30 September 2007

"One knows my demand of philosophers that they place themselves beyond good and evil - that they have the illusion of moral judgement beneath them. This demand follows from an insight first formulated by me: that there are no moral facts whatever. Moral judgement has this in common with religious judgement that it believes in realities which do not exist. Morality is...precisely a misinterpretation. Moral judgement belongs...to a level of ignorance at which even the concept of the real, the distinction between the real and the imaginary, is lacking..."

--Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

On 30 September 2007, The New York Times published Seth Mydans article, "What Makes a Monk Mad". In his article, he sheds light on Burmese Buddhism and the political role of the monks as having "power...from...bestowing legitimacy on the rulers". Anyone who has studied European and/or Asian History through the ages, would quite agree that most wars are religious and religion rather than being separate from the political is everything political. When touching on faith systems and core beliefs - effectively controlling a people's life and lifestyle - religion is more potent than any politics.

Aristotle once described man as a political animal because he is a social one. Because religion necessarily involves the political/social man, it is insidiously political. Control over a people, the power of rebellion, effective rule, manipulation, moral authority, moral rule through legitimacy - this all is a surprising look at Buddhism and is quite a different Buddhism from the one studied in texts and in which I grew up.

The way Mydans explains it, the Burmese military/junta derives legitimacy through the monastery and in turn, has historically erected temples and monuments for the monks. The resulting exchange of this legitimacy allows for a semi-tentative peace. Unfortunately, the existing condition is that the junta is employing intimidation and violence against the monks who in turn can no longer continue legitimizing their rule. The resulting exchange of violence and de-legitimization leaves the state in a blanket of obscurity, shackled by an "absence of information" and cut off from the rest of the world as "Internet connections have been cut and telephone calls have been disrupted" (Mydans, The New York Times, "U.N. Envoy Brings Appeal for Restraing to Myanmar", 30 September 2007).

Here is yet another example of fluidity between modernity and postmodernity and in this case, a reversion to premodernity is thrown into the mix. And there is more to add:

In his essay, "The Posteverything Generation" (The New York Times Magazine, 30 September 2007), Nicholas Handler counters the expectation of his postmodern generation to agitate with virtual 'e-protest' through mediations of a different system of language and modality for that protest. He thus suggests a new ontology of expression to accommodate his present electronic reality.

Although electronic civil disobedience continually proves to effect dynamic and positively progressive change, a type of retro-fluidity between past and present intermingle forcing us to be reminded of traditional limitations, and its related wastefully destructive ramifications.

Perhaps the greater agitation here should be a repudiation not of revolution and protest but rather of defunct obsolete structures of language perpetuating barbaric systems of malice, intimidation, and decimation by legitimizing in their naming and in that naming, acknowleding. Rather than an article reporting on the lack of accessibility to information, another should be published in its place to chronicle why and how the rest of the world can be so dormant as to 'sit and watch' and allow for limitations to creep back into revivification as shadows of a darker past. And more so to lambast the doxa of academics, scholars, philosophers, and postmodernists who are long overdue in executing a new collective acceptance of change qua progressive rebirth.