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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32274 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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Why do you think this philosophy is so attractive to Christian westerners?

Is it a lack of responsibility for good deeds compared to Christianity?

Maybe a lack of understanding of the philosophy? Or just a rejection of Christianity and Hinduism is the easiest outlet?

Why do you think this philosophy is so attractive to Christian westerners?

It's... not particularly attractive, comparatively speaking? AFAIK most Christian westerners who grow tired with (one variant of) Christianity just move to atheism/agnosticism/apatheism or some other variant of Christianity, or possibly some sort of a New Age movement that serves a warmed-up version of more traditional strains of Western esotericism. Some people dabble with Eastern religions, but there's also movement back to Christianity from those circles (I personally know several people from those scenes who have converted to Orthodoxy).

Why do you think this philosophy is so attractive to Christian westerners?

Answering the question you asked, I think it's in part because the unfamiliar is seen as exotic and interesting and exciting and novel, whereas what we grew up with, even if it was just in the background, is the same old boring thing. Part of it is the Exotic Wisdom Of The East notion and the lure of something that can be presented to be five thousand years old, and which is easier to get into than Judaism (which makes similar claims to antiquity and constant tradition to the present day).

Part of it is intellectual curiosity which means you want to be well-read and familiar with world cultures, and that in turn can devolve into the cherry-picking amongst westernised versions of Buddhism and other traditions. I think part of it could also be down to the efforts of ISKCON to introduce Krishna-devotion to the West; the Bhagavad Gita is a source text for that.

Part of it is that it doesn't make demands in the same way your natal or ancestral traditions do; you know what you have to do even if you're a fallen-away Christian (or Jew or Muslim) and if you fell away because you don't like the rules and the whole idea of sin and the rest of it, then you're not going back. But adopting a Westernised version of Hinduism or Buddhism leaves you free to pick and choose: you don't have to perform the faith as the natives would do it, you can pluck out the philosophy and the parts that appeal to you (look at how yoga has been treated). You can be spiritual but not religious. You can talk about karma and the rest of it, but it's not the same as sin and salvation; at the worst, you will be reborn in an earthly body to do it all over again and learn the lessons you need to learn (there's not much, if any, talk of the Buddhist hells or the Hindu afterlife of punishment in Western versions, even if those are not eternal as in Christianity). Moksha/liberation is also appealing because it's impersonal: no facing a personal God to answer for your sins in the afterlife, just merging into the cosmic energy of the universe.

I'm not saying there aren't sincere Western converts to Buddhism/Hinduism, but the pop culture version of these is what most people who'd toss off the "I am become Death" quote know.

I’ve found Hindu religious literature maddening to read. Its poeticism and lack of doctrinal, formal structure to it makes it like trying to hold sand in your hands. It’s also difficult to find some sort of definitive, religious entry point for learning about it. Most westerners I know, are more attracted to the visual displays of its practices than the intellectual philosophy of it.

But there are plenty of practices to leave people more than intrigued about the religion.

There's a lot of dense, what I would call in other contexts, theology for various sects and movements within Hinduism, but a surface level engagement with it is not going to introduce you to that. I've tootled around on various Wikipedia pages to find out "okay, so this guy is meant to be a guru and saint in a particular movement that taught - what, exactly?" when it comes to characters in biographical/religious movies.

There is also a strong devotional strain where exact theology and structure isn't important, what is important is being totally devoted and given over to God. See this person, for instance.

Why do you think this philosophy is so attractive to Christian westerners?

Oppenheimer was Jewish, as pointed out by this salty opinion piece in Newsweek by "the editor in chief of Pasadena Magazine" (though looking at the latest issue online she seems to be a contributor, not editorial staff; however she is a features editor for Variety), which is "a bi-monthly lifestyle publication covering the people, institutions, and businesses of Pasadena and the surrounding San Gabriel Valley".

That article would make for a Culture War post in itself, as Ms. Saval seems to make a mini-speciality out of complaining about how Jews are treated in Hollywood. Now it's the turn of we Irish to be the most recent oppressors, by having an Irish actor play a (secular) Jewish character.

But in "Oppenheimer," Christopher Nolan's hotly-anticipated biopic opening today, one Jew was one too many. The titular character is played by Irish actor Cillian Murphy, who was raised Catholic. And this was no accident. In an interview with the New York Times, Nolan admitted he wrote the film with Murphy specifically in mind. In other words, no Jewish actors were considered for the role.

I feel a strong urge to go "Oy vey!" Or maybe "Faith an' begorrah!" A fella called Murphy from Cork with all belonging to him being teachers was raised Catholic? Plainly this is A Conspiracy!

Nolan is an Irish name too, you see how it all fits together? The Murphia in action to do down the Jewish actors who can't get a crumb of a part in any movie! We know this, because she says so:

It’s an argument she’s apt to repeat to anyone who suspects otherwise, and one that she made again in a CNN interview this past February. When interviewer Nick Watt informed Saval that “20% of managers, agents, executives in Hollywood are Jewish,” she coolly responded, “There’s no hard facts to back up that number,” adding, “Say we come up with the numbers and we do find out that there are a disproportionate number of Jews working in Hollywood, just for argument’s sake?” When Watt pressed her to continue, she responded with two simple words: “So what?”

All those poor, poor actors like Dustin Hoffman who just never got the chance for the big break because of the Irish in power in Hollywood keeping the best roles for themselves - look how Gabriel Byrne exerted his malign influence over the Coen Brothers when making Miller's Crossing.

It must be a conspiracy to do down Jewish actors, it can't just be that Nolan thinks Murphy is a good actor who also has the benefit of being extremely handsome with a fanbase from "Peaky Blinders" who might possibly turn up to watch this long biopic just to see him in it.

In an interview with the New York Times, Nolan admitted he wrote the film with Murphy specifically in mind. In other words, no Jewish actors were considered for the role.

The CHEEK, she openly doesn’t care that no Chinese, nor Kurds, nor Poles, nor Englishman were considered for the role!! Now we know who is truly oppressed!

Yeah, it's not a case of "A black actor should play Othello, not a white actor in blackface", it's really getting near to "only X actors should play X characters".

Only a genuine one-sixteenth Cherokee triracial trans non-binary deaf wheelchair user from this one specific small town actor should play the character who has all those elements as described, no you can't get somebody who's deaf but not in a wheelchair to do it, that would be discrimination and racism!

This is precisely the attitude that killed the Scarlett Johansson movie:

Johansson was due to star in Rub & Tug, a biographical film in which she would have played Dante "Tex" Gill, a transgender man who operated a massage parlor and prostitution ring in the 1970s and 1980s. She dropped out of the project following backlash to the casting of a cisgender woman to play a transgender man.

The trans activists complained about it so she dropped out, and then it turned out the movie - which they wanted so badly for Representation - wasn't going to be made if there wasn't an A-list actor associated with the part, because guess what? If you're going to make one of these indie-type small movies that about four hundred people globally will go see, you need a Big Name to draw in the audience or else the studio knows it will sink like a recent Disney live-action remake and not even make the costs back. Oscar bait alone isn't good enough to persuade them to fund this. And they were shocked, shocked! that some unknown trans man actor wouldn't be good enough (maybe if Elliot Page had been out at the time and wanted to do the project, but who knows?) but they had cut off their noses to spite their faces.

What's even more laughable is that casting Murphy is supposed to prove anti-Semitism in Hollywood. Hollywood, of all places.

The Murphia in action

Oh, that’s good!

Man, that article is one of the clearest illustrations of the “the Jew cries out in pain as [s]he strikes you” trope I’ve seen in a while. Imagine being somebody who writes about Hollywood for a living, but whose main takeaway is “this industry is unfair to Jews.” The… I won’t even call it lack of self-awareness, because at this point it’s gone beyond that to a perceptual failure so catastrophic that it causes you to reach a conclusion 180 degrees opposite from the correct conclusion based on the data all around you on display here is jaw-dropping.

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