Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

SPECIFICITIES OF GLOBALIZATION 177Figure 4: Image of the Buddha’s head on a music booklet.a booklet produced by a Soto Zen sect; another is thehead part of a Buddha image on the cover of the book,Japanese Club Groove Disc Guide (see Figures 3 and 4).Conclusion and ImplicationsBefore the research began, my basic thought was thatthere might be some lessons that could be learnedfrom the Japanese experience for Thailand, but manyJapanese monks I met told me that things were theother way around. Some even felt that JapaneseBuddhism had come to a cul-de-sac of materialismand, in fact, Thailand was still in a far better situation.Some Japanese temples drew inspiration from Socially-Engaged Buddhists in Thailand and tried to apply itto their communities. There are, in fact, a number ofindividuals who are working on this, trying to rescuespirituality from material corruption.I do agree with and respect such efforts. However, itmust be said that Socially-Engaged Buddhists are reallya minority in Thailand while the majority seems to bemoved by waves of modernization, Westernization,consumerism and globalization. Certainly, criticism onincreasingly materialistic religion has to be made but,in my opinion, there seems to be an unbridgeable gapbetween the two camps. My point is that to simplycondemn consumerism and materialism is not enough,but we must also understand its inner logic, how itworks in everyday life, as well as how it seeps into andtransforms spirituality. We must take into account howreligions are part and parcel with society and history,and when people’s way of living changes, religions arealso affected, both in form and content. If one wantsto subvert consumerism or other such illnesses, moreunderstanding about them is necessary first.What I argued in this paper, therefore, runs againstthe recently generally accepted dualist discourse thatputs the Global in distinctive opposition with theLocal, in which the latter is often seen as inferior,threatened and in need of being saved. While I amnot naïvely repudiating that such dualism does notexist or contending that the Local should not be saved,to simple-mindedly perceive and define ‘the Local’should be cautioned against: the problem does not liewith any locality but with our perception of it. In thedualist perspective, the Local is static, slow, sluggishand representing a good, former time—which ofteneasily becomes an object of glorification in nationalisticrhetoric or of romanticization in many versions oflocalism—set in opposition to the flux of the speedy andever-changing Global. My study, while employing theterms East/West and Global/Local, attempted to movebeyond simple conceptual antagonisms by illustratingthroughout the text that these binary identities are, infact, in relationship with each other and are closer toeach other than is usually thought, exemplified hereby the fact that Japanese spirituality was brought intoits present form by a comparison with its ‘Western’counterpart, and it is still constantly being constructedthrough this representation, which provides an avenuefor consumption. It shows how it is drawn into andbecomes a part of visual culture, fashionable trends andan Orientalism-like relationship. 4 Clarke (1997) showsthat the reversal (i.e., the influence of the ‘East’ onthe ‘West’) is also pervasive. At the same time, havingargued against fixed positions, I have postulated anotherimportant point in this essay, to prevent ourselves fromassuming the other extreme end of the spectrum, whichis to nihilistically claim that everything is just discoursesand nothing exists and ‘anything goes’: the binaryoppositions will not disappear just because we sayso. There is a constant construction, re-construction,affirmation, implementation and consumption ofthem in society which should not be ignored, althoughthey should not be accepted at face value either. Thisposition of not fully accepting or ignoring in criticism isimportant in charting concepts that are dangerous butnecessary.If, out of these, I am going to give perhaps any clearand practical recommendations, I would say that I donot have any for spiritual organizations, but may haveone that is directed more at lay persons, who are in themidst of consumerism, globalization and so on, andlooking at religions and spirituality as outsiders. Therecommendation would be to go back to where I startedthis essay, that we can never grasp reality but only chaseit, including the reality of religions. This does not meanthat we should not try to understand anything at all,but one conclusion we might come to only pushes usaway from approaching the same reality from otherAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows