The Problem of "the Exotic" in Philosophy & Religion
18 March 2014 [link youtube]
This opens with an anecdote from the bad old days about monks, magic and faith-healing, then proceeds to (briefly) run through the problem of "the exotic" (as I've encountered it) in both Eastern and Western philosophy.
The drink in the blender was a combination of banana, kiwi and soymilk, for the record.
Youtube Automatic Transcription
a Buddhist monk...
hangers-on and flunkies who believed in homeopathy of thing. required surgery, and if you don't get the get worse and worse, and you'll go blind, And he's surrounded by people who are telling medicine", "Use some kind of magical cure"... I'm supposed to believe in magic of various He takes off his robes, [and this is] controversial by taking off his robes and dressing like he gets on an airplane, and he flies to India, sage Sai Baba. If you haven't heard of Sai Baba, he did all direct sleight-of-hand (real magician's tricks), [So this Buddhist monk] goes to be healed Standing in a row, there's a hallway full it's during his act, y'know, he performs on he keeps going down a row [of], I dunno, a who are waiting to be healed. laying hands on people, healing people, one to this Buddhist monk, who's dressed like [Laughs] He comes to this Buddhist monk, and He looks him in the face, and he says, "Get and then he keeps going down the line, faith-healing It's a true story. It's a true story, and because it's the miracle of a miracle-worker He did have the surgery. The surgery worked. but I just made myself a vegan protein "milkshake" out while I'm talking to the camera. are easier to relate to than the kind of theoretical in this video. and he's a smart, well-educated guy, probably in the last five years, and, uh, we talked course, by the end of that time he really on Buddhism and my depth of knowledge about But then he stopped at one point, and he told about all kinds of problems of philosophy, told me with his eyes glowing, that he knew these problems, because, at this one temple, this particular god) and if you ask them anything the doctrine of "not knowing". them know anything, and there are no answers this guy, again, he's not an idiot; he's really in by this. of a bunch of monks preaching that they don't question: how would he feel if I told him in Italy, where the monks just worship a god, just preach their own pious ignorance? How temple somewhere in Russia where people professed Right away, his whole expression changed. deep history in Christianity, and, um, it know anything about the history and philosophy religion going, although a lot of people conveniently But in posing the question in this way, what exotic that, really, for him, made the idea away, if he was just visualizing how he would about white, western people, doing the same setting, then, suddenly, it didn't seem so My own sense of apprehension of "the exotic" rational faculties once something is declared in Buddhism. I was shocked (shocked is the word) that there going to university, who were willing to pretend (y'know, 19th century German philosophy was from 19th century Germany represented an "exotic" from the rest of the history of the world. philosophies of 19th century Germany) are slavery. And other young people from the same they were making excuses for these philosophers, racist, they just didn't know what they were And whenever I would challenge that by saying, book was published, we're just a few decades debates around slavery, those are all in the Germany. These are the events going on in it's just not true that people in Europe were of the issue of slavery in particular". But trying to separate this exotic island that from the political and historical reality And a lot of white people around me do that It's not with a lack of sympathy that I say... people's eyes when you talk to them about who thinks of a man wearing robes as if he's and you say, "Oh yeah, yeah, I know the monk you're talking about". now retiring and dying of old age, those guys "Yeah, yeah, and then the next generation of education, they came out of this type of As soon as you put it into the timeline of you can see that mystique of the exotic falling that we really are talking about modern people, ongoing history as the western world. about Buddhism in ways that are not so different I've had the privilege that many monks were background. my life in the military, and then I tried I'd try being in the monastery; I had a cousin went..." people into the life of a Buddhist monk. And to sympathize with the human reality, not reality, that, of course, can never be real. and we look across a division that exoticizes part of it is that we're giving ourselves ourselves an excuse to turn off the rational even someone like a Catholic monk (instead to someone who was selling you a medical treatment, or a religious practice that's supposed to When I look at the medical excuses that are and selling Buddhist meditation, it's very the people who are willing to suspend their practice, would never do the same thing for do the same thing for even exercise and changes were told they would get the same results scientifically, it may work, but there's just to turn off the critical faculty of their and sold as meditation today.
hangers-on and flunkies who believed in homeopathy of thing. required surgery, and if you don't get the get worse and worse, and you'll go blind, And he's surrounded by people who are telling medicine", "Use some kind of magical cure"... I'm supposed to believe in magic of various He takes off his robes, [and this is] controversial by taking off his robes and dressing like he gets on an airplane, and he flies to India, sage Sai Baba. If you haven't heard of Sai Baba, he did all direct sleight-of-hand (real magician's tricks), [So this Buddhist monk] goes to be healed Standing in a row, there's a hallway full it's during his act, y'know, he performs on he keeps going down a row [of], I dunno, a who are waiting to be healed. laying hands on people, healing people, one to this Buddhist monk, who's dressed like [Laughs] He comes to this Buddhist monk, and He looks him in the face, and he says, "Get and then he keeps going down the line, faith-healing It's a true story. It's a true story, and because it's the miracle of a miracle-worker He did have the surgery. The surgery worked. but I just made myself a vegan protein "milkshake" out while I'm talking to the camera. are easier to relate to than the kind of theoretical in this video. and he's a smart, well-educated guy, probably in the last five years, and, uh, we talked course, by the end of that time he really on Buddhism and my depth of knowledge about But then he stopped at one point, and he told about all kinds of problems of philosophy, told me with his eyes glowing, that he knew these problems, because, at this one temple, this particular god) and if you ask them anything the doctrine of "not knowing". them know anything, and there are no answers this guy, again, he's not an idiot; he's really in by this. of a bunch of monks preaching that they don't question: how would he feel if I told him in Italy, where the monks just worship a god, just preach their own pious ignorance? How temple somewhere in Russia where people professed Right away, his whole expression changed. deep history in Christianity, and, um, it know anything about the history and philosophy religion going, although a lot of people conveniently But in posing the question in this way, what exotic that, really, for him, made the idea away, if he was just visualizing how he would about white, western people, doing the same setting, then, suddenly, it didn't seem so My own sense of apprehension of "the exotic" rational faculties once something is declared in Buddhism. I was shocked (shocked is the word) that there going to university, who were willing to pretend (y'know, 19th century German philosophy was from 19th century Germany represented an "exotic" from the rest of the history of the world. philosophies of 19th century Germany) are slavery. And other young people from the same they were making excuses for these philosophers, racist, they just didn't know what they were And whenever I would challenge that by saying, book was published, we're just a few decades debates around slavery, those are all in the Germany. These are the events going on in it's just not true that people in Europe were of the issue of slavery in particular". But trying to separate this exotic island that from the political and historical reality And a lot of white people around me do that It's not with a lack of sympathy that I say... people's eyes when you talk to them about who thinks of a man wearing robes as if he's and you say, "Oh yeah, yeah, I know the monk you're talking about". now retiring and dying of old age, those guys "Yeah, yeah, and then the next generation of education, they came out of this type of As soon as you put it into the timeline of you can see that mystique of the exotic falling that we really are talking about modern people, ongoing history as the western world. about Buddhism in ways that are not so different I've had the privilege that many monks were background. my life in the military, and then I tried I'd try being in the monastery; I had a cousin went..." people into the life of a Buddhist monk. And to sympathize with the human reality, not reality, that, of course, can never be real. and we look across a division that exoticizes part of it is that we're giving ourselves ourselves an excuse to turn off the rational even someone like a Catholic monk (instead to someone who was selling you a medical treatment, or a religious practice that's supposed to When I look at the medical excuses that are and selling Buddhist meditation, it's very the people who are willing to suspend their practice, would never do the same thing for do the same thing for even exercise and changes were told they would get the same results scientifically, it may work, but there's just to turn off the critical faculty of their and sold as meditation today.