“The new ideology appears to take for granted that if you are unhappy, then it is the fault of somebody else—probably white heterosexual patriarchal males. But Buddhism (as well as other relatively advanced spiritual traditions) teaches, and this can be verified for oneself, that we create our own suffering. Refusing to take responsibility for one’s own unhappiness and then blaming someone else for it, is the Western disease; and it has become systematized into a new social movement which is running amuck nowadays.”
These are not the words of your average alt-righter. Nor from anywhere else on the conservative spectrum. They are not even the words of Jordan Peterson, or Sam Harris, or Gad Saad. But they are the words of someone from outside of the echo chambers of the Culture War looking in. These are the words of a Buddhist monk in Burma who has started a blog out of concern for what he sees from afar. And what he sees is an attack on Western civilisation, that is more than worth saving.
I cop a bit of grief for it from time to time from the party faithful, but I’m often more interested in perspectives on the madness of post-modernism or Cultural Marxism either from those with no skin in the game, or those technically on the other side.
It doesn’t mean that I’m down and in agreement with all of their ways of looking at the world, the way they go about their lives, or their ideology. But it does assure me that what we’re all seeing and interpreting in exactly the same way isn’t just paranoia, wishful thinking, or confirmation bias, but cold hard evidence.
In its own way, searching for evidence and affirmation of your beliefs among people you don’t necessarily see eye to eye on when it comes to other things, is the most airtight way of confirming them. There are some things on the left and the right that are pure ideology. Then there are things that are very awkwardly easy to subject to the free market.
This blog is pretty compelling stuff:
http://politicallyincorrectdharma.blogspot.com.au/2017/06/why-i-am-starting-this-blog.html?m=1
Buddhism gets a bad rap because most people are exposed to it by leftists who use it as a kind of hollow cultural seasoning between Antifa rallies and lattes in Newtown. As the blogger points out, genuine Buddhism is pretty much the antithesis of everything they’re about.
Well worth perusing for those in search of a little zen enlightenment.
It’s your XYZ