Originally Posted by
sean
Eastern civilisations developed along cultural lines that acknowledged and respected hierarchy and different, put the individual in the context of a long line of ancestors, and taught that life and time are cyclical. They normally reflect their temperaments and social tendencies.
Confucianism teaches filial piety (because in the ancient world, families were seen as one element, the Chinese mastered this thinking to create an ancient unchallenged aristocracy and a docile society of slaves). Taoism teaches metaphysical absolutism like western religion, but without necessarily having a personified deity (although they had deities) who controls the balance. And Buddhism brought dharmic religious sensibilities.
Dharmic religions believe in natural hierarchies. They do not teach equality. After all, western "progressivism" is the strain of liberalism dealing most directly with socio-political equality, originally through the use of technology and science.
And unlike western religions they don't even teach submission in the Christian or Islamic sense. One should question the western tradition of individualism in light of the submissiveness of Abrahamic religion, and the emphasis on equality.
Buddhism, a radically individualistic ideology that is centered around the concept of self, with the whole detaching yourself and the emphasis on compassion, a lot of people and even Buddhist monks mostly of the Mahayana school, end up leaning towards collectivist ideals.
They don't make sense to take up and believe if you are not going to become a practicing monk devoted to the monastery, where these concepts were best applied to make obedient and selfless monks, but not everyone wishes that. It also got too much of an emphasis on just enduring suffering and apathy/lack of action towards the state.
Now I don't have anything against compassion, detachment is actually something to strive for but a lot of Buddhists think that individualism = non-empathy, selfishness, etc. and end up thinking like collectivists which always ends up with affinity to socialist policies and big government which in the end is everything but Buddhist, what's compassionate about giving through coercion of the state?
In the modern civilised world where individualism is highly praised these concepts are self-defeating, however the opposite is something like being egotistical and narcissistic and selfish, so in my view a balance between the two extreme views is necessary. There's a fuck ton of Tantra and Vajrayana in Western culture (individualism, freedom, hedonism etc.).
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