The Trouble With Labels
In this case, Chien-Chi Chang’s The Chain illustrates the trouble with the label ‘Buddhism’:
“In 1970 Li Kun-Tai, an abbot in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, decided to become a Buddhist monk. He built a thatched hut in front of his house, adopted a schizophrenic as his disciple, and began to raise pigs and chickens with his new helper, whom he kept on a line of string, much like a leash. Within 20 years Li Kun-Tai, by now renamed (by himself) Hieh Kai Feng, had 600 deranged helpers, most chained together, almost exclusively consigned to him by their families, distraught by the shame of having to look after lunatics, or socially unacceptable misfits. Ten years later, in 1999, Long Fa Tang—the Temple of the Dragon—was recognized as the largest chicken farm in Taiwan, with a million chickens laying eggs and defecating in almost equal proportions. They are tended by helpers from the 700 mental patients in the ‘care’ of the Temple, wading through slurry, eggs and chicken corpses. Hieh Kai Feng had by now sought to sophisticate the impracticalities of string, and with such a large number of inmates found that a light chain was the most efficient form of control. So he chained them together, one by one, through noon and night. He is delighted with the results, and proud of them. He firmly believes he is not only taking care of his patients but also helping alleviate the tremendous burden placed on their families.”
What does it mean to be a ‘Buddhist’, or a ‘Christian’, or a ‘Moslem’, or…?
Update 2009-06-16: Sri Lanka.
Two Examples of Imaginary Lines From The BBC's Headlines, Today
- Social Imaginary Lines: China hi-tech exam cheats jailed – Eight parents and teachers who used hi-tech equipment to help children cheat in Chinese college entrance exams are jailed.
- Political Imaginary Lines: Gunfire on Thai-Cambodian border – Troops from Thailand and Cambodia exchange fire in a border area that both countries claim as theirs, officials say. See also John Vink’s essay Cambodia Border Dispute.
Pope in Africa
Pope Benedict XVI is in Africa being unhelpful as usual. He even warns against the “growing influence of superstitious forms of religion”, a warning which Africans may heed by renouncing catholicism and all other forms of organized superstition.
“His opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans.”
Lies, Seeing With Your Own Eyes
“Good evening. I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.
Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Some politicians do it, too, as we all know. And diplomats and generals tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists, however, differ from others, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling lies. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?
My answer would be this: namely, that by telling skilful lies — which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true — the novelist can bring out the truth to a new place and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp the truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why … we are trying to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us, within ourselves. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.
Today, however, I have no intention of lying. I shall try to be as honest as I can. There are only a few days in the year I do not engage in telling lies, and today happens to be one of them.”
Read on for Part I of Haruki Murakami’s Jerusalem Prize acceptance speech at the Mainichi Daily News…
A World Without Borders…
…Would be a better world. Thanks to Ryan for indicating Reza Aramesh’s work photographed by Atlanta Rascher.
