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A Decolonial Critique of Liberal Modern Buddhist Social Movements

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A Decolonial Critique of Liberal Modern Buddhist Social Movements Utopic Colonies A Decolonial Critique of Liberal Modern Buddhist Social Movements Shaun Terry Acknowledgements I strongly believe that no work is ever truly original and no one is ever very responsible for any production. I can certainly say that my work has depended on ideas borrowed, as well as on valuable discussions and interrogations in concert with other people. If I weren’t so lucky for the valuable thoughts and affects of so many people in my life, this project could not be as it is. There are many people for whom I must express deep gratitude. The first person that I must thank is Lauren Leve. I approached her to be my advisor for what became this project (and, initially, was not at all this project). I did not know her at all, other than having been in a couple-hours lecture that she gave. She was hesitant to take on what I (ambiguously, probably confusingly) proposed, but I am incredibly grateful that she took the leap of faith required to help me to manifest this work. It was always necessarily the case that I would not be perfectly prepared to take on something like Buddhism’s subversive potential in liberal modernity, but Lauren pointed me toward resources and showed infinite patience in dealing with my seemingly boundless ignorance. My spontaneous and curious nature tends to bend me toward the circuitous and this project is surely not what Lauren had in mind; there likely are tensions between her work and what I here present. Yet, she has been open-minded and helpful in leading me toward the improved versions of arguments that appear in what I here lay out. I could not be more thankful for the patience and (surely at-times conflicted) guidance that Lauren has provided. This project could not possibly have achieved whatever it might have achieved without her help. The lecture that Lauren gave was as a substitute for a session of Arturo Escobar’s class on political ecology. I managed to go through a semester in Arturo’s class without having absorbed 1 the full thrust of some of his arguments. In my mind, Arturo is perhaps the model academic. Never have I met someone of his stature (the “of his stature” qualifier is surely not necessary, but also a testament to Arturo) who is gentler, more generous, more caring, and humbler than Arturo Escobar, and he continues to impress me both through the politics that he lives out through daily acts as well as through clear, powerful, thoughtful writing and speech. Yet, while I initially found Arturo very interesting, very bright, and the kind of person that one is perpetually tempted to call “good”—even if one finds that kind of characterization to be necessarily problematic—I initially failed to fully capture the importance that his arguments could have on me and my thought. It was not until I took Michal Osterweil’s class on social movements that the lightbulb really went on. I think that Michal and I share a lot of the same kinds of concerns and a similar temperament when it comes both to politics and to social ideals in general. For me, learning about political autonomy, place-based movements, privilege and power, the spiritual and non-rational, and a panoply of other social interests never felt like work, and Michal made it easy to connect these ideas with interesting and concrete work. In some ways, it was through this experience that I gained confidence in my prospects for encountering academic interests that could resonate with me, especially in a “meritocratic”1, power-laden academy that seems eternally bent on reproducing privilege both in the classroom and through other mechanisms. To Michal, I owe a deep sense of inspiration, as well as many of the philosophical commitments that increasingly ground my work. So many historically important people appear connected in trios: there’s the Holy Trinity, Athos had Porthos and Aramis, Marx had Engels and (later, and maybe in a more disconnected way) Lenin, Franny and Zooey Glass had Bessie, Meg Murry had Charles Wallace and Calvin, 1 By which I mean not-at-all meritocratic, but what we call “meritocratic,” nonetheless—and I want to be clear that I’m not totally sure that things would be better if they were actually meritocratic, either. 2 Tupac Shakur had Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg (or The Notorious B.I.G. had Puff Daddy and Ma$e), Michael Jordan had Scottie and Rodman, Left Eye had T-Boz and Chilli, Harry Potter had Ron and Hermione, and Trump has Steve Bannon and Vlad. With Arturo, Larry Grossberg and John Pickles form an entertaining, unexpected, highly engaging, and intellectually stimulating trio somewhat famous on UNC’s campus (especially among us humanities nerds). Larry’s irritatingly persistent insistence on clear divisions between concepts and distinct specificities of phenomena is one that makes us all a little sharper and forces us to rethink our ideas and understandings. His sense of rigor is hardly matched by his dedication to supporting students, and I greatly admire his unending passion for making the world better. John is, in some ways, a kind of middle ground between Arturo and Larry. John is deeply sympathetic and affirming without ceding forthright honesty as the situation demands. John is never judgmental or overbearing. He is always open- minded, eager to learn, and eager to be helpful. My experience at UNC would not have been as enriching or comfortable without these three amigos, and it’s a bit sad to imagine that, soon, this relationship will have lost some of what it had been, at least in terms of how we other people experience it. Matthew Taylor, Micah Hughes, Lisa Min, and Donald Reid were all instrumental in helping me to work through bad early drafts of parts of this work. They each demonstrated unnecessary patience and tact when confronting some of my more ill-conceived ideas. I appreciate the notes, suggestions, reprimands, and otherwise. I took a class on the philosophy of economics from Kevin Hoover. I didn’t know what to expect from the class, and Dr. Hoover and I certainly don’t share all the same philosophical or political commitments. Still, this class may have sharpened my thinking more than did any other. I learned a lot in that class—not only about people like Daniel Hume, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Milton Friedman—but also about myself, how I think, what philosophers do, and where I could 3 improve. I learned a lot about what kind of thinker I am and what I’m up against. There’s maybe no class that I found more interesting or more challenging. Christi Fenison, Luke Parra, and Edwina Koch are some of my oldest and most-lasting UNC friends. All of them contributed ideas, as well as helping me to maintain some semblance of sanity while living as a 30-something undergraduate on UNC’s campus. Circuitous philosophical conversations with them, as well as with Iris Benedikt, Eric Raju, Quincy Rife, Sarah Green, and Ellery Beard all helped to shape this particular Social Justice Warrior™. It can be a funny thing to be an undergrad of more-or-less the same age as one’s professors (in the case of many of my TAs and graduate student teachers, I’ve certainly been the elder). Ronald Williams II was one of the first professors I had who encouraged me to aim to go to graduate school and he remains something of a friend of mine. We share some generational understanding, but I learn a lot from him in irregular meetings and catchings-up, despite not having had him formally as a teacher in a long time. I’m not sure how many UNC students take classes at Duke, but I’ve been lucky enough to have exploited the educational opportunities availed by a couple of Duke literature’s most famous communists: Michael Hardt and Fredric Jameson. I’ve had many conversations with each on different theoretical issues as well as on what the hell to do with my life moving forward. They’re both as kind, considerate, humorous, and helpful as they are thought-provoking. In the summer of 2016, I took advantage of a summer program being held in Oslo. There, I met Dinko Hanaan Dinko, Sait Matty Jaw, Prashant Thakur, Faisal Majeed, Estefanía Capdeville, Ding Ying Gawyam—all of whom I expect to have as lifelong friends. We tend to share concerns over development, over western hegemony, and over feminist issues, among other things. I learned about politics in Ghana, The Gambia, India, Pakistan, Mexico, and Myanmar from them. With 4 some of them, I have engaged in collaborative projects, and I look forward to future collaborations and camaraderie. My youngest brother, Bruce Terry, is a capitalist, but I’m working on it. He’s deeply curious, humble, and rigorous in his analytical thinking (although his grades don’t yet reflect it). He cares deeply about people’s welfare and we’ve had long (sometimes too long, even) discussions on our views of the world and how best to make it better. My little brother is always honest and always good to people and he’s an inspiration in my life. I learn from him and I intend to unilaterally, colonially impose on him—through blunt force of will and repetition—a more liberatory politics. I keep faith. My cousin, Kevin Terry, is probably my second-best friend (I realize that it is a particularly US thing to keep ranked lists like this, but I simply have no expectation that I shed all my ideology).
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