Buddhism and the Postmodern: the Nature of Identity and Tradition in Contemporary Society
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Buddhism and the Postmodern: The Nature of Identity and Tradition in Contemporary Society. Simon Gareth Smith C Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. University of Leeds Department of Theology and Religious Studies May 1997 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. ABSTRACT By and large, modem societies have understood themselves to be increasingly without religion. This is reflected in religion's marginalised position within academic disciplines such as sociology and philosophy and, in turn, their isolation from developments in religious studies. The discipline of religious studies itself has sometimes colluded in this process of marginalisation and isolation by a reluctance to engage with the intellectual dynamism of similarly eclectic disciplines such as cultural studies, as well as with current developments in sociology and philosophy. This is now beginning to change, and the purpose of this thesis is to contribute to this transformation by drawing upon debates surrounding the notion of 'postmodemity', and to suggest that forms of religious tradition not only persist in contemporary Western societies, but can exhibit a dynamic and challenging engagement with the cultural conditions which shape them. Concentrating on notions of self-hood and identity, I argue that the encounter between Buddhism and Western society provides an opportunity to examine a role for the religious in the context of a modernity which appears to exhibit increasingly ephemeral aspects, culminating with the postmodern. By initially drawing on examples in colonial and post-colonial South East Asia, I argue that Western and Buddhist cultural forms interacted in a manner which presaged the formation of the complex cultural hybridities that occur in contemporary Western society. Here, through the use of what I shall call 'quasi-knowledge' and 'quasi-memory', individuals are exposed to a multiplicity of cultural phenomena in attempting to establish coherent biographies for themselves, such exposure being reflected in the ephemeral nature of self-perception which is instrumental in the formation of the postmodern self. I suggest that both Buddhism and the postmodern operate in milieux which function on several levels of reality. These, to some extent, equate to certain dichotomies which may be found in modernity, and provide a context in which to establish a continued and significant role for religion at all of these levels. This can be reflected in my notion of a 'de-universalised' society which can encompass both secular and religious narratives - being a product of the tensions found between the two. As a consequence of this, I argue that it is possible to regard religion as a significant factor in understanding contemporary self-hood; as something which is both at the root of its development, and central to its continued evolution. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. I would like to especially thank my parents, Alan and Jean Smith, and latterly my step- mother, EaIcy Smith, for all the love and support they have shown me over the years. This is much appreciated and an important factor in enabling me to complete this work. During my time in Leeds I have been fortunate to have come into contact with a great many people whom it has been my pleasure to know. I would particularly like to thank Dr. Philip Mellor who has not only been an excellent supervisor who has never been short of good advice and encouragement when I needed it, but also a good friend. I would also like to thank the Department of Theology and Religious Studies corporately for the financial and academic support given. In particular I wish to thank Ingrid Lawrie, Jill Killington and Jenny Smith who were always there to sort out a problem, and made being in the Department day by day a joy. Along similar lines I would like to thank those who had to share an office with me over the years, particularly Dr. Alice Whieldon who is as good a friend as I could ever hope for; and also (in no particular order) Dr. Sandra Wilkinson, Hannah Hunt and Bob Exon who all provided a good mixture of friendship, intellectual stimulation, and (in Bob's case) sheer exhaustion. When I began my studies in 1988 I would never have imagined that I would end up doing a PhD. That I have done has a great deal to do with the staff and my fellow students of St. David's University College in Lampeter, and in particular Dr. Sophie Gilliat. I would also like to thank Dr. Deirdre Green, Marlene Ablett, Dr. Chris Arthur, Dr. Gavin Flood and Dr. Masuq Ally who all provided me with the confidence and ability to succeed and continue with my studies. Many people have had the dubious pleasure of living with me during my four years in Leeds, this can't have been easy. In particular I would like to thank Shafy Abdullah, Dave Lynch, Thomas Schmutte and Radiger Hess for their stoicism in the face of my continual and pretentious use of the 'P' word, and also for their continued friendship. Finally, but by no means least, I would particularly like to thank Debora Marschner who has only relatively recently come into my life, but who gives me so much love and support which I am only too happy to reciprocate. CONTENTS Introduction 1 Early Sources of Contemporary Identity 3 Counter-Reformation and Anti-Enlightenment 8 Schopenhauer, Buddhism, and Non-Rational Modernity 10 Durkheim and 'Janus-faced' Modernity 13 The Sacred and the Profane in 'Janus-faced' Modernity 17 The Postmodern as Complex Hybrid 23 Chapter One Buddhist Tradition in a De-Universalised Society 26 The Emergence of Buddhism in the West 26 Theosophy and Modernism 28 Diachronic Identities and Diachronic Traditions 33 Religion in Contemporary Society 39 Western Buddhism, Modernity and Tradition 44 The De-Universalised Society 49 Chapter Two The 'Protestant' Buddhism of the Metropolis: 52 Cultural Hybridity in South East Asia Theories of Cultural Interaction: from the Colonial 52 to the post-colonial Colonialism and the Seeds of 'Protestant' Buddhism 57 TheravIda Buddhism and Hybridity 61 Buddhist Developments Outside the Colonial Milieu 65 Forest Monks and Spirit Cults 70 Chapter Three From Protestant Pilgrims to Postmodern Nomads: 76 The Development of the Individual in the Modem Metropolis The Flaneur the emblem of modernity 77 The 'Janus-faced' Flaneur 85 The end of the Flaneur 92 The Post-Flaneur 95 Chapter Four Postmodern Space and Buddhist Disneyworlds 99 The Development of Postmodern Space 99 The Nature of Postmodern Space 102 Knowledge and Space 107 ?topias 109 The Empty Net as Utopia 113 Comparative Groundlessness 123 Buddhist Disneyworlds 126 Chapter Five Buddhist Neo-Tribalism 131 De-Universalised Buddhism 131 3-D Societies 133 Engaged Buddhism: background and roots 141 In the Net: the importance of awareness 144 Eastern Approaches to Environmental Ethics 149 Buddhist Social Action 155 Chapter Six Surfing Indra's Net 160 Body Reject? Beyond the Interstitial Skin 160 Techno-bodies 164 Virtually Sacred Reality 167 Cyborgs: at the interface of human and machine 173 The FWBO and Western Buddhism 178 The Heterotopian Body 183 Conclusion 187 The Study of Buddhism in the West 187 The Dynamics of Modernity 190 The Utopias of Nirvana and the Postmodern 193 Bibliography 196 INTRODUCTION The real problem of modernity is the problem of belief. To use an unfashionable term, it is a spiritual crisis, since the new anchorages have proved illusory and the old ones have become submerged. ..The effort to find excitement and meaning in literature and art as a substitute for religion led to modernism as a cultural mode. Yet modernism is exhausted and the various kinds of post-modernism (in the psychedelic efforts to expand consciousness without boundaries) are simply the decomposition of the self in an effort to erase individual ego (Bell, 1976: 28-9).1 These comments of Daniel Bell draw our attention to a characteristic of modernity which was of great concern to many of the founding figures of modem philosophy, sociology and psychology; namely the modern world's highly ambivalent relationship with religion (Levine, 1995; Nisbet [1966] 1993). As the twentieth century has progressed, however, intellectuals have tended to simplify this relationship, focusing instead upon an assumed disappearance of religion from modern life through such notions as secularisation, 'de-traditionalisation', the 'death of the subject' and the 'end of metaphysics' (e.g. Giddens, 1990, 1991; Baudrillard, 1983; Lyotard, 1984). The concern with social and cultural fragmentation which marks much 'postmodern' thought (Featherstone, 1991; Lash and Urry, 1994), has often added to this vision of modernity as some sort of spiritual vacuum, though others have heralded the collapse of the modem project as the simultaneous reappearance of the sacred (Ferguson, 1992; Maffesoli, 1996). Bell's reduction of modernity's 'spiritual crisis' to 'the problem of belief, however, is unsatisfactory for two reasons. First, his assumption that in the past most people adhered to a relatively fixed set of beliefs is highly questionable and ignores the pluralism and dynamism of pre-modern and early societies (Archer, 1988). Second, and more importantly, it fails to take account of Durkheim's ([1912] 1995) emphasis on the importance of collective practices, rituals and experiences, as well as cognitive factors such as belief, of how people make sense of the world. This emphasis is especially important when examining the development of modernity, which has tended to valorise cognitive factors, but even more so with regard to postmodemity, which is often pictured in terms of an ephemeral, aestheticised, fragmented world of shifting signs and exchanges of information (Baudrillard, 1993). Bell rightly draws our attention to the importance of a particular model of selfhood for modernity, where people saw themselves as individuals responsible for their own beliefs and action, and its apparent displacement by a postmodern awareness of fragmentation and plurality.