X-Message-Number: 17126
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: Re: Infinite Self-Worth
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 10:56:14 -0700

In Message #17120, Mike Perry wrote,

>Having a basic sense of self-worth I do not see as a detriment, properly 
>handled, but really a benefit and something essential. People who, like the 
>devout Buddhists, point to their physical housing and say, "there's no 
>person in here," may feel great bliss. But how many of them are signed up? 
>As far as I can tell, they simply > are not interested.

Buddhism strikes me as fundamentally wrong-headed in any case.  One, maybe 
it makes sense in wretched premodern societies to view "desire" as a source 
of suffering when even necessities are scarce.  But I find that idea 
ridiculous in economically effective societies.  (As an aside, I suspect 
that the religious dropout culture in India which gave rise to Buddhism 
developed meditation as a strategy to reduce caloric needs, since it 
subsisted off of begging, and only rationalized it later as a route to 
"enlightenment.")

Two, Buddhism makes a serious error when it concludes that a reductionistic 
explanation of the perception of selfhood means that the self is illusory.  
No, you can only call something illusory when you have the real thing to 
compare it to.  Comparing a mirage to an oasis will reveal that the mirage 
is illusory.  The perception of selfhood, however it works, is not 
necessarily illusory if you don't have a standard for comparison.

And three, considering the role of the Sick Man, the Old Man, and the Corpse 
in starting Gotama's "spiritual" quest (and flight from responsiblity, I 
might add, since he left his wife and children behind) -- well, unless our 
expectations for the future are going to get drastically sabotaged somehow, 
I don't see how a society that can largely eliminate sickness, aging and 
even death will strike one as unbearable.

Sincerely,

Mark Plus


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