So theres a polemical strategy here, right?

JS: Definitely. This is Mahayana Buddhism, which was positioning itself against the Buddhist mainstream. And so we have here a tremendous re-visioning of the entire received tradition.

What do you mean when you use the term mainstream Buddhism?

DL: What we are trying to name is the tradition of Buddhism before the Mahayana began, which was probably several centuries after the Buddhas death. We now know with some certainty that the Mahayana, despite its great fame in East Asia, remained a minority tradition throughout its long history in India. Everything else we just call the mainstream. These mainstream schools, of which there were many, tended to reject the Mahayana sutras, saying that they were not the word of the Buddha. They maintained the nirvana of the arhat as the ideal. This is not to say that they did not speak of the bodhisattva. Rather, they saw the bodhisattva as the rare figure who foregoes the path of the arhat to follow the longer bodhisattva path. The Lotus says that the nirvana of the arhat does not ultimately exist and that all beings can become bodhisattvas and thus buddhas.

JS: The Lotus Sutra extols the bodhisattva path as a path that everyone should follow in order to become a buddha. The compilersMahayana practitionersfaced the very difficult task of explaining why the Buddha himself didnt teach that, then, instead of offering the path of the arhat that leads to personal nirvana, the extinction of desire, and the stopping of the wheel of rebirth.

The Lotus Sutras answer, again, is that the Buddha preached to different people according to their capacity, but underlying those diverse teachings was his final intention: to lead everyone to the single goal of buddhahood.

Why dont we take that a little bit further: What does the Lotus Sutra do to legitimize itself or to give itself authority?

JS: The Lotus positions itself as the Buddhas supreme teaching. And it does that in many ways. First of all, its presented as the Buddhas final teaching. Hes about to enter nirvana, and so he preaches the sutra.

In the opening chapter, theres a scene where the Buddha emerges from meditation and flowers fall from the sky and the earth shakes. The bodhisattva Maitreya, who is supposed to be the next buddha and therefore should be extremely wise, doesnt know whats going on, so he asks the more experienced bodhisattva Manjushri whats happening. Manjushri recalls a scene from unfathomable kalpas [eons] ago, in the age of another buddha. Shortly before that buddha entered nirvana, the same signs appeared, and immediately afterward he preached the Sutra of the Lotus Blossom of the Wonderful Dharma.Thats what Shakyamuni is now going to do.

So the Lotus positions itself as both the final teaching and one thats older than anything recorded in the Buddhist tradition. And most interestingly, it repeatedly refers to itself in the course of the text. Its an actor in its own script, if you will.

So how was this ideathat the Lotus was his final teachingreceived?

DL: There were many in India who rejected the claim that the Mahayana sutras were the word of the Buddha. Great scholars like Nagarjuna, Bhaviveka, and Shantideva wrote defenses of the Mahayana over the course of centuries, so we know that the criticism never went away.

But the Lotus Sutra also legitimizes itself in other ways. Of course, the mainstream criticism would be: If the Buddha taught this, why do we have no record of it being taught? If the Buddha taught this, why is it not in the Tripitika, the previously accepted canon?

There are ways of legitimizing that dont rest on the historical question of was this or was this not preached by the Buddha.

As the Buddha is about to preach the Lotus Sutra, he says, Im now going to begin teaching. Im going to teach you something Ive never taught before. Im going to reveal the true teaching. Five thousand monks and nuns get up and walk out. The Buddha doesnt stop them.

The sutra is therefore saying that five thousand monks and nuns didnt hear him preach it and therefore they dont know about it. For the sutras champions, this passage provided a reason why so many claimed that the Lotus was not taught by the Buddha; they were among those who walked out when he began to teach it.

Thats pretty clever. In your new book, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, were looking at two different things: the sutra as it has come down to us from the time of its composition, some three or four hundred years after the Buddha, and then the centuries of interpretation that followed. So if I read the Lotus Sutra, Im not going to pick up what Nichiren [12221282 CE] extrapolated from it hundreds of years after its composition.

JS: Right. That was precisely one of the reasons for doing the book. On the one hand, it is a chapter-by- chapter guide to the Lotus Sutraa text that speaks in mythic imagery rather than discursively, so its very hard to read cold, without background explanation. At the same time, we conceived of this as a study in religious interpretationhow people reimagine or refigure their traditions in response to changing circumstances. Part of the book, then, looks at the way that Nichiren, roughly a thousand years later at the extreme opposite end of Asia, took the Lotus Sutra and the long tradition of its interpretation and reworked them to fit the needs of his time. We conceived of the book as an introduction to this problem of how religions stay alive and readjust to changing circumstances.

In the modern era, we face exposure to all sorts of different beliefs, and there is no really good reason for deciding that ones own is superior to anyone elses. But we still have to find value in the foundational texts. As you discussed, in Pali Buddhism, or Theravada, that meaning seems to rest on the claim that the teachings were the words of the Buddha. Yet like Nichiren, we have to come back to some texts and interpret them in ways that are relevant to our time. Is that right?

And further, all religious texts try to make a claim to authenticity, and they have various ways of doing it. But if we acknowledge the role that interpretation has played historically in the teaching of not only the Lotus but really all Buddhists texts, and that were not looking at them as the actual words of the Buddha, how do we then read them in a fruitful way? How do I understand its historical context and at the same time find great spiritual value in it?

JS: This is not a new issue. I think, for example, about Japan in the early 20th century when Buddhist leaders there had their first encounters with European Buddhist Studies. At the time, the Pali canon was thought by Western researchers to be closest to the direct preaching of the historical Buddha. We now know that the matter is much more complex, but at that time, the Mahayana was often considered a later, degenerate form. Japanese Buddhist scholars, many of whom were also Buddhist priests, had to find a way to reclaim the Mahayana, their own tradition, and they did this by saying, OK, maybe the Mahayana teachings werent the direct words of the historical person, Shakyamuni. But if we take seriously the idea that all people have buddhanature and access to buddha wisdom, there is no reason why new forms of that message cant appear in order to inspire people and answer the needs of the present. Its an argument based on whats deep and compelling philosophically rather than on historical origins. There are ways of legitimizing that dont rest on the historical question of was this or was this not preached by the Buddha.

What I tell my students is that any practitioner-believer, someone involved in a traditionwhether consciously or notis involved in a process of hermeneutical triangulation, as we might call it. They are continually having to negotiate between the received tradition and the social, political, and historical circumstances in which they live. At any moment, some parts of the received tradition are going to speak more powerfully, more cogently, than others. Other elements that perhaps were important in the past may now become marginalized; still others may be interpreted in novel ways. Practitioners are continually involved in this process. The more conscious one is of engaging in it, the more effective new adaptations of tradition are likely to be.

DL: Before we began the book and perhaps even more strongly after we finished it, Jackie and I both felt that ones appreciation of the Lotus Sutra is enhanced by understanding the circumstances of its composition. Rather than thinking of it as a transcendent truth that an unknown buddha taught billions of years ago and that all the buddhas teach over and over again through time, we might think of it instead as the product of a creative yet beleaguered community of Buddhist monks and nuns in India who knew doctrine very well, monks and nuns who were visionaries able to compose a text that from every perspective is a religious and literary masterpiece. We see the Lotus as a text that is able to take the tradition and reinterpret it for its devotees own time in a way that welcomes all sentient beings onto the great vehicle to buddhahood, a text that has passages whose beauty will make you weep. Speaking for myself, that in many ways is more inspiring than to think of it simply as the words of a distant transcendent being.

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How to Read the Lotus Sutra: A Guide for the Uninitiated - Tricycle

I once was sitting in meditation while listening to my teacher, Shwe Oo Min Sayadaw, giving a dhamma talk. My mind was very calm, but suddenly I saw it become highly agitated. How did this happen? How did anger arise in the mind so quickly when it was peaceful only moments before?

In that moment, I noticed something very interesting: my mind became curious about what had happened. It wanted to know about itself. It wanted to know why it had lost its peacefulness and had become angry. So it had backed up a bit, and it began to ask questions. Its interest in knowing itself then changed the minds quality away from anger. It wanted to learn and know the truth, and, because of that, it began to gently watch the anger run its course.

As I continued to sit, I was able to watch aversion operating in the mind. On the one hand, the mind was straining to hear what my teacher was saying. On the other hand, a group of children were making noise just outside the meditation hall. I wanted them to stop, and I saw the mind complaining about the noise and complaining that I couldnt hear my teachers talk. Some strong feelings came up. The observing mind saw everything that was going on in the mind.

Can you see how expansive the minds field of view was at this point? After it saw itself going back and forth between these two sides for a while, it saw the dissatisfaction, the aversion. The mind realized that it had taken one kind of sound, which was the sound of my teachers voice, and labeled it good and favorable, whereas the sounds of other people talking were bad, unwanted sounds.

In this moment of realization, the mind didnt favor one object or another. It was able to hear sounds as just sounds, without buying into the story the mind was telling about good sounds and bad sounds. At that point the mind stopped both its craving to hear my teachers voice and its aversion to the voices of the people who were talking. Instead, the mind just remained in the middle and continued watching with interest. The mind saw the suffering and just died down.

This is how to meditatewith interest and inquiry every time one or more of the three unwholesome root qualities [craving, anger, and confusion] arise.

The Buddha called this vital quality of inquiry in the mind dhamma vicaya, which means a mind that naturally investigates reality. It is a mind that studies itself by asking questions to discover what is happening and why it is happening. The mind wants to know the nature of the three unwholesome root qualities.

Often practitioners pay attention to mindfulness and right effort, but they forget to practice dhamma vicaya. They forget to investigate and to ask questions about experience in order to learn. But mindfulness is about understanding. You have to use wise thinking to decide how to handle things; you cannot limit your practice to continuously being aware. Thats not good enough.

The unwholesome roots are very dominant in the mind. They are very experienced, very skillful, and they will always get their way if we are not aware. If you dont fully recognize them and bring in wisdom, they will take over the mind.

The equanimity that came when I was listening to my teacher and the visitors talk was the result of true understanding of the nature of liking and disliking in the mind. This arose through observation and investigation of the discomfort that I was feeling.

In this same way, as soon as you recognize any mental discomfort, turn your attention toward it to learn all that you can about it. If you can see subtle mental discomfort, watch it change: Does it increase or decrease? As the mind becomes more equanimous and sensitive, it will recognize subtle reactions more easily.

Always take the arising of an unskillful root quality as an opportunity to investigate its nature. Ask yourself questions! How do the unwholesome roots make you feel? What thoughts arise in the mind? How does what you think affect the way you feel? How does what you feel affect the way you think? What is the attitude behind the thoughts? How does any of this change the way you perceive pain?

The mind needs to be directed, and dhamma vicaya does that. Once you have set a direction for the mind, it will continue in that direction. This is a natural quality of the mind. If you leave the mind undirected, there will be chaos.

Take fear as another example. If there is fear and you decide to investigate this emotion, you are setting the mind in the right direction. If, however, you try to get rid of this fear, you are directing the mind wrongly.

Give yourself time. Go slowly, feel your way through whatever is happening. Try to gather as much information as you can. Thats the function of awarenessto gather information. Whenever you feel there is an issue that needs to be looked into, investigate it. What is going on in the mind will seem rather chaotic at first.

You need to look at the same issues repeatedly and from different angles. As your awareness becomes more continuous, your fear will settle down, and you will be able to understand which issues are important and which are not.

You will see the benefit of the practice more clearly and understand what you have learned at deeper levels. All this will further increase your confidence.

Never get discouraged when you lose awareness. Every time you recognize that you have lost awareness, be happy. The fact that you have recognized that you lost awareness means that you are now aware. Just keep looking at this process of losing and regaining awareness and learn from it.

Life is a reflection of the quality of the mind. If you really understand the mind, you understand the world. You gain this understanding by observing and learning. You dont need to believe anything you dont intellectually understand. Just keep investigating. Just keep learning from your personal experience.

Excerpted from Relax and Be Aware: Mindfulness Meditations for Clarity, Confidence, and Wisdom, by Sayadaw U Tejaniya, edited by Doug McGill 2019. Reprinted with permission of Shambhala Publications (shambhala.com).

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Investigating the Mind: What Buddhism Says About Our Likes and Dislikes - Tricycle

A practitioner reflects on her mothers uniquely challenging qualities following a trip to the emergency room.

We have been wandering since beginningless time in these samsaric worlds in which every being, without exception, has had relations of affection, enmity and indifference with every other being. Everyone has been everyone elses father and mother. Patrul Rinpoche (18081887)

In the ambulance, lurching bumper to bumper down York Avenue toward the emergency room, my 94-year-old mother changed her mind.

I wanted to die. Ive been telling everyone. From the gurney, she craned her neck to look up at me, jouncing beside her in the back of the van. But here I am strapped to this contraption Between blasts of the siren, she wheezed. All I can think is: I want to live!

The ER reeked of urine, vomit, and antiseptic. Gurneys lined the corridors, one jammed up against the next; officers from the NYPD lounged by the entrance, chatting up the techs. Call bells and IVs beeped. Doctors and nurses hunched over computers at their stations or rushed back and forth past patients calling from their cubicles. Deluged by addicts whod overdosed, by car crash and stabbing victims, none of the staff paid attention to my mother, despite her age and her pneumonia.

My mother arrived sporting a T-shirt proclaiming in bold aqua: Nancy at Ninety. Wed all worn them at her birthday celebration four years earlier. That was her unique hospital attire. Her style had always been her own creation. As a child, shed insisted on wearing white gloves when she went with her nanny to play in Central Park. Long after shed stopped riding horses, she wore her old jodhpurs when she chaired meetings at the League of Women Voters or painted in a studio in SoHo. Even in her eighties, she complemented a silk chemise with pants tailored to look exactly like those jodhpurs. In chemise and jodhpurs, she orchestrated her signature dinner partiessmall gatherings of eight or nine friendswhich she called my theater.

My mother wore her T-shirt instead of her green hospital gown throughout her two-day stay in the ER. No matter how I wrangled on her behalf, no beds were available, and neither were any nurses. She voiced her outrage: Why isnt anyone attending to me? She spoke with the entitlement of someone who had been born to wealth and had long since mostly lost it. Her demand for immediate service touched a raw nerve, especially since I was trying very hard to help out. I thought, but didnt say: No, Mum, youre not the center of the universe. Just an ordinary human, suffering like the rest of us.

After a half days wait, she was given a bed in a curtained space all her own instead of a gurney in the corridor. Although she was squeezed into a shared cubicle that was intended for a single patient, my mother was lucky to have even that. But for her, the cubiclewith its sheet separating her bed from that of a groaning stranger from Bangladeshfelt like an indignity and became the stage set for high drama.

The villain, my moms cubicle-mate on the other side of the curtain, was an intense little man sporting a dyed carrot-colored Mohawk. With a stream of Bengali invectives, he screamed for morphine as he passed kidney stones. Each time he thrashed in pain, he flung out an arm or leg, bashing into the curtain that served as a makeshift wall separating his half of the cubicle from my mothers. And with each seeming invasion of her half, she shouted, Get that crazy man away from my bed!

The racket in the ER increased as the night went on. All along the corridor, patients, packed end to end on gurneys, pleaded to be housed in cubicles, and those like my mother, assigned to cubicles, begged to be sent upstairs to rooms in the hospital. In the corridor right outside my mothers cubicle, three hefty NYPD officers closed in on a screaming woman as she jumped off her gurney. Heading toward the street, she pulled on the rubber tube feeding her oxygen and hollered, Lemme outta here!

Despite ongoing pleas from me, no nurse or aide took time to replace my mothers tee with a hospital gown, to wheel her to the bathroom, or at the very least to change her diaper. Im utterly wet, my mom told me. After six hours of asking politely for some help, I wrote a nasty note to the nurse, but then crumpled it up and stomped down the corridor to track down an adult diaper.

Mum, Im doing it, I tried to reassure her. Gingerly, I pulled back the covers and saw her distended belly, long slim legs. I forced myself to look at her frail pelvis swaddled in the drenched diaper. This is my mother. My tears welled up. Biting my lip, I pulled the covers over her again.

My elegant mum. I imagined her in her cozy living room, surrounded by her vibrant oils painted over many years. She is presiding at one of her dinner parties. With impeccable posture, she tilts her head back in a laugh and crosses one leg over the other to show off a shapely calf. I cant stand conversations about ordinary minutiae, shed often told me. At my dinners, I only invite people with something original to say. And I rarely invite people who know each other, shed drive home her point, so there are no boring stories about children and grandchildren. Like me, I supposed, or my daughter, Caitlin.

Returning to my mother here and now, I pulled back the covers once more. As I tried to roll her on her side, my fingers trembled and slipped. Bumbling, I strained to pull off the sopping diaper, balled it up, and hurled it onto the floor. I strove to turn her, to heave her up without hurting her. But her body resisted my pushes and pulls, and she began to whimper. Stumbling in the cramped space, I finally lifted her buttocks and slid the fresh diaper underneath. I stretched the sticky fasteners all crooked, but somehow they held the diaper on. I remembered my first clumsy efforts to fasten Caitlins diapers. To be struggling with my mothers 25 years later felt topsy-turvy.

As the evening went on, it became increasingly clear that a bed would not free up in the hospital until the next day, if then. Youre not at the top of the list, a nurse let us know. Theres another woman even older than you whos been waiting 30 hours here in the ER. She has pneumonia too, and shes a hundred and four.

I dimmed the lights and, scrunched between two open folding chairs, settled in for the night. Now I followed my breath in and outnot an approach I would suggest to my mother. A third-generation German Jew, my mother was adamantly secular. She worried that Buddhism, which I had practiced for 40 years, might be dangerous, maybe even a cult.

Her IV antibiotics on drip, oxygen clipped to her nostrils, my mother clutched her thin blanket, trying to cover her bare arms. I laid her winter coat over the blanket for added warmth, and she slept. I slept too, on and off, on my two chairs with my own coat as my blanket. It felt a bit like camping out, and I appreciated thatmaking do as best I could with whatever was available. Its how I like to live. My mom, absolutely not a camper.

After midnight, the lights suddenly blazed and a handsome young resident strode into our cubicle. Green scrubs, designer haircut, silver cuff on the helix of one ear. He looked like hed been sent from Central Casting. How are you doing? A disarming smile.

I wouldnt say I was comfortable, said my mother, with a raised brow.

The resident dragged a stool right up close to the head of her bed.

Thrilled at the entrance of this new player, my mother struggled to sit up. In her Nancy at Ninety T-shirt, she lengthened her neck and tilted her head back in a characteristic pose, graciously welcoming. Do make yourself comfortable, she gestured, with the IV tube swinging. She leaned confidentially toward the young resident. What is it you would like to discuss?

Then she turned to me. Could you roll up my bed so Im more upright?

Struggling past the blue IV tubes, the clear line for oxygen, I managed to crank up the bed a few inches.

My pillow, said my mother, and the doc reached to adjust that. He stood up, his clipboard in hand, and in a courteous tone rivaling hers began, There are a few questions I need to ask you. He cleared his throat. Its not that were expecting that you wont be coming out of this hospital soon, but just in case . . . we do need to make sure that you have an advance care directive

Of course, she broke in, Ive set everything up, a health care proxy, all of it. . . . Ive been fully ready for a long time; its really what Ive wanted. To die, that is. Just think of all the expense and trouble Im causing everyone.

Oh Mum, stop!

The young doctor continued, So were just going to ask you these questions because its part of the required admission process. In fact, we cant admit you to the hospital proper until . . .

Its well past midnight, I thought, paltry chance well be seeing that admission to the realms upstairs any time soon.

So in the unlikely case that you had a stroke or a heart attack with no hope of recovery . . . The resident looked down at his checklist. . . . leaving you unconscious and unable to breathe without the assistance of a machine

Oh, Ive figured out all that, my mum cut him off again. Then she directed me: Dear, do get out my advance care statement from my wallet, gesturing in the direction of her handbag. Several times over the past few years, my mother had shown me this miniature statement, beautifully calligraphed, then copied and reduced to create a tiny version of itself. A friend wrote it out, she told the doctor. That list had been penned by Genie, my college roommate, who had befriended my mother in our sophomore year, when Id let my mothers many letters to me stack up unread.

My mother continued, My young friend copied it in her exquisite hand, beautiful and perfect, and aside to me, just the way Genie does everything (rekindling my old fear that Genie was a much better daughter to my mother than I).

She sure knew how to needle me. Okay, Mum, I snapped. I reached for her handbag, rummaged inside, yanked out the wallet, and foraged for the damned statement.

Unflappable, the young resident went on with his protocol. Well, its just that we need to know if something happens, if you have a stroke or heart attack and your condition will not improve, would you allow CPR or an artificial respirator or

My mother waved her hand with the IV attached to her wrist. Oh, I made that absolutely clear. If I would never again be able to enjoy friends, appreciate art, music, or conversation, how could I possibly want to be resuscitated?

My mum. I had to hand it to her. What spunk she had, what commanding presence.

Darling, please read the statement to the doctor.

I adjusted myself so I could get more light from the corridor and read aloud the opening: If I become terminally ill; if I am in a coma or have little understanding

Barbara dear, my mother interjected, tell the doctor about the marvelous film Frontline featured about Genie and Jeff. She explained to the doctor, The films about Genies husband, Jeff, who had some incurable blood cancer. Its about his death. . . . As was her way, my mum veered into a new story. And of course, when Jeff was at Yale Law School, during the weekends when we were in the country, they would stay together at our apartment in New York. Thats where Jeff asked Genie to marry him. Shed begun with tragedy and moved on to romance.

Mum! This time, I was the one to interrupt. Not now! Her dramas within dramas drove me mad. I heard my voice trembling. I handed the miniature directive to the doctor.

As he skimmed it, he kept nodding his head. Yes, well, you do cover the essentials. An alarm beeped shrilly from somewhere close. Terrific that you carry it with you, and

Abruptly my mum silenced him again. Tell me, she interrupted, Do you have a girlfriend?

Taken aback at this breach in his doctorly script, the young resident stuttered, Well . . . well, yes. I do. He ran a hand through his blond hair. A nurse on this floor, in fact. Then he cut himself off, as if he had perhaps said too much.

Wonderful! she pronounced. When all this nonsense is over She waved her arm, including in one sweep the corridor of sick and injured, the officers from the NYPD, her nemesis on the other side of the curtain. You must bring her over to my apartment for a festive party and join me for dinner!

Ive heard it said in many dharma talks that every being, in one birth or another, has been ones mother. Yet I am reflecting about my particular, unique, and challenging mother. On my recent visit, five years after that night in the ER, she is frail, mostly dozing as she enters her one-hundredth year. I happen on a copy of the miniature advance care statement. I sweep back to the dashing doctor, to years of tangles, conflicts, sweetness, fun. Unaccountably, my mind opensto the fragility of life, the nearness of death. I find myself warmed by memories of my mothers bold spirit, and the blessing of graciousness, her particular brand.

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Cycles of Motherhood by Barbara Gates - Tricycle

The Gandharan Buddhist manuscripts are leading scholars to rethink the origins of Mahayana Buddhism. Richard Salomon looks at what we can learn from the recently-unearthed texts.

More than twenty years have passed since twenty-eight fragile birch bark scrolls, now known to be the oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts in the world, came to light. Dating back to as early as the first century BCE, the scrolls originating in the ancient kingdom of Gandhara, which once straddled the border between present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan predate the earliest Pali manuscripts by several centuries. Since that initial discovery, hundreds of similar manuscripts and fragments have been recovered, all from the same region.

Buddhist academics in several countries in North America, Europe, and Asia have engaged in arduous study of the Gandharan manuscripts, the contents of which have been the subject of eight books and innumerable articles. But what does the discovery of these relics mean for Buddhist practitioners? Are they merely a matter of academic interest, or do they have the potential to shift our understanding of the original message of the Buddha in some fundamental way? Will they compel us to abandon or modify long-cherished Buddhist ideas and practice or present us with previously unimagined revelations about the Buddhas message? The short answer to such questions is no but also yes.

Once, during a question-and-answer session following a lecture I had given on the scrolls at the British Library in London, a member of the audience asked whether I had found in them a fifth noble truth. That is, was there anything that radically contradicted or fundamentally changed Buddhism as we know it? I answered in the negative the doctrines presented in the manuscripts I had studied to that point were more or less in line with those of traditional Buddhism, specifically as understood within the Theravada sect.

Imagine my surprise, then, when some years later I found in one of the British Library manuscripts the following mind-blowing statement: A fifth noble truth exists. Even more shocking were the assertions in the surrounding passage: The self exists; a sixth aggregate exists; a thirteenth sense-sphere exists; a nineteenth element exists; a fifth noble truth exists. Was this some sort of bizarro version of Buddhism that denied the fundamental precepts of the dharma as we know it? When taken in the context of the surrounding text, though, it becomes clear this is not the case. The scroll containing these shocking claims was a polemic Abhidhamma treatise framed as a formal debate between the unnamed writer and an opponent representing the Sarvastivadin school. The long-defunct sect held that, with reference to the workings of karma, everything exists at all times, a premise the writer attempted to discredit, showing how this fundamental principle implied the existence of things any Buddhist should agree do not really exist. The fifth noble truth, then, was nothing but a rhetorical trick, not the message of some hitherto unknown radical dissident.

The doctrines espoused by the Gandharan manuscripts are, on the whole, consistent with non-Mahayana Buddhism, which survives today in the Theravada school of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, but which in ancient times was represented by eighteen separate schools. We find among the Gandharan translations versions of material familiar from the fundamental sutra compilations known in Sanskrit as the agama sutras and in Pali as the nikaya collections common to all Buddhist schools. Notable examples include the Sutra on The Fruits of Striving Pali Samannaphala Sutta and the Sutra of Chanting Together Sangiti Sutta, found in the Pali Digha Nikaya and the Sutra of the Floating Log Darukkhandha Sutta from the Samyutta Nikaya. Other well-known texts include the Rhinoceros Horn Sutra and the Songs of Lake Anavatapta, extant in several Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan versions. The following is a translation from the Gandhari version of the Not Yours Sutra, which is also paralleled in the Samyutta Nikaya:

The Buddha said: Monks, abandon what is not yours. Abandoning it will lead to benefit and happiness. Now, what is it that is not yours? Form is not yours; abandon it. Abandoning it will lead to benefit and happiness. Sensation, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness are not yours; abandon them. Abandoning them will lead to benefit and happiness.

Here is an example: suppose someone were to cut down the grass, wood, branches, leaves, and foliage here in the Jeta forest, or were to take it away or burn it, or do whatever he wished with it. What do you think? Would you think, That person is cutting us, or taking us away, or burning us, or doing whatever he wished with us?

The monks answered, Of course not, Venerable Sir.

And why is that?

Because this forest, Venerable Sir, is not ourselves; nor does it belong to us.

In just the same way, abandon what is not yours. Abandoning it will lead to benefit and happiness. In just the same way, form is not yours; abandon it. Abandoning it will lead to benefit and happiness. Sensation, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness are not yours; abandon them. Abandoning them will lead to benefit and happiness.

Thus spoke the Lord.

Besides these new versions of texts familiar from Buddhist canons in other languages, though, there are others a great many of them either never seen before, as in the case of the Abhidhamma debate mentioned above, or that appear in surprisingly different forms. Among the most interesting of these is a series of edifying legends presented in the form of laconic summaries casually jotted into the empty spaces of previously used scrolls. One of the most noteworthy is a brief and divergent version of the universally familiar story of Prince Vessantara here called by his nickname, Sudashna the paragon of generosity:

The story of the Bodhisattvas previous life as Sudashna, to be told as an example: Since he was an all-giving king, he gave his mighty elephant to a brahman. The king also surrendered his chariot and gave away his children. Then Sakra, king of the gods, came from the sky and spoke this verse to him: Truly this man is black, and black is the food that he eats. The whole story is to be told at length.

This story is emblematic of the way the Gandharan texts are simultaneously like and unlike their parallel versions in the more familiar Buddhist canon. Strikingly, the full telling of the Vessantara story in the Pali jataka runs 115 pages, whereas the Gandhari version is boiled down to a four-line summary. This is an extreme example of the principle of expansion-and-contraction within Buddhist literature, according to which a narrator may, depending on the audience or other circumstances, string out his message to great length, abridge it, or even, as here, present it in the barest outline form. Here we see from the concluding notation, The whole story is to be told at length, that the scribe was jotting down the bare skeleton of his repertoire of tales by way of a memory prompt, presumably as preparation for a lesson or sermon.

But there is another surprising twist in this story. The verse Sakra speaks to Sudashna/Vessantara seems to be the wrong one this verse appears in the Pali jataka stories not in the Jataka of Vessantara, but in that of Kanha. This is startling, and even somewhat unsettling, given how well known the Vessantara story is throughout the Buddhist world, all the more so because the verses are considered the essential core of the jataka stories, with the prose narrative deemed to be mere commentary. It would be tempting but probably incorrect to dismiss this anomaly as a memory error on the part of the scribe. It is unlikely the scribe would have misremembered an important passage from such a fundamental text. Rather, it seems we are dealing with an unexpected variant of the Vessantara story that circulated in Gandhara but did not survive into the canonical Buddhist literatures of later times. This situation is emblematic of the overall character of the rediscovered Buddhist literature of Gandhara: the broad textual framework and the main doctrinal principles are familiar, but the details are often different, sometimes subtly and sometimes, as here, dramatically so.

Other casual sketches scrawled into the spaces of earlier manuscripts involve not legends from the time of Buddha or from his previous lives but stories about notable figures who lived at the time of the scrolls creation. Among these are rulers of the kingdoms of the early centuries of the Common Era, previously known to us from their coins and inscriptions. These legends illuminate the historical context of the manuscripts themselves as well as the adoption of Buddhism by these foreign conquerors. A collection of fragments very recently discovered turned out to be a ledger of gifts to a monastery a record of donations by the Kushana king Vima Kadphises, who ruled in the early second century CE. This is a spectacular discovery, revealing rare details of the relationship between secular powers and Buddhist institutions.

There have been many other surprises, as well. Sprinkled among the many dozens of texts are ten examples of Mahayana sutras including ones well known in Sanskrit, Tibetan, or Chinese, such as the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra and the Bodhisattva Basket Sutra as well as others previously unknown in any language. These texts are leading scholars to rethink the long-debated origins of Mahayana Buddhism, revealing Gandhara to have been a though not necessarily the center of early Mahayana. The texts have also called into question the widespread assumption that the Mahayana sutras were originally composed or set down in Sanskrit, rather than a regional dialect such as Gandhari. Even more significant are the circumstances of the discovery of these ten Mahayana sutras. In every case, they constituted part of larger groups of manuscripts, the majority of which were non-Mahayana texts. Thus, were left with the impression that Mahayana Buddhism in the early centuries of the Common Era was not institutionally, and perhaps not even doctrinally, distinct from what later came to be called the Hinayana or Lesser Vehicle. All indications are that the more traditional or conservative practices coexisted with Mahayana ideas, even within the same monastic communities.

The discovery of previously unknown texts also offers a hint of how much of the Buddhist literature that once existed has not come down to us. The fact that extensive remnants have come to light in Gandhara is no coincidence but rather a result of particular climatic and cultural factors. Gandhara lies beyond the central monsoon zone, whose extremes of heat and humidity prevent the long-term survival of organic materials such as birch bark or palm leaf. Additionally, the Buddhists of ancient Gandhara had a practice of ritually interring their manuscripts in clay pots or other containers in the precincts of their monasteries, further promoting their preservation. It was likely due to these incidental factors that the oldest known Buddhist manuscripts were found in Gandhara, and not because such manuscripts were unique to the region. Similar texts must have existed elsewhere perhaps everywhere in the Buddhist cultures of the Indian heartland, but there is virtually no chance such manuscripts would have survived the deleterious effects of the monsoon climate.

The discovery of some random fragments of the literature of Gandharan Buddhism from the beginning of the Common Era is significant in part because it enables us to triangulate with the Pali and partial Sanskrit canons and begin to see all three as merely the surviving fragments of a vast tapestry of local Buddhisms and Buddhist literatures. Even from the tattered remnants of this grand tapestry, we can discern common threads in the form of shared basic texts, particularly among the sutras recognised, at least in theory, as authoritative by all schools, which still form a common core of beliefs and principles.

But we also find differences sometimes minor and technical, sometimes significant and surprising among the texts of other genres, many of which seem to be locally composed materials: commentaries, scholastic treatises and debates, local stories, hymns of praise to the Buddha, and more, which together comprise as much as half of the Gandharan manuscript material. In short, we find a shared conceptual foundation on which the various regional and sectarian traditions have built their own superstructures. Some of the differences are merely formal, for example in their differing formulation and arrangement of the materials, while others are more substantial, as in the Gandharan reconception of the Vessantara story.

One of the clear messages these texts seem to have for contemporary practitioners is that its not helpful to think of Buddhism in terms of a contrast between a single original source and the implicitly inferior derivatives of that primal source. Rather, the complexity and variability of Buddhist teachings appear to have been built in from the very beginning. After all, one of the Buddhas special qualities was said to be his intuitive ability to adapt his teachings to the capabilities and needs of the person or persons to whom he was speaking. On a linguistic level, the Buddha in the vinaya urged his followers to spread his message in ones own dialect. India, from antiquity to this day, has always been a land of vast linguistic diversity. We should not assume, then, that the Buddha himself, or his contemporary followers, restricted themselves to a single language or dialect. The linguistic and textual diversity that characterises Buddhism existed from the very beginning. Thus, any search for the exact, true, original words of the Buddha is not only doomed to disappoint but misconceived from the start. It would make more sense to think in terms of multiple Buddhism existing virtually from the very beginning, perhaps even during the lifetime of the Buddha.

This is not, of course, how the various sectarian, regional, and linguistic traditions present themselves. Inevitably, they portray themselves as the sole or at least the most authentic keepers of the dharma. After all, in Buddhism, as in other realms, history is written by the victors, or at least by the survivors. The Buddhisms that have existed over the centuries loom large simply because they survived and flourished. They too embody the history of Buddhism, but from a wider perspective, they are each only one part out of many.

The Pali canon of the Theravada school looms especially large. In the popular conception, it is considered the true and original Buddhist canon, due to a confluence of favorable circumstances. The Theravada Pali canon is the only complete surviving Buddhist canon in an Indian language. It is the canon of one of the most vital surviving schools of Buddhism over a wide geographical area, and it was the canon and form of Buddhism that first became known to European scholars. But in the time since awareness of Buddhism spread around the world in the nineteenth century, the discovery of other schools and canons has drastically shifted this point of view. For example, it has been clear since the early twentieth century that there existed in northern India and Central Asia complete Buddhist canons in Sanskrit, representing the texts of the Sarvastivada and of the eighteen traditional schools. The discovery in the last two decades of extensive remnants of one or more canons in the Gandhari language has broadened the picture even further, requiring us to speak of multiple Buddhisms and multiple canons throughout the Indian Buddhist world.

Extrapolating from what we now have a slightly larger fraction of the whole we can begin to conceive of the vast variety and richness of the many Buddhisms, the immense intellectual and spiritual production that must have coexisted in early India. This along with the vast treasures of technical and historical data they provide is the greatest gift the Gandharan manuscripts grant us.

Returning to the question of what, if anything, these discoveries mean for modern Buddhist practitioners, there are no answers that will appease everyone. Each individual practitioner must determine how to proceed for him or herself. On one hand, one can safely ignore the new material without missing anything essential to the theory or practice of Buddhism. On the other hand, Buddhists may wish to dip a toe or even plunge headfirst into these previously uncharted waters. Modern Buddhists may be inclined to see the diversity that characterised Buddhism throughout its history as an emblem of strength rather than cause for doubt or confusion, a source of richness rather than conflict. The insights that the Gandharan manuscripts provide into the wealth and variety of thought and belief during a formative stage of Buddhist history, and the perspective they provide on the overall question of what Buddhism is, offer personal enrichment for those who seek it out.

This article first appeared on Lions Roar.

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The Gandharan manuscripts change what we know about the course of Buddhist history - Scroll.in

Tech entrepreneur Julio Rivera knows what its like to search for a place of belonging.

Growing up as an Afro-Latino child of immigrants in the predominantly white Connecticut suburbs, he often felt out of place. Rivera felt the same way when he began visiting Buddhist centers as an adult.

Introduced to meditation through the popular app Headspace, Rivera first practiced in his twenties at the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York City before finding his spiritual home at New York Insight Meditation Centers People of Color Sangha.

For the first time, I was really able to let my guard down, Rivera said, noting that in other white-dominated spaces he often felt the need to be constantly proving himself to others. But when a scheduling conflict meant that he could no longer attend meetings, he realized there werent many alternatives for him, especially when it came to digital resources. And thats why he created Liberate, a meditation app that features dharma talks and guided meditations by teachers of color for people of color.

Rivera was stunned when a basic beta version of the app that he had first shared with 20 friends was downloaded 150 times in the first week. Now available for free on iOS and Android, the app has been downloaded thousands of times since its February 2019 launch.

Since all of Liberates teachers are people of color, users can scroll through dharma talks and guided meditations that are designed with their needs in mind, said Rivera. It says, The experiences I am going through as a person of colorits not just me going through them. The app is a combination of exclusive content and talks selected from other platforms such as Dharma Seed, an online resource for Vipassana teachings.

Liberate stands out for its guided meditations on topics that include microaggressions, ancestors, and toxic masculinity. Black women, Rivera said, kept telling him that processing microaggressions targeting their appearance and mannerisms represented a major part of their day-to-day lives. The constant barrage of comments has them questioning, Should I even be in this space? Am I worthy of being in this space? The meditations, Rivera hopes, help practitioners realize that they do indeed belong.

Rivera is proud to be part of an ongoing movement within Western Buddhism that works to make its communities more diverse and welcoming, and he is also proud of his role in instantly connecting users to teachings that can heal racial trauma.

It was a calling, he said, to be of service not only to my own practice but also to the practice of others.

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Liberate: Why Julio Rivera Created a Meditation App for People of Color - Tricycle

Displaced Rohingya refugees from Rakhine state in Myanmar walk near Ukhia, at the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, as they flee violence in September 2017. (K.M. Adas/Getty Images)

Phil Gurski, When Religion Kills: How Extremists Justify Violence Through Faith (Boulder, CO, Lynne Reiner Publishers, 2020), pp. 181.

Some books with somewhat dramatic titles do not live up to the hype. This one does. It is a systematic examination of the way extremists have embraced their religions to perpetrate violence on an often grand scale.

The author, Phil Gurski, is a former senior analyst with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. He now runs a risk consulting firm. He brings to his task a vast amount of practical experience in the struggle against terrorist threats in Canada and abroad. But he makes clear that he makes no claim to being a theologian or a scholar. Rather, he goes about his business assessing factual material and analyzing it in the best traditions of intelligence assessments. The result is a fascinating treatment of a difficult, and often delicate, subject.

In six meaty chapters, Gurski examines six major world religions in alphabetical order: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism.

At first sight, a look at Buddhism in this context may seem counterintuitive. Most westerners view Buddhism as a religion dedicated to peace, tolerance, compassion and non-violence. The best known of all Buddhists is the Dalai Lama, a man revered for his advocacy of reason and compassion in human affairs. And yet Buddhists have been responsible for horrendous acts of violence. In the dying days of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009, Buddhist security forces massacred thousands of Hindu Tamil civilians. In the years since then, there have been numerous attacks on Muslims and Christians, some fomented by politicians and some by Buddhist monks. Sri Lanka remains a cauldron of Buddhist extremism. So, too, is Myanmar (the former Burma). As Gurski puts it: Beginning in 2016 a humanitarian catastrophe of biblical proportions occurred when hundreds of thousands (perhaps more than a million) Rohingya Muslims were forced to flee the northwestern state of Rakhine following the Burmese armys systematic campaign of rape and murder in an attempt at ethnic cleansing. Most of them now live in miserable refugee camps in Bangladesh. Much of this anti-Muslim activity can be attributed to the writings and sermons of a Buddhist monk by the name of Ashin U Wirathu, known as the Buddhist bin Laden. He routinely puts out messages on Facebook inciting hatred against Muslims. Buddhists in Thailand also display similar tendencies. Gurski concludes this chapter with the following thought: Many in these countries oppose the acts committed by the extremist minority in the name of its faith, but the dominance of so many Buddhist monks and religious leaders in terrorism leaves little alternative but to conclude that they truly believe their faith sanctions this kind of violence.

Christianity is also a religion whose founder preached love, peace and tolerance. But over the centuries, Christians have not shied away from the use of violence, from the crusades to the Inquisition to the European wars of religion. In more recent times a host of violent far-right individuals and movements have identified themselves with Christianity. Their targets have been varied and numerous, including Jews, Muslims, mixed-race couples, abortion providers, left-wing politicians and advocates of multiculturalism. More often than not, they justify their acts of terrorism as being in defence of traditional Christian values and of Christian civilization, which they portray as being under attack by non-Christians. A particularly notable example of this was the young Norwegian Anders Brevik, whose attacks resulted in the death of 76 people and the wounding of 300 more. In his manifesto, Brevik spoke out in favour of a sustainable and traditional version of Christendom, which alone could fend off an invasion by Muslims and Arabs. Much the same language was used by Brenton Tarrant, an Australian who killed 50 people and wounded 50 more in an attack on two mosques in New Zealand. But beyond individuals of this kind, there are a host of organizations in the United States and elsewhere who use Christianity to propagate hatred and violence against non-Christians.

Hindu nationalism is certainly not a new phenomenon, but one which has come to prominence in the past 25 years or so. The political manifestation of the movement is the Bhartiya Janata Party, which won national elections in 2014 and 2019 under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The main objective of the BJP is to turn India into a Hindu nation, as opposed to the secular nation envisaged by the countrys founders and embodied in the constitution. Since coming to office, the BJP has adopted policies and laws that discriminate against Muslims, who represent a minority of some 200 million Indians. And the government has turned a blind eye to thousands of acts of violence committed by Hindu nationalists against Muslims and Christians. Hindu extremism is the only one to enjoy the tacit support of a national government, albeit that Buddhist extremists are often in cahoots with the governments of Sri Lanka and Myanmar,

The phenomenon of Islamist extremism has been amply covered by the media in recent years and does not need elaboration here. From the al-Qaida attacks on Washington and New York in 2001 to the depredations of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2014 to 2018, the story is one of repeated horrors. And the killing of leaders such as Osama Bin Laden and Abu Bakr al Baghdadi seems to have done nothing to quell the fervour of their followers. Islamist terrorism is something that will persist for a long time, but as Gurski points out, the vast majority of Islamist attacks took place in five countries in 2017: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, the Philippines and Iraq. Westerners need to continue to rely on the security and intelligence services of their governments to preserve them from Islamist threats, but they are not the main targets of those threats. The unfortunate byproduct of Islamist extremism is that too many westerners come to suffer from Islamophobia, blaming 1.5 billion Muslims for the sins of a few thousand.

Gurski begins his chapter on Jewish extremism with a quote from Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion. It runs as follows: The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal malevolent bully. Dawkins language may be a bit colourful, but there is little doubt that if the God of the Old Testament were still around today, he would find himself in front of a court in The Hague on charges of ethnic cleansing and genocide. In short, violence is no stranger to the Jewish tradition. Now it is true that Jews have been the victim far more than the perpetrators of violence, from the Crusades to the Inquisition, from the Pogroms of the 19th century to the Holocaust of Nazi Germany. That does not mean, however, that Jewish extremists have not been responsible for horrendous acts of terrorism. In the run-up to the creation of Israel, organizations such as the Irgun and the Lehi mounted terrorist attacks on British and Palestinian targets. In more recent times, Jewish extremists have manifested themselves in the Occupied West Bank, where Jewish settlers routinely attack Palestinian civilians, mosques, churches and Dovish Israeli groups, in the name of their interpretation of Judaism.

Sikh extremists are largely dedicated to one objective: the creation of an independent Sikh homeland called Khalistan in the Indian state of Punjab. In pursuit of this goal, a variety of Sikh movements perpetrated acts of violence in India. It is estimated that in the 1980s they were responsible for the deaths of 20,000 people, including 2,000 members of the Indian security forces. In 1985, members of an organization known as the Babbar Khalsa International were responsible for the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history, the bombing of an Air India flight that led to the deaths of 329 people. While Sikh extremist violence has declined somewhat in recent years, it has known something of an upsurge since the election of the BJP Hindu nationalist government in 2014. The still relatively new Indian government is seen as being involved in active discrimination against Sikhs, as well as Muslims and Christians.

Some of the movements discussed in this book may be seen as primarily nationalist, but they all wrap themselves in the cloak of religion. Gurski does a fine job of analyzing their motivations and their operations. He buttresses his arguments with hundreds of endnotes and a 23-page bibliography. This is a book well worth reading by anyone interested in the phenomenon of extremist violence.

Louis A. Delvoie is a retired Canadian diplomat who served abroad as an ambassador and high commissioner.

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When Religion Kills lives up to the hype - The Kingston Whig-Standard

Peterson is neither sacrosanct nor untouchable. He would agree with that statement himself.

Whenever there is a reaching down into innermost experience, into the nucleus of personality, most people are overcome by fear and many run awayThe risk of inner experience, the adventure of the spirit, is in any case alien to most human beings. The possibility that such experience might have psychic reality is anathema to them. Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung and Aniela Jaff

On January 7th, an assistant professorand anti-fascistfrom the University of Calgary by the name of Ted McCoy tweeted his thoughts on the well-known Canadian psychologist, Jordan B. Peterson, in the form of a (McCoys words) joke. McCoy stated in his since-deleted tweet that: I heard it rumoured students will fail my class if they cite Jordan Peterson and Id like to clarify that this is absolutely correct. After much feedback, McCoy revisedhis view on Peterson by tweeting that he acknowledges his students right to hold a dissimilar political viewpoint than his own. Whether this is truly McCorys actual belief, however, remains unclear.

My issue is less with McCoy and people like him, who frequently criticize Peterson with little depth to their criticisms. (This is not to say, of course, that these people and their freedom-injuring attitude belong in academia.) However, any personal animosity that I have had towards Petersons critics is being increasingly redirected: towards Petersons followers and those of public intellectuals similar to Peterson. A portion of Petersons fanscertainly not all of themmake use of a method of argumentation by attacking disagreements with empty Petersonisms, which I define as thoughts, arguments, or ideas that Jordan Peterson has once articulated. Empty is the way that many deliver these sayings; they often amount to little more than grateful gestures towards Peterson, without fundamentally agreeing with the underlying ideas.

Nevertheless, Petersons views should be scrutinized and defended in a thought-out and considered manner. Unfortunately, the polarizing effects of Petersons work can be especially problematic for those seeking to engage with his ideas in a thorough way, given all of the knee-jerk assumptions about his body of work. However, engaging with his ideas superficially only serves to further polarize Peterson, as well as his followers (including those who are trying to engage with his ideas thoughtfully) by reinforcing stereotypes about Peterson and his followers. This further polarization alsodiminishes the significance of being an authentic Peterson follower.

In one of his lectures, Peterson mentions this idea of paying attention to what youre sayingresembling Rule 10 in his book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos: Be precise in your speech by describing a dichotomization of his mind between a judging part and a talking part. The former part was, as Peterson put it, watching the part that was talking and going: That isnt your idea; you dont really believe that; you dont know what you are talking about; and, that is not true. The same could be said when engaging with Petersons own ideas: Reconsidering your current alignment with Petersons views can be more beneficial than mindlessly reciting his work.

Now, Petersons latest book (12 Rules), as well as his Youtube lectures and debates, have proved helpful to many people. Without being redundant, the beneficial element of Petersons work has already been described in great detail at Merion West. Whether one supports Peterson or not, this part of his work is eminently significant and should not be seen as trivial or be discredited by those seeking to portray him as destructiveor immoral. To separate the wheat from the chaff an idiom often used by Peterson himselfis a crucial process when analyzing controversial thinkers like Peterson.

When we ignore this process, we risk becoming incapable of considering other points of viewlike how the 15-year-old teenager in the film The Rise of Jordan Peterson described it: After following him [Peterson] so much, he becomes like a legendary figure in your mind. One of the teenagers presumable friends (also 15 years of age) acknowledges that its understandable to hold such a view of Peterson in an environment where his ideas are less tolerated. The polarizing essence of Peterson, however, can result in one becoming trapped in a Peterson-vacuum.

To prevent that from happening, one ought to expose himself to refined criticisms of Petersons work. Many have triedor are tryingto produce such articles, videos, or books that contain constructive criticisms of Petersons ideas. Yet, a great many have failed to do so, resulting in numerous ad hominem attacks of Peterson himself, rather than engagements with his works. In November, 2019, four authors at Merion WestBen Burgis, Conrad Hamilton, Marion Trejo, and Matt McManusattemptedto comprehensively critique Petersons work, without dipping into thead hominem. This attempt is still ongoing; their upcoming book, Myth and Mayhem: A Leftist Critique of Jordan Peterson has yet to be published. Unfortunately, the annunciation of their book has mostly been met with backlash. However, both Petersons allies and adversaries may benefit from sophisticated criticisms of his work. Those attempting to criticize Peterson, however, should avoid exerting a fault-finding approach as a reply to the previous lack of effective critique on Peterson. If there is no smoking gun, its probably a signal that Petersons critics have to look somewhere else. Engaging in such a manner with any intellectual one disagrees with results in the tendency to act as an empty skeptic. (The empty skeptic is a concept I described in an earlier articleof mine at Merion West. This form of skepticism invokes thoughtlessly critiquing anothers thinking by using different fallacies in order to avoid actual confrontation with the opponents actual, fundamental ideas (e.g. Straw man fallacy or Red herring).)

Nevertheless, McManus and his colleagues have undertaken an ambitious task. They introduced the article by mentioning the many different approaches fellow left-leaning critics have taken when addressing Petersons mistakesand how these commentators have failed in discussing the complete Peterson-encyclopedia. I wont get into the different ways McManus and his colleagues have not (yet) met their promises; this can be read at length in the comment section. As Ive stated at the beginning, I am less interested in the critics themselves; however, for the sake of argument, it might be interesting to examine a bit their incentives to produce this bookbesides just their political disagreements with Peterson. One of the reasons stated by the authors was their, belief that it is necessary to argue against political opponents in as sustained a manner as possible. Not many will refute this justification. Both left-right or any other dichotomy prefers strong players on both sides of the game, irrespective of the type of game.

Furthermore, they proceed by reminding readers about Petersons relevance in todays intellectual climate: Peterson is the most significant anti-leftist critic in the Western world today, and answering his charges in a reasonable and popular manner is necessary if progressivism is to be convincing both practically and intellectually. These motives so far are not illogical by any means. In my opinion, we should give it time to see how the authors continue to analyze Petersons ideas. Jordan Peterson is not going away anytime soon.

Per contra, adopting the notion that Jordan Petersons frequent misinterpretations are unalterable and that we should just move onas someone suggested in the comment section of McManus article on a sample chapter of the bookis simply admitting that Peterson is unable to be criticized. Peterson is neither sacrosanct nor untouchable. He would agree with that statement himself. In his earlier book, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief, Peterson describes different satanic traits, including arrogance:

It is not that easy to understand why the act of presuming omniscience is reasonably construed as precisely the opposite to the act of creative exploration (as the adversary is opposite to the hero). What knowing everything means, howeverat least in practiceis that the unknown no longer exists, and that further exploration hast therefore been rendered superfluous (even treacherous). This means that absolute identification with the known necessarily comes to replace all opportunity for identification with the process that comes to know [Petersons italics]. The presumption of absolute knowledge, which is the cardinal sin of the rational spirit, is, therefore, prima facie equivalent to rejection of the heroto the rejection of Christ, of the Word of God, of the (divine) process that mediates between order and chaos.

What unifies the so-far ineffective different criticisms of Peterson is that they usually take the form of the Poisoning the Well Fallacy, which describes using irrelevant, negative information related to a certain figureor what a certain figure has saidto discredit him as an individual, or to discredit his ideas. Weve seen this happening with Peterson regarding his stance on transgender pronouns, woman wearing lipstick in the workplace, and, of course,enforced monogamy. These mischaracterizations are not only ineffective, but they also act counterproductively if one is actually interested in assessing the essence of Petersons ideas.

Much of what Peterson espouses is seemingly politically neutral. Let us, for instance, take his eminent advice: clean your room (or in the book: Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world). Whether one is on the Left or the Right should not impact ones decision to take that advice. Yet, in the May, 2019 debatebetween Jordan Peterson and Slavoj iek entitled: Happiness: Marxism vs. Capitalism, iek made the remark that it could be the case Petersons aforementioned piece of advice could not be practiced because of the way society is deranged. That is, much of the reason why they [someones house/room] are in disorder, is that there is some crisis in our society. Notably, ieks point does not imply that societys status is a justification for your chaotic room; rather, the understanding is that your personal choices are not the only factors that determine if such a state exists. ieks critique does not detract from the effectiveness of Petersons adviceor the reality that it has benefited many people who have taken his advice to heart. And, then there is the further important point that many of Petersons followers began to learn about psychology through Peterson and then embarked on a further exploration of the discipline.

Some of the means by which Peterson teaches others to view the world are theoretical constructs (e.g. paradigmatic assumptions or statistical information). These are mostly taken from his experience as a successful clinical psychologist. Petersonin both his latest book and his online Youtube lecturespresents information about the field of psychology in a truly accessible manner. Those who immerse themselves in Petersons work do indeed consume part of the theoretical (and religious) knowledge linked to Petersons expertise. On top of that, our intuitive psychology makes us predisposed towards information associated with the understanding of ourselves and others (the latter being known as folk psychology or theory of mind). These innate modulesas the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker names them in his 1997 book How the Mind Worksare the underlying mechanisms that support the acquiring of knowledge. To clarify this function, Pinker makes a (relatively) dated comparison:

Learning involves more than recording experience; learning requires couching the records of experience so that they generalize in useful ways. A VCR is excellent at recording, but no one would look to this modern version of the black slate as a paradigm of intelligence.

This does not suggest that any psychologist who utters statistical knowledge related to the relation between IQ and job complexity, for example, is on the road to stardom. Most of Petersons listeners/followers presumably didnt initially come to follow a 2-hour long psychology 101 lecture. Titles like: How To Stop Procrastinating or What Women Dont Understand About Men are subjects that get you intrigued and before you know ityoure hooked on watching psychology lectures all day long. (I must mention that these videos and titles are often from third party channels, actively using clickbait titles without Petersons involvement.)

However, even with all of these upsides to Petersons work, there is still the need to view itin its totalitywith somesoberness. In The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell suggests that the only way to decipher Socialismand the reasons why people despised it was to step away from it. Similarly, we ought to play advocatus diaboli when dealing with similar attractive theorieslike Petersonismto save ourselves from groupthink or, worse, group polarization. Anyone familiar with the workings of academia knows that any group resisting criticism is sensitive to dogma. Evaluating your beliefs about a subject, of course, is hardly tantamount to rejecting that subject. If one ends up disagreeing with Peterson on a particular subjects, that does not mean he needs to adopt a complete distaste for everything the man has to say.

All these previously mentioned processescontemplating the strength of your belief in certain ideas or intellectuals, separating the usefulness from the less useful, and playing devils advocatecan be practically referred to as truisms when dealing with public intellectuals of a magnitude like Jordan Peterson. Making someone work on his personality is a complicated task in itself. Labeling it anything other than meaningfulor worthy of attentionhas shownto be ineffective. Yet, those who have benefitted from Petersons advice should be thankful for it in a manner that does not jeopardize their own moral and political attitudes.

Alessandro van den Berg is an economics teacher in the Netherlands.

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Dear Jordan Peterson Fans, Try to Actually Be More Like Him - Merion West

Ive read Petersons Twelves Rules for Life, and it has some points that I agree with. But I dont think he goes far enough.

A frequent criticism directed towards modern society is that it suffers from a lack of shared purpose, community, or, more broadly, order. Commentators such as Jordan Peterson, for instance, have gained considerable attention in recent years for discussing topics along these lines. In this interview, John Horvat II, the Catholic scholar and vice president of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, joins Merion West and Kambiz Tavana to discuss his bookReturn to Order, as well as to provide suggestions on how best to find structure and purpose in a fast-paced modern economy and culture.

Thank you for your time today, Mr. Horvat. Let me start with this questions first: How did you come to write the book, which is, as you know, a very peculiar book. Its not just a book that you read and put aside; its like a toolboxor like a resource you have to come back to over and over. So how did you come to write this book?

Well, it has a long history. It goes back to 1986, and it was a project that was proposed by an intellectual I knew, whose name was Professor Plinio Corra de Oliveira; he was a Brazilian. He studied a lot about economics and culture and the moral aspects of society, and he proposed this book for me and a commission of people: about five or six others. So I did these studies, and I conducted many studies for years until, finallyin 2008I spent four years writing the book. Together with the commission, I was bouncing around these ideas, and the result was Return to Order.

The title of the book is: Return to Order.Does this suggest thatfor some reason or anotherover some time, weve gotten away from the sort of order a society should have?

Exactly. The central premise [of the book] is that we are in a state of disorder: a disorder thats mainly as a result of what I call in the book, frenetic intemperance. That is to say that where were out of balance. We have a system that works; it produces things, but it produces it in a way that is intemperate and that doesnt have restraint. And, at times, it can go into crisis. So the idea is we need to return to a temperate order that will be more stable and more virtuous.

Could you be more specific when you say unstable, or unbalanced in current life? Do you have an example?

I would say, for example, an economy that is first of allvery muchaddicted to debt. That is one thing that is very disorderly. We put things off. We want to just have the pleasure for the moment and, then, the debt comes, and the system crashes sometimes, like it did in 2008. Also the speed of things. We have an economy that is extremely fast-paced. Everything is fast; everything has to be right now, regardless of the consequences. And I think that also is a factor of instability and breakdown in our economy and, especially, in our society. Economies can work fast, but people are human; and they are limited by how much they can absorb and how much they can take. So that would be another thing: the speed of society. And perhaps another example would be the volume of things; you know were dealing with huge amounts and huge movements of that could be moderated. We want everything, and we dont want any type of restraint.

When I started reading the book, Steven Pinkers bookThe Age of Enlightenment, a very good book, came to my mind. What are your thoughts? Pinker argues that we are progressing constantly, but you argue thatat some pointwe just got off the route of order, and we have to get back at it. I want to know your thoughts.

Right. The point thatlets say, the breaking point, which I mentionedis the Industrial Revolution. Im not against industry or progress. I think we need progress, and certainly it helps a society. However, the Industrial Revolution was a revolution that turned society upside down and reversed the role of the consumer and the producer. Yes, it produced a massive amount of goods and services, but it overturned social structures that are very necessary for our own stability. I think these days we can have a society with a lot of progress and a lot of goods and services, but it should be done in a moderate way. And it can be done in a moderate way. The Industrial Revolution simply didnt do it in that way, and, for that reason, I criticize it.

We are now in a very turbulent time politically. Theres a lot of talk about how the economy is working for some but maybe not all. Some proponents of capitalism might argue that thats just how capitalism works, in that some are made better off than others. Whats your takesince you brought up the economyabout our current times and how the economy is playing out?

Well, I mean we definitely have an economy that produces a lot of goods and services, and a lot of it has helped an enormous amount of people. It has taken people, as well as entire nations out of poverty and want. But it is a very precarious situation because it is very much based on debt (and the issuing of debt). It is also an economy that is fast-paced and leaves a lot of people behindbecause theyre not able to keep up with that pace. So there are definitely problems with our modern economy. And then theres the fact that we dont have a lot of the social structures of family, faith, and community that normally keep a society in balance. Those structures would allow us to keep the same amount of prosperity but would keep it in a balance that would allow many more people to benefit from the goods that come from a prosperous economy.

Theres a chapter in your book thats very interesting; its called Foundation of an Organic Order. It got me thinking, and I bookmarked it so that I could talk to you about it. There was a time in the earlier days of the Internet, for example, that social media and the Internet allowed people to post thoughts and organically reach some sort of audience. Now, its almost impossible because you have to pay to increase your reach (through advertisements and such) or seek to game their algorithms.I always thought that when we talk about the foundations of organic order, with every change or with every new technology, that becomes subject to change. In this day and agewith new technologies coming and goinghow do you keep that kind of organic order that you discuss in the book?

Organic order is basically the order that is according to our nature. We are social beings, so we like to communicate with others. Thats part of an organic order. Were not machines. When were put into machine-like situations, it becomes very awkward for us, and we dont become comfortable in those situations. So thats how I would define an organic order: an organic order is a society where people live according to their nature. And with social relationships, natural leadership, ways of producing, ways of consuming that are familiar, you feel a certain familiarity with what youre dealing with. The modern economy does tend to destroy those things, you know. It creates an environment where youre just a number in the system; youre not really a person with all the nuances that are necessary. As you mentioned, new technologies tend to disrupt those organic rhythms, but they dont necessarily have to destroy them. And were seeing a lot of that destruction today. Were feeling the lack of that human element that is so important, that human touch that is so important to not only our own social life but also to economic life.

When I describe your book to friends, the first question almost everyone asks is: What does the book say about social media? So why dont you share what you think about that?

Social mediaI mean, Im on social media. Not so much for my own personal use; I use it incidentally for the book because you need to have some kind of presence. But I think it is a very shallow medium; it doesnt allow us to really think deeply, and that is much more important than the shallow contacts, where its just a like, some kind of notification. I think it makes for very limited contact. Social media is very limited; it cannot replace personal contact. A lot of people try to replace it, and social media tends to present a distorted reality where the person only presents that which is most favorable to that person, and a person can somehow show off what he or she is doing. So I dont think its an ideal medium, as the more organic ones are. The personal contact is what makes all the difference.

I follow you on Twitter, and I was suspicious as to if it was really you behind the account.

Well, actually, Twitter I use. Facebook I dont, but Twitter I do. On Twitter, the personality of the person does show through because your thinking can show through, and its interesting. The human personality is so strong and so important that even in very mechanical ways, it can show through. Hopefully, my personality shows through on Twitter.

I resisted Twitter for a long time, but eventually I joined because apparently you should have it these days. Also, if some people want to contact you, then thats how they do it. But it always amazes me when I see those with much more practical purposes in life having a social media presence. I think they have much better things to do than spend time on social media.

One of the other things that comes up when I talk about the book is that the book looks like a religious book, but its not a religious book; its a very practical book. How do you account for having a very practical book that looks like its a religious text, but its not a religious text?

Well, I mean, it is. What were talking about are rules that come from our human nature, the way we are. Its just an observation of reality and an observation of societynot only my own but those of people who have written some very brilliant books about these topics. What I wanted to do in the book was not to provide an encyclopedia of everything Ive read but to create a very succinct summary of these things so that you could see what is available out there. These things have been thought out, and its not just some kind of pipe dream that Ive come up with. These things have been done; societies have been organized like this. It does work, to a certain extent. So that was basically my idea.

Whats your take on the state of religion nowadays?

Obviously, there is a decline in religion; we live in a secular society that doesnt recognize religionor makes religion simply a very personal thing. We are social beings, but we are also religious beings; and, its very hard to suppress religion. It always comes up. Everyone has to answer those very basic life questions that a secular society cannot answer, and those questions are, Who am I; Why am I here; What is my purpose? These are questions that require answers, and everybody has to somehow find an answer for himself or herself. And I dont think you can ever really suppress religion, even in a secular society that doesnt recognize it and doesnt give it official citizenship in the national discourse. But I think America is a very, very religious nation, much more religious than you might realize.

One topic that also comes up when I have conversations with people about your book is how to reach and maintain order. I tend to talk with people who are not thinking in the same way as I am, so I can understand my beliefs and also understand their point of view. But the notion of having an orderly, practical lifepeople always say its easier said than doneand from what I understand, its not easy to keep order. But if you want tell people how to approach having order in life and how to maintain it, whats the best practical advice that you could give?

Thats a very difficult questionbecause in an organic society, a lot of these arent spelled out in a systematic and mechanical way. People are very different, and one formula for one person may not work for another person, though there are basic principles you can and must take into consideration. I think one of those principles is that there is an order in society; there is an order that exists in our very nature. And it is necessary to recognize that order as valid for all people, in all types of times. It doesnt change, and there is an order of things, which says you dont lie, you dont steal, and you cant really find a way out of those things. Those are part of our very nature that you cant change. I think the first step would be to recognize that there is a natural order in society, and to see, well, how can I apply that to my own life? And how can I live that? The circumstances around me may be different, may emphasize one aspect over another, but we all have to somehow deal with it.

I wanted to see what your view is on a point Ive been thinking about. Many companies transformed media, entertainment, and such into a very scientific-based method to grab your attention and stop whatever youre doing. And they do it very successfully; they make a lot of money, even from people do not have a lot of power of concentration. However, the things that matter most need deep conversation, and we do not have that. I would say, Why is there no science behind the other side: on how to have discussions in a very deep way?

Well, that is a very interesting question. Ive never really thought about it. You definitely have a pointbecause the other side, the side that likes the spontaneity and unrestraint, they have become experts at it. They study it; they do the science on it, and they know what our reactions will be. So, definitely, were at a disadvantage. Were not in the loop. I see things from the point of view of a Catholic, and thats what I wrote it from: from that point of view. And there are spiritual schools that deal with these topics, of how to live ones life and how to meditate, how to reflect upon God, the contemplation of the universe. It is something actually well-developed, and these things are ways in which people can find a certain kind of happiness, a type of happiness that is very much in contrast with the frenetic intemperance of our modern day world. Its not as if these things have never been studied. I just think they have been put aside, and the modern media has certainly taken advantage of its monopoly on peoples attention to turn people the opposite way.

The argument that I make usually when it comes to the media is that many people still have this incorrect perception that media companies are doing things by the book, or are fair, or balanced, or moral. So I argue that these are money-making machines, so they dont really care about whats fair or balanced. They just see what works to their interests, so, in that case, no one should look at them as sources of justice or impartiality or fairness or morality. Theres nothing there, so we have to change the view. Thats what I tell them about.

There was a series of podcasts by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, and he made the series of Morality in the 21st Century. The main theme was why for example, Adam Smiths book on the economy,The Wealth of Nation, is great, but his book on morality,The Theory of Moral Sentiments,is less known. So what would be the best way to approach the relationship between economics and morality today?

My analysis involves personal decisions that you have to makeand also decisions where youre definitely going to have to give up something, including benefits that you might receive by falling in line with the fast-paced world where everything is completely unrestrained. So those personal decisions are things that will really determine how you are going to put morality into effect. But there are some basic ones, like family. Family is such a natural institution that it adapts to time; it adapts to situations, and it allows a person to feel very fulfilled. At the same time, one feels the restraints of that relationship, as well as the benefits. Family is very important, and if you can live a family life inside our society, then youve gone a long way. And, of course, faith is an important part of that as well. Even a communitythe life of a community is very difficult these days because everybodys isolated in their own little house, and they dont get involved in communities. But communities are very important for our social relationships.

Have you noticed that your book, Return to Order, is very compatible with Jordan Petersons 12 Rules for Life?

[Laughs]. I dont know; Ive read Petersons Twelves Rules for Life, and it has some points that I agree with. But I dont think he goes far enough. There are some criticisms that I have of him because he is not a religious man, and hes very philosophical. He bases himself on a lot of philosophers that I would not agree with, including German philosophers of the 19th century. But the fact that he does talk about responsibility, the fact that he does talk about family relationships, and also the fact that we are always constantly looking for meaningwe only reach a certain degree of happiness when we find meaning. In that sense, I think I definitely agree with him.

Last question, whats the best current book youve read that gives you the best satisfaction as for the point of view of having an orderly life?

Thats a good question.I would go with the book of my mentor, the one who actually proposed this project to me, who is Professor Plinio Corra de Oliveira, and he wrote a book called Revolution and Counter-revolution. It is a perspective on history that put everything in order in my life, and said Well, this how history works. It gave a general outline of the different revolutions in society and how to do a counterrevolution. That book was very important in my life, and I do read it often. I go back to it often.

Thank you so much for your time.

Its a pleasure, anytime.

The rest is here:

John Horvat: Social Media, Jordan Peterson, and Returning to Order - Merion West

Canadian filmmakers, Patricia Marcoccia and Maziar Ghaderi, discuss their documentary, THE RISE OF JORDAN PETERSON, on Tom Needham's THE SOUNDS OF FILM this Thursday on WUSB. The show is also going to featuring the music of composer Thomas Newman, who is nominated for an Academy Award this year for Best Original Score.

THE RISE OF JORDAN PETERSON provides an intimate glimpse into the life and mind of Jordan Peterson, the academic and best-selling author who captured the world's attention with his criticisms of political correctness and his life-changing philosophy on discovering personal meaning.

Referred to by many as the most influential public intellectual in the western world, University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson skyrocketed to fame after he published a controversial viral video about political correctness in 2016. Within 2 years, he sold over 3 million copies of his self-help book, 12 Rules For Life, and became simultaneously branded by some as an academic rockstar selling out theatres around the world.

THE RISE OF JORDAN PETERSON intimately traces the transformative period of Peterson's life while visiting rare moments with his family, friends and foes who share their own versions of the Jordan Peterson story.

Patricia Marcoccia is a Toronto-based director, producer, editor and cinematographer nominated for best emerging filmmaker at the Golden Sheaf Awards. Maziar Ghaderi is a multimedia artist, director and producer that works with visual media and interactive technology.

In addition, THE SOUNDS OF FILM, will be featuring the film music of Thomas Newman, who is nominated for an Oscar for his score for 1917. The show will be featuring some his memorable music from movies like FINDING NEMO, SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, WALL-E and many others.

THE SOUNDS OF FILM is the nation's longest running film and music themed radio show. For the past 30 years, the program has delivered a popular mix of interviews and music to listeners all over Long Island, parts of Connecticut and streaming live worldwide on the internet. Past people interviewed for the show include Don McLean, Nile Rodgers, Jimmy Webb, William H. Macy, Cheech & Chong, Hal Hartley, Carter Burwell, Laurie Anderson and Billy Joel.

Read the original here:

Filmmakers Discuss THE RISE OF JORDAN PETERSON On Tom Needham's SOUNDS OF FILM - Broadway World

Joe Rogan performs at the Ice House Comedy Club in 2017 in Pasadena, California. (Michael Schwartz / WireImage)

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You cant even discuss the fact that certain races demonstrate low IQ, Joe Rogan lamented in 2018. On that show he was celebrating Sam Harriss support for Charles Murrays claims that people of color are dumber than whites.

In 2019, in response to a guests proposed hypothetical, Lets imagine that you actually believe that males and females are equal in intelligence, Rogan responded, LOL. Rogans position was obvious: Women, he believes, arent as smart as men.

Rogan has routinely attacked people of color, trans people, women, and queer people as part of his public life for decades. His attacks on trans people are particularly vicious. Almost weekly on his popular podcast, Rogan excoriates trans folks using language like, What are you? and She used to be a man, and attacking trans individuals for wanting to play in sports, transitioning as teens, and asking people to address them respectfully.

In 2018, he told frequent guest Gavin McInnes, founder of the violent white supremacist and misogynist gang known as the Proud Boys, that people often become gay or lesbian because of molestation at an early age. it seems to be a real factor.

And Rogan, who has reveled in using the N-word, said that going to a black neighborhood made him feel like he was visiting the Planet of the Apes. He likes to use the word faggot, has announced that queer women dont have the lower back muscles to give other women a proper fuck, and says campuses are being too aggressive in prosecuting sexual assaults. He also claims that feminism is sexist.

All of this is why I felt so hurt and angry when I saw my favorite candidate, Bernie Sanders, trumpet Rogans endorsement in a campaign commercial released on Twitter.

As a passionate lifelong socialist, Ive adored and supported Bernie since the 1980s, when he was mayor of Burlington, Vermont. I was beyond thrilled to be able to vote for him and contribute money to his campaign in 2016. Ive been ecstatic to see a new flourishing generation of openly socialist candidates in the Democratic Party like AOC, and the growth of a movement of young socialist activists backing them.

But the question at the heart of the controversy around Sanders celebrating Rogans endorsement is what solidarity means.

As Shevek, the hero of Ursula K. Le Guins anarchist novel The Dispossessed puts it, solidarity begins in shared pain. Solidarity means taking on anothers pain and responding to it as though it were your own. Or, as the Industrial Workers of the World had it, An injury to one is an injury to all. Solidarity is at the heart of socialism, but Bernie Sanderss decision to embrace the backing of someone like Rogan is the opposite of sharing the pain of all. It is the opposite of the union makes us strong. In particular, his campaigns decision to double down on the Rogan ad and not even to acknowledge the pain of trans, African American, Latinx, gay, and female critics is a disturbing signal that for Sanders adherents, cisgender straight white men are the only people whose suffering seems to matter.

Sanderss Rogan ad is not a side issue. It cuts to the heart of the danger facing the American leftin fact, this entire countryat this terrifying political moment. Far-right populists the world over are mobilizing whiteness and maleness as though they were actually the true emblems of working-class identity.

Trump won the last election by explicitly referencing capitalist inequality and telling whites and straight cis men that they were its only victims. Fascists here and abroad say baldly that the solution to capitalist inequality is to attack brown people and sexual minorities.

Walking that path, however unknowingly, is the wrong movefor both practical reasons and moral ones. Besides his personal volleys of hate against these groups, Rogan has used his show to host white nationalists and fascists including McInnes, Alex Jones (whom Rogan calls a good friend), Milo Yiannopoulos, and Stefan Molyneux. He delights in defending misogynists and gay-bashers like Jordan Peterson and Stephen Crowder.

Writing in The Guardian, Bhaskar Sunkara, the founder of Jacobin, called Rogans show pretty good and said the podcasters fans are a group of people we cant afford to cede to Trump.

I wonder if he thinks we can afford to cede the votes of people of color, women, trans people, and queer folks to the seductions of staying at home rather than vote for someone not prepared to have our back. More importantly, I wonder if he thinks we can afford to jettison these groups claims to protection, solidarity, and mutual aid from the rest of the left.

If were going to say that socialism is compatible with racism, transphobia, and misogyny, then weve already ceded the most important battle of our times. Many incarnations of fascism and white nationalism already incorporate a perverse kind of socialism whose benefits are to be restricted to white and cis straight males. Hey, Richard Spencer already believes in universal health care for white peoplewhy not get him to join the campaign, too?

The reason why not is, as Le Guin also wrote, that the means are the end. I expected better from Sanders. I will be voting for someone else in the primary.

Originally posted here:

Bernie Broke My Heart When He Embraced Rogan's Endorsement - The Nation