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Greg McDonald wrote : >>Good reply Marce. Buddhists have lots of good ideas, if you can separate the wheat from the chaff. Yes, Buddhism and Marxism have quite a good deal in common. Both are materialist philosophies, both hold inter-personal relationships as the material basis for causality, both downplay the role of the individual ego and ascribe it to a nexus of factors caused by external causality, both envision change as a complex, dialectical process. The main difference of course, is that Buddhism, while sympathetic to Marxism, sees a change within the relationships of production as insufficient to achieve true "enlightenment". Buddhism focuses on the recognition by an individual that his/her "self" does not really exist but is the result of attachment to identity brought about by external sensory stimuli. There is no "me", there is just constant thought brought about by external stimuli. Marxists, while regarding this emphasis on understanding the non-existence of the ego as irrelevant, will have nothing to object to Buddhist psychology as such. Stimuli-like/dislike-craving/hatred-idea of "self"-reaction-new inter-personal causality which restarts the cycle. The only way to freedom is not through God, according to Buddhists, but through recognizing that the "self" is not static, but a process of stimuli/reaction ."Letting go of attachments" is the way to happiness according to Buddhism. This is a very, very long process (dozens of years of arduous self-reflection), before an individual can attain "nirvana". ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
