone staying after being called a “fucking idot”. Anyway, it would be great if some of his colleagues or students would join the discussion. Some of the things brought up in this thread are much more important than the individual case of Kenneth Folk, so I suggest we leave it behind. (Of course, if someone wants to say something to his defense, that would be fine as well.)
Kenneth made a mistake trying to beat Matthias/Tom/Glenn at their own game, as he admits. His attempts to out-troll them come across false. He was a poor troll.
Matthias/Tom/Glenn are excellent trolls. They seem to really get a kick out of it.
I get the impression that Kenneth is sincere, acting in way consistent with his stated beliefs.
For M/T/G it seems their egos often get in the way of acting in way consistent with their goals, such that I lose track of what their goals are.
Do they want to seriously engage the x-buddhists, or they do they just want to troll and engage in mutual mental and verbal masturbation amongst their little gang? Or are they hoping that if they snipe long and hard enough all the x-buddhists will magically turn into marxist philosophers (or whatever they call the “right” kind of philosophy) so they can join their gang?
We’ll see if Glenn, Tom, or Matthias will bother responding to your questions. In the meantime, I can tell you why I host the terrifying triumvirate (and Kenneth Folk) here. I’ve long since given up the hope of seeing x-buddhists engage in serious dialogue. Saying that is bordering on tautology, of course, and there is (theoretically, at least) the chance that the x-buddhist starts to respond to (non-buddhist) critique in a serious way. But then s/he is no longer an x-buddhist. But, as was said earlier in this thread, the purpose of the Tutteji project has never been to convert the true believers, and even less having them admit their delusion in public. Rather, it is about exposing their ideology and rhetorical tricks. And this can be done in several ways: parody and satire is one, less oblique and more direct critique is another, insulting them until that facade of passive-aggressiveness masquerading as ”right speech” comes down, is a third. Having x-buddhist teachers participate in this forced strip show makes it more effective, of course. But the ideal audience is not the faithful x-buddhist, but, as Tom Pepper said earlier, ”the person who has begun to be dissatisfied with the x-buddhist crap, and isn’t yet aware that there is more to Buddhist thought than mindless bliss and fortune-cookie platitudes.”
So I get there might be a strategy sometimes behind the “bullying, posturing, nastiness, insulting” (aside from the fun factor and bathing in the warm glow of intellectual superiority), but it is odd in those cases where they try to deny it. Is that also part of the strategy? It seems to accord with Kenneth’s point about them being lacking in self-awareness.
The x-buddhists are very typically very religious people, whether they identify themselves are religious or not (which is a big part of the problem when they don’t). This makes them a tough crowd to win over. But I find the SNBers don’t like to leave much middle ground. You are either in their gang, or you are an idiot.
I’m not sure if you’re addressing me, the SNB troika, or both. Actually, I don’t think I get what you’re trying to say. Care to try again?
If there was just some shred of evidence against “the possibility of a unitary discourse on Reality” … oh, wait a second …
Pingback: Round and round we go … | tuttejiorg
Pingback: Kenneth Folk vs the Speculative Non-Buddhists
I wonder how weird this can get? It is not, for example, an in depth discussion about Stephen Batchelor’s “Secular Buddhism” we had at the SNB-site, but a wild mixture of satire, parody, serious argumentation, word twisting, reassessment, exploitation ect. which ignites a discussion about this discussion by Justin Whitaker. What is the reason?
Perhaps x-buddhism is just that: a wild mixture of satire, parody, serious argumentation, word twisting, reassessment and exploitation. And perhaps this mode of discussion – a mode which blurs the lines between the real thing and parody – is the mode of discussion. Indeed, perhaps their is no other mode right now.
Isn’t it that we today realize more and more that the virtual is the only mode we life in – with no real against which we can judge the virtual? And isn’t the desperate attempt of x-buddhsim to save their real thing from being devoured by the all-consuming virtual reality in which they cannot protect themselves anymore against being reassessed at pleasure, isn’t that desperate attempt to save their real thing the realization that this attempt is futile? Isn’t it almost the realization that they are endlessly interchangeable? And isn’t the fascination now, by Kenneth Folk or Justin Whitaker, with this discussion, after so many serious arguments have been presented at SNB, the fascination with the question: what comes after the realization that I with all my buddhism am interchangeable? That I am just another clown…
For what remains when one cannot distinguish the parody from the real thing? That is a serious question. I wonder what Kenneth, Justin, Vincent etc. would have to say about this?
I think your intuition that the virtual is the only mode we live in ties in well with the intuition of the authors of mahayana sutras like the Vimalakirtinirdesa (where the heroes of Pali Buddhism are made into buffoons and where Sariputta is turned into a woman) or of tantras like the Buddhakapala (http://tinyurl.com/p79wjxs). The satire and parody seem so obvious there. These texts were meant to shock and awaken…and to show that the virtual mode is the only one we live in. Yet, once those texts were integrated into mainstream Buddhism they lost their shocking power and were turned into fossiles. Of course, it was far from being the only raison d’être of those texts, but it was an important one I believe.
Not losing sight of the virtual nature and not becoming oneself entangled in seriousness may be a difficult exercise. No harm in getting entangled oneself every now and then. In that case have a laugh at oneself, call oneself a “fucking idiot” and disentangle oneself.
Or is there some serious business here as well?
Hi Hridayartha,
You seem to bring the discussion full circle with your comment, back to the original question about two kinds of irony: conformism taking the form of cynical distance, and irony, parody, and satire as a subversive strategy.
Interesting back and forth. I had to weigh in on a few points: http://mumonno.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-response-is-in-order-re-kenneth-folk.html
One cannot distinguish parody from the real thing, and a simulacrum of content is content, at least as far as a computing machine is concerned.
So what?
Nobody’s going to learn from Kenneth Folk, any of his critics, nor any Western Buddhists (myself included), what to do at any particular moment and just how to do it, nor whether to fall in love, join the Black Bloc, or Goldman Sachs.
I think though you folks have done a great service to Western Buddhism, better than I have.
Surprisingly, I am intrigued by what has been discussed here.
I am not sure that I really saw my favorite philosophical paradigms, those of pragmatism and empiricism, addressed to the degree that would seem appropriate, but then I am clearly biased in that regard.
Anyone interested in a discussion of how those might apply to these topics?
Further, I got the sense that the SNB crew had a favorite economic framework that they preferred to capitalism, and is easy to imagine which ones they might like, but I was wondering if they could be a bit more explicit about that, as well as what, if any, uses they had for Buddhism and contemplative practices in general, which is to say that I wondered what benefits they think they might produce.
I am working long nights at this time, so my apologies in advance if replies are sometims a bit slow.
There hasn’t been much discussion of pragmatism and empiricism, but why would there be? They have been discussed ad nauseum for a century, and it is pretty much commonly understood that they are simply ideologies of capitalism. If you mistake empiricism for an actual epistemology, nobody could possibly discuss real philosophical thought with you, right? There are literally thousands of pages written on this, so why rehash in on a blog?
No doubt you “imagine” you know what the SNB crowd would prefer to capitalism, and no doubt you would be completely wrong. If you believe that pragmatism is a valid philosophical position, and not simply capitalist ideology, then probably you cannot conceive of any alternative to capitalism other than state-run capitalism–and no doubt you would not see that this isn’t really any different than capitalism. There is no “framework” advanced for a future economic state, because, well, there can be no such framework dictated in advance. First, get rid of the commodity form of money, then begin constructing, and endlessly reconstructing, the social formation. For most people, this work of taking responsibility for our social formation strikes terror into their hearts, as surely it would cut down on x-box time, or episodes of “real housewives of Rwanda” or something.
Of course, the pragmatists and other capitalist ideologues have long had a standard two-part criticism of Marx. 1) He shows the contradictions and inherent oppressiveness of capitalism, but never lays out a dogmatic and unquestionable plan for what we should replace it with. 2) Marxism lays out a dogmatic and unquestionable plan for what society should be like, and we don’t want anything that inflexible. (Sometimes, these are presented in the other order).
Get rid of the delusions that convince people capitalism is natural and inevitable, then…the work begins. And Buddhist thought could be a practice in which to endlessly critique our practices so that we don’t resume reification. Of course, I know that isn’t what you meant by “contemplative practices,” which are always in x-buddhism a strategy for not thinking, for avoiding this kind of endless critique and comfortably reifying our current structure of perceptions. For that, there would be no place at all.
I rather think that Kenneth Folk has acquitted himself very well in this discussion, not least to exit gracefully with the realisation that to beat fools at their own game is a fools game. Unless one is an Adorno, Derrida or some other master of mimesis, immanent critique is a dangerous game to play.
That said, Tutte and Glenn I think you both play the game of immanent and/or aesthetic critique rather well when you don’t attempt to fall for the siren calls of propositional claims. You certainly misplace your own critical value when you do so.
Schelling comes to mind and his insistence that one cannot argue another from his/her perspective as thought emerges from pre-reflexive intuitions. Intuitions that may be reached (that is, persuaded to other views) only by showing rather than telling. Glenn, I’ve always thought that to the degree you achieved this it was by aesthetic means. By means of your very style and presentation and as well as pushing forward into works of art and ’employing’ them as openings to other ways of being and understanding. It’s no accident that for Schelling the work of art was evidence for the absolute in the physical realm – having actual dimensions and qualities that might be measured but not indexed to instrumental means. Dimensions and qualities that evoked an unceasing proliferation of meaning – difference, in short. One could very well argue that at the heart of freedom for all is nothing but radical comfort with difference and its coming and going.
Tutte, you bring to mind Adorno on literary criticism and his insistence that successful critique needs be mimetic. To bring concepts from the outside will always fail, and, instead, the very corpus under view must be mirrored and moved from within to effect real change. Mockery – as you practice – does this brilliantly. Adorno and Schelling are at one here: the subjective/objective opposition that underwrites assertions about who is right and who is wrong, and what is up and what is down, can only begin in a more fundamental intuition about the nature of being. Simply put, at the level of the ‘body’. To persuade one must enact, embody. Skilfully mockery does this well. Berating others as fucking idiots because they’re not moved by one’s ‘exceedingly high intelligence’ and the self-evident power of one’s argument, not so good. At the very least, an odd stance to take amidst all this valorisation of ‘rational enquiry’.
Of course, I’m not unaware of the irony of the fact that I’m presenting propositions here, and the SNB crew are free to continue on their merry way. They might ask themselves, though, how’s this persuading thing going?
I have a question for Kenneth if he is still around: How does he square up the gap between, on the one hand, meditation as solitary endeavour that transforms and builds energetic and structural formations in the body/brain and allows one to achieve freedom from suffering, and on the other, the rampant structural deformations at the level of society and institutions that cause such suffering in the world?
.. this of course, is to assume that Kenneth would agree that there are ‘rampant structural deformations at the level of society and institutions’ If not…
Hi Timofey,
Just a couple of simple questions: I agree that the move from the oblique strategy of satire and lulz to something more explicit and non-ironic (like in this thread or the last few blog posts) is a bit awkward and aesthetically unpleasant. But I’d like to hear more about what limitations you see in my (and Glenn’s) ”propositional claims”. What, exactly, did you have in mind? Is there something you disagree with, or would like to comment on? I’d also like to point out that I haven’t called anyone a ”fucking idiot” (yet), and I certainly don’t claim any ”exceedingly high intelligence”.
Hello Pnin, how is it going in where-was-it-? ?
Thanks for this comment. The first in this thread I learned something from (Adorno & mimesis).
I regret that Grandmaster Wachtmeister broke the format. This thread is more of what we already had at the SNB blog. The eruption of discussion here (and in three non non-buddhist blogposts too so far) stems to the most part from Tutte’s mockery, not from any pointed rational non-buddhist critique.
But I don’t think that Kenneth Folk “exited gracefully with the realisation that to beat fools at their own game is a fools game“. I would hypothesize that he panicked because he is realizing that indeed he is selling water by the river. Tutte’s mockery/parody did blur the difference between his ‘serious’ shop and Tutte’s joke. That resulted in a kind of bardo. He did see for a moment the clear light of reality. But then shock set in when the wrathful deities began to make their courtesy call.
In this regard I would also take a closer look at Kenneth’s last comment which begins, “to those who care about me or are interested in developmental awakening.” Tutte said I was speculating about hidden motives when I said that Kenneth succumbed to peer group pressure forcing him to pull out of his realization. But who are “those who care about me“? Everybody can hear them prompting Ken the ‘right’ text, don’t we? Or don’t we know how peer group pressure works and don’t we know at least a bit about how to access more subtle levels of communication? (I mean, for example, what do you say with your pseudonym?)
Therefore I say Kenneth’s exit isn’t graceful. It is panic. He could not beat the fools game because it was exceptionally mean but because he realized the impossibility of turning back the wheel once his putting nothing in boxes and selling it had been exposed.
He tries to hide now. But he is stuck in bardo. And the wrathful deities will haunt him. There’s no way back out. The psychic forces upon him now are gruesome.
But one thing has to been said too: Kenneth had the bravery to jump off the cliff, that’s right. While the others, his peers, the geeks, integralists, and all the other pseudo-modern cowards, watch his flight in awe, eventually turning away sneaking back into their little huts of recreancy.
I hope he will get his act together again. The bardo of aporetic dissonance is no fun.