I’ve just had a crash course in how networking and self-promotion function in the online Buddhist world. It’s rather simple: tweet your own horn, link to your own work, hook up with friends who flatter you and censor those who don’t. Above all: control communication, create an image and maintain it diligently.
This may be old hat for people in corporate marketing, but when the product is emptiness and compassion, the result is a new brand of hypocrisy.
On March 4, Ken McLeod retweeted a quote posted by Hokai Sobol on Twitter:
Connecting w/o contact, sharing w/o cost, and participating w/o liability, is not the future of tech, of identity, of culture.
I appreciate Hokai and Ken feeling the need to tweet their concern for human connection, sharing and participation in the online age, but apparently the contact, cost and liability are too much for them at times: Hokai and Ken, and a few other cronies from Western Buddhism Incorporated, have de-authorized me.
It started on January 23 with the following dialogue on Twitter between me and Vincent Horn, host of Buddhist Geeks:
Vincent Horn: Working on letting negative comparisons drop. The work I'm involved in is not made any better by disparaging others. :)
Me: Does your work spare critical thinking? Please do not disparage that!
Vincent Horn: Do you see dropping public negative comparisons as the same as dropping critical thinking? I don't. :)
Me: No, only if you critically examine a public figure and find him/her wanting then censor your views.
The last half of our exchange was not published and, in spite of the
smiley faces, I was suddenly unable to tweet with Mr. Horn. Apparently he
sensed a painful public comparison and is now doing his critical thinking with the
less disparaging in private.
Sometime later I tried to expand a tweet on Ken’s page and discovered that I was “not authorized to look up related results for that tweet.” Just for fun, I went to Hokai Sobol’s page. Sure enough, I was “not authorized” there too.
Turns out I am not alone in having been de-authorized from the tweets of Ken McLeod. Another former student of Ken's contacted me to ask “Did Ken kick you off Twitter? It happened to me.”
Excluding uncomfortable dialogue seems to be a popular way of handling disagreement in Buddhist corporate culture.
James Shaheen hasn’t responded to my comment posted on Tricycle last month. Stephen Batchelor has not stooped to respond to the critical comments made by me and others on his post Buddhism and Sex: the Bigger Picture. Dennis Hunter, a fan of Ken’s, silently censored my comment on his blog post A Monk No More. Then there’s The Naked Monk, Stephen Schettini, who contacted me to inquire about my grievance with Ken. When I responded, and after a pregnant pause in our email correspondence—was he possibly warned of the potential cost and liability of contact?— he decided to solicit me for his spiritual autonomy counseling services at an affordable hourly rate.
Sometime later I tried to expand a tweet on Ken’s page and discovered that I was “not authorized to look up related results for that tweet.” Just for fun, I went to Hokai Sobol’s page. Sure enough, I was “not authorized” there too.
Turns out I am not alone in having been de-authorized from the tweets of Ken McLeod. Another former student of Ken's contacted me to ask “Did Ken kick you off Twitter? It happened to me.”
Excluding uncomfortable dialogue seems to be a popular way of handling disagreement in Buddhist corporate culture.
James Shaheen hasn’t responded to my comment posted on Tricycle last month. Stephen Batchelor has not stooped to respond to the critical comments made by me and others on his post Buddhism and Sex: the Bigger Picture. Dennis Hunter, a fan of Ken’s, silently censored my comment on his blog post A Monk No More. Then there’s The Naked Monk, Stephen Schettini, who contacted me to inquire about my grievance with Ken. When I responded, and after a pregnant pause in our email correspondence—was he possibly warned of the potential cost and liability of contact?— he decided to solicit me for his spiritual autonomy counseling services at an affordable hourly rate.
Tricycle recently announced that
it will now be featuring a Buddhist Geeks page on their website. Strategic
partnerships I think they call it. Or
was it Geeks tweak each other’s deeks.
Those authorized do to so can go take a look.
Those authorized do to so can go take a look.
Ahhh, "social media" :)
ReplyDeleteSo-called Buddhists are no different than everybody else, I guess. Zen Forum International is exactly the same. In my experience the best places for exchange are Sweeping Zen and OBC Connect.
Are you genuinely surprised by this?
ReplyDeleteBlame it on their limpdick syndrome. Oh, how embarrassing...a freudian typo...I meant their limbic system.
Try Tricycle…for softcock, spineless, populist-feel good Buddhism
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on this one: http://dharmacology.net/technology/buddhist_geeks Am I really the only one that finds the exceptional similarity in the link between the bespectacled Buddha icon and Chief Geek, Vincent Horn slightly disturbing?
ReplyDeleteThe irony is many Western Buddhists whine about oppressed Tibetans, who often disappear at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party. But where they have social power in their various web forums, they often perpetrate on their minions the online equivalent of this disappearing act(like at the dharmawheel web forum where when they ban people, no other user will ever know because they are way too cowardly to set the forum to openly display banned under the "offender 's" nickname: the same tactic of the CCP they rail against uses). Thankfully Western Buddhists have almost no significant social power in any real life context, other than to believe various bat shit crazy stuff together, and ban dissent in their petty sanghas, retreat centers, temples and online web forums.
ReplyDeleteI think all totalitarian governments should look into this "right speech" justification to explain to their subject, how they must be treated as diminished children for their own good. The Buddhist world lacking the more nuanced means of the capitalist West with their more robust propaganda system, had to use and still use more crude means.