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Historian Norman E Cantor, said this about the difference 14th century people's
mindset and our own, regarding attitudes toward power and leaders.
Edward III of England waged cruel and merciless war against France, bringing suffering and death to thousands. He beseiged the French city of Calais into starvation and
when six citizens from the city, staggered forth offering their own lives in a plea
that the surrendered city not be subjected to wholesale massacre, the king would have
had them killed, had his own queen not thrown herself at his feet and begged mercy.
Edward also raped an English noblewoman after sending her husband abroad on a mission to get him out of the way. He funded his wars by taking out hefty loans from a
series of Italian banks, and then defaulted on the loans causing a financial collapse in
Florance.
By our modern standards, Edward III was an abusive monster. But here is what
Professor Cantor tells us:
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That today we may look back on the English king of the fourteenth century as a kind of destructive and merciless force, while to nearly all articulate and literate contemporaries he was a constitutional king and very model of chivalry and aristocratic honor, illuminates a gap between our world and fourteenth century Europe.
Fourteenth century people lacked the moral catagories that could transcend traditional political and social roles. They lacked a critical value system that judged rulers by consequenes and not the formal catories in which their behavior was structured.
In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made, page 39
There was no way to step outside of the situation and evaluate the kings job performance.
But, in the New Wage and Dharma Lite scene, we risk having our modern citizens minds and the hard won capacity for analytical and critical thought replaced by this medieval mindset that lacks a critical value system that judges rules (and gurus and roshis) by consequences of their actions.
The arguement that enlightenment means a guru or roshi's behavior is beyond the reach of conventional evaluation is another way to return us to the feudal peasants mindset that serves the interests of the Neo Brahmins and New Wage barons carving out their fiefdoms via Twitter, Pocasts, etc.
These Neo Brahmins and New Wage barons claim to be postmodern and 21st century but they're as preoccuppied with hierarchy, especially those who prate of Vertical Hierarchy as any medieval chancellor or scholastic.
They represent a regression, but all dressed up in modern garb to disguise it.
If we become elegantly dressed peasants and keep our noses dutifully aimed at our own little gardens, we will not catch on to all this--and thats what the barons want.
Lennon's song Working Class Hero has this
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As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
John Lennon
Corboy: I disgree with the 'just follow me' part.
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Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A parody
Keep you cravingly curious whether you're truly Integral
Worrying what color you are on the Great Spiral
You think you're Big Minded, Evolved full member of the spiritual elite
But to the Enlightement Industry you're still just one hunk a meat
In what way is post modern marketing assimilating the insights, images and lingo of Buddhadharma INTO those marketing strategies to make more effective in triggering cravings for aquisition in listeners and readers, rather than the insights of Buddhadharma being applied TO post modern marketing so as to examine exactly how it inflames craving supports an illusory sense of self rather than applying insight to this tangle of market driven craving and self enhancement?
There is a recent book review in the November issue of Harpers
A blogger writes:
"It's a really good, provocative essay on how design manipulates consumerism..."
Consumerism being the inward and outer tangle of cravings that every practicing Buddhist should be encouraged to look at--not support as a reactive spender.
Classical capitalism, exemplified in Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country: "Accumulated capital --in its most basic form, primitive hoarding --is spent on conspicuous demonstrations of waste in the form of leisure."
Late capitalism, exemplified F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night: "..the shadowy shills of the culture industry want us to spend our way to wealth and happiness. Down on the ground, the individual experiences fractured selves, or multiple consumption identities, even while yearning for wholeness."
Postmodern capitalism: exemplified in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, "Consumption is both intimate and relentless: brand-conscious consumers cannibalize themselves, feeding on their jumble of layered identities."
In this form of postmodern capitalism, marketing is aimed so consumers make purchases of various goods, information and services they see as creating and maintaining a particular self concept. (eg I am green, I am progressive, I am evolutionary and spiritual, etc)
And...'insights from Veblen (author of the classic Conspicuous Consumption) are assimilated (into the post modern capitalist strategy itself) rather than Veblens insights being applied to post modern capitalism to consider their new and perverse relevance." (Corboys paraphrase of some notes written after reading a copy of this article)
This is right smack in line with what Nella has invited us to examine.
Is commercial dharma emancipatory, or is it part of something that supports our sense of ourselves as enlightened?
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