The great disease of western culture

A watershed moment took place around the early 1960s that did serious damage to the pollyanna picture that propagandists had painted of the United States.  During this time several very important books were published that had a huge impact on popular culture.  There was Paul Goodman's book, Growing Up Absurd (1960), Oscar Lewis's book, Children of Sanchez (1961), and Michael Harrington's book, The Other America (1962) which was about the hidden poverty in America which argued that 25 percent of the nation was living in poverty.

These books and others before them such as John Kenneth Galbraith’s book, The Affluent Society (1958), served to educate many Americans that the United States portrayed as a happy, affluent, suburban, middle-class society was a sham.  This happiness only existed in the media in such television series as Leave It to Beaver or before that, Father Knows Best, which had its beginning in radio back in the 1940s.  

The pollyanna image of America was carefully crafted by media savvy propagandists who then spoon fed it to the bewildered masses via their televisions.  By the way, let's not forget what propaganda means.  It is an important term.  According to Edward L. Bernays, in his book entitled Propaganda (1928), "Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government."  In particular, propaganda is, “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses.”

With this painful analysis that revealed America’s seamy side, not too much attention was, however, being paid to the great disease of Western culture, itself.  It was the wave of nihilism that had been spreading over Europe and America since the middle of the 19th century which a devitalized Christianity was trying to smooth over, if not hide with the rise of fundamentalism.  This problem seemed to be set in the historical fact that Western materialism and science had almost destroyed the older notion of religious faith thus leaving mankind with nothing in its place.  

Facing the rise of nihilism, Western materialism and science soon found itself to be incapable of successfully dealing with the first person sense of a growing spiritual voidness even with its new forms of psychology.  The need to fill this spiritual vacuum fell naturally upon philosophy, for example, existentialism, and religion from which grew the popularity of Buddhism and more specifically Zen.  Importantly, too, came the birth of a Western Hinduism, with Yoga and Vedanta.

Growing up in a culture that unconsciously encourages nihilism to flourish, obviously,  has a number of unintended consequences that constantly beset it. Paradoxically, in dealing with these unintended consequences, such a culture tries even more to crush mankind’s inner sense of anxiety which is the direct result of spirit’s absence or, the same, its suppression.  Naturally, this gives rise to an escalating kind of psychological rebelliousness if not a general discontent or boredom with everything from which the individual’s will is unconsciously trying to escape. 

Despite what appears to be, also, a growing sense of hopelessness, the West’s limited embrace of Buddhism has given it what it needs to overcome its nihilism together with the spiritual emptiness it is continually aware of at a first person level.  This is because Buddhism directly links man’s suffering with his attachment to and his obsession with materiality as if the substance of the material world is only material.  Thus, it is not recognized that both the world and the body that man is thrown into are a phenomenalization (pratityasamutpada) of spirit or suchness.

This lack of recognition is the bane of the West insofar as it unconsciously assumes that the substance of phenomena must always be determinate and material when it is apparent for the living person that a true substance is always living and vital.

Those who wage war against spirit do so for undisclosed and often concealed reasons.  The rise of Western materialism and science doesn’t come with any psychological insight into why some people object to reincarnation, Near Death Experiences (NDE), the presence of ghosts, or life after death, all of which concern the survival of spirit.  Even Western Buddhists have to fight an uphill battle with so-called Western “secular Buddhists” who deny that the Buddha taught the direct recognition and survivability of spirit which is eternal.  In this sense they are crypto-nihilists.  

There will always be watershed moments in America and, of course, Europe which expose the seamy side of so-called Western civilization which has lost its spiritual core to such a degree that it is almost a taboo to discuss this loss.  Likewise, the depth of nihilism will continue to reveal itself in what Nicholas F. Grier has called “technological Titanism” which amounts to extreme secular humanism insofar as man believes himself to be the ‘measure of all things’ (Protagoras) which leads to relative truths and thus to no truth adding fuel to the fire of nihilism.  

 

Comments

[Explorer]

What does the Zennist think of Kyoto School philosophers? Esp. Nishida and Nishitani?

Nishida tried to unite European and Zen/Eastern philosophy into one "system"

He talked about the Pure Experience antecedent to the experiencer... he used Buddhist notions, "emptiness", "true self" in his philosophy

D.T. Suzuki said that Nishida's philosophy clearly shows he had some authentic understanding of Zen

Nishida especially interesting novelty in philosophy is his notion of "Place"; place/topos becomes the most important category in philosophy, unlike Greek/Euro substance

The "place" topos is "that within which"

And absolute emptiness is for Nishida the ultimate "that within which"

Pretty fascinating... could be a bridge between East and West?

I wonder what people reading this Blog or the Zennist think of Nishida

[Mistaken Moon]

Java Junkie seems to be understanding the term differently than the Zennist. The Zennist intended it as a philosophical stance. Scientism/materialism is dominant in the Anglo-Saxon world more than in Asia. For instance, I find that in Japan many people believe in ghosts, ancestral spirits, and so on. Many are fascinated by NDE or UFOs, too. I must say, however, that Java is right about the other kind of materialism. Countries like S. Korea and Japan are ultra-capitalist and consumer-oriented.

[Java Junkie Junebug Julius]

What western materialism? The Chinese and Indians and SE Asians are 100X more greedy materialistic than westerners, based on my ad hoc survey.

My conclusion is that 80 out of a 100 westerns are spiritual to some degree......whereas only 15 out of a 100 for Asians.

So that screws your bs right in the a-hole.

[Alphin]

Edward Bernays had a significant impact on American culture. Watch 'Century of the Self' - it is on youtube - accurate and disturbing

[Adarnay]

Superb presentation, much appreciated!