-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of BklynMagus
> Ken for instance deplores taking Buddhism out of its historical framework,
but is content to strip it of its philosphy when he studies it.
** You've misunderstood. I categorically distinguish between *studying religion* and *practicing religion*. Most philosophy of religion is the practice of religion, a reinterpretation of religion for a modern subjectivity with strong normative implications --> from Kant to Schelling to Nietzsche for example (that's why when you want to know about Buddhism you don't read Hegel, although Hegel was foundational for shaping how many western scholars received Buddhism). I'm not interested in debating whether or not God exists, or the nature of Dharma. I am interested in figuring out what Augustine thinks and writes about in terms of theodicy...
>The recent discussion of Charming Cadavers is instructive. The following
is from a review from the Journal of Buddhist Ethics (the entire review can
be found at http://jbe.gold.ac.uk/4/bart1.pdf
"As Wilson herself makes plain, the account of Buddhist saints lives and their meditations on women's bodies is the product of her own training as a 1990's feminist scholar. In an interesting rumination on scholarship on Buddhism and gender that she includes in the Introduction, Wilson situates her own study in the context of several decades of Buddhist scholarship. With perspicacity, she remarks that the history of Buddhism reflects the concerns of scholars reconstructing it, thereby guding us to the conclusion that just as all things are subject to change, so are all interpretations. In other words, whether the male gaze empowers or disempowers the female, or whether there is a male gaze at all, remains to be seen."
I believe that hostility to scholars can arise when they present their work as fact rather than an interpretation of facts.
** Thanks for the link, I just printed off the review. I want to add (before I've read the entire review) it appears as though you've misunderstood the point made in the quote, or understood it but taken it in a different direction. Bartholomeusz is commenting on an unexplored aspect of Wilson's work: the consistency of the male gaze as male. Bartholomeusz seems to be suggesting that perhaps the gaze that Wilson argues is consistently found in the specific practices she discusses might not be accurately identified as "male" - and hence should be qualified as a particular trajectory of masculine subjectivity without being definitive of masculine subjectivity in the Buddhist tradition. Certainly there is nothing in Wilson's book that would contradict this point (she wasn't writing a history of masculinity... she was focusing on the horrific figurations of the feminine in Buddhist hagiographic literature). You've gone on to take this in an awkward direction. Wilson is presenting her work as factual. The facts are, of course, interpreted. But just because theorising is an interpretive endeavour doesn't mean that it isn't true. Wislon presents her work as part of a theoretical claim - suggesting that her framework is an accurate way to understand this kind of literature. It is well argued and supported - and ultimately she does present it as 'factual' which is to say 'an interpretation.' But interpretations can be good or bad. Interpretations of this literature that argue that it is proto-feminist are bad interpretations, they lack merit and cannot be substantiated as well as alternative explanations. If there is a hostility to scholars it has nothing to do with how or what they present. If arrogance was a sin of scholarship there wouldn't be anything to read. Most scholarship is elitist, technical, jargonistic, and specialised. I'd wager that most people don't have the skill or discipline to be able to read Faure's work, for example. Is this an elitist claim? Perhaps, but it also happens to be true... that's why most celebrities are reading books on metaphysics, because they don't have the skill to read anything more complicated. Most of the reviews of Faure's work, for instance, warned that even as experts they were virtually overwhelmed by the amount of evidence, pointing out that Faure himself says likewise. The hostility towards scholars is probably akin to the hostility towards vegetarians... those hostile simply assume that intellectuals or vegetarians see themselves as occupying the moral, cognitive, and aesthetic high ground. This is probably a false assumption in most cases. Scholars are trained professionals. That there is hostility toward them likely comes out of fear, perhaps the perception that the intellectual is trying to steal something of value from them (like their religious believes). That's a different debate though.
ken