/lit/ - Literature

So, despite differences between ‘religious forms,’ things like as rules, rituals, or certain dogmatic expressions, when it comes to the essentials, the world’s religions agree with one another.
Alternatively, perennialists use the language of the ‘exoteric’ and the ‘esoteric.’ The exoteric dimension of religion would include the aforementioned rules, rituals, and dogmas which are problematized by the perennialist, while the esoteric dimension would include the common core, whatever that might be for them. For Guénon and his acolytes, the basic illness plaguing the modern West is that it has lost sight of the esoteric knowledge which constitutes its tradition (Sedgwick 2004: 21). Guénon couples this ‘realization’ with a rejection of “evolutionary optimism” (Sedgwick 2004: 50–51), which merely involves a ‘critique’ of liberal narratives of progress. The entire history of the West seems really to be little but a history of degeneration on this view. It is here that we first begin to see the paradoxical irony of Guénonian traditionalism. The traditionalist must in fact take on the entire liberal theory of progress in order to sustain his reactionary anger against the modern world. He simply inverts the theory and transforms this progress into a form of regression, but there is no real disagreement between progressives and traditionalists as to what has actually transpired. In order to sustain his anger against secularism, the traditionalist must fall hook, line, and sinker for the secularization thesis and the myth of disenchantment. His imagination of an ideal, ancient past cannot allow him to consider the possibility that the so-called ‘traditional societies’ were never particularly pious in the first place (Stark 2015, chap. 2). Ironically, to accept traditionalism requires one to commit to a very modern view of the world.

2/9

Likewise, traditionalism conforms to another characteristically modern prejudice with its elitist, you could even say, Protestant disdain for the ‘forms’ of religion. Schuon is not shy about the real nature of this prejudice. “Esoterism,” he writes, “is reserved, by definition and because of its very nature, for an intellectual elite” (2005: 33). The traditionalist reduces ritual to mere instrumental value, to at best a “vehicle” for the transmission of ‘esoteric truth’ (Lings and Minnaar 2007: xix). Ritual cannot possibly be an end in itself, as it is for the Hindu Mīmāṃsā. It must serve some higher truth, which the traditionalist usually must eisegetically read into the practice. This, of course, is the well-known problem with metaphorical interpretation in religion, that it admits of no limits, yet the traditionalists all suffer from a modernist repulsion to what they deride as “literalism” (Really, no such thing exists beyond the minds of liberal critics of “fundamentalism”) and a relativist obsession with metaphor. Northbourne, a translator of Guénon, laments, “This generation, with its literalism, has lost the habit of thinking in symbols” (Lings and Minnaar 2007: 7, note 3). Yet such a statement is so obviously silly I do not think it necessary to refute. The perennialists have surely seen the fruits of their own efforts in the modern, pathological obsession with reducing all scripture to ad hoc allegory, something no doubt helped along by the anti-scientific attitude of many traditionalists, Guénon included, particularly their refusal to see evolution reconciled with religion.

3/9

All of these prejudices, all of them modern, require the perennialist to be extremely selective when it comes to which elements of the world’s religions they cherry-pick and appropriate in order to form their “perennial wisdom.” Of course, they can have no patience for anything which compromises that vision, and those things they must dismiss as “heterodox,” such as Buddhism, which Guénon denies any esoteric pedigree (2004: 93), or “dogmatic,” a favorite, indeed, modern slur which they employ against organized religion. Likewise, his work on Hinduism betrays the fetishism of Vedānta which was so characteristic of 20th century orientalism, a tendency which the Theosophists did so much to popularize within modern spiritualist movements, in which Hinduism is so often conflated with Vedānta, or if not that, the other schools are simply made instrumental to Vedānta; the traditionalists have not escaped this sin, perhaps owing to their Theosophical heritage. The traditionalists employ a similar orientalist trope in their writings on Islam, emphasizing their favorite token figures to the exclusion of the mass of historical Muslims, something which Said criticized Massignon for doing (Said 2003: 272). A favorite of Guénon and numerous other traditionalists is Ibn ʿArabī, while someone like Ibn Taymiyya gets little love. Such a figure is revolting to the modern mind, having been misrepresented as a proto-terrorist ideologue and a simple-minded literalist—both claims are complete slander—and as we have seen, the traditionalists are little but reactionary modernists in denial.

4/9

The traditionalists must engage in intolerably arbitrary cherry picking to sustain their perennialism. In the end, they have only succeeded in remaking the world’s religions in their own image. This is something which all pluralisms eventually do, and any pluralistic analysis of world religions always ends up telling you more about the person doing the analysis than the subject being analyzed. The perennialists are fond of using an analogy in which absolute truth is compared to the summit of a mountain, while the various religions are viewed simply as different paths towards that same summit (Lings and Minnaar 2007: 229, 231; Smith 1991: 72–73). This of course assumes that everyone is trying to reach the same goal in the first place, but as Stephen Prothero writes, “If practitioners of the world’s religions are all mountain climbers, then they are on very different mountains, climbing very different peaks, and using very different tools and techniques in their ascents” (2011, Introduction). Guénon, at least initially, was more consistent than other perennialists in that he did not try to conflate the teaching of Buddhism with Vedānta and the Abrahamic religions. A basic study of Buddhism should inform you why nirvāṇa cannot be conflated with ātman, yet even one as clever as Seyyed Hossein Nasr has not avoided this blunder (Lings and Minnaar 2007: 121); nor has he transcended the anti-scientific prejudices of Guénon. It would indeed make an idiot of Shankara if he of all people was unable to realize that the Buddhism which he so tirelessly argued against was identical to Vedānta all along. Not to mention all the Confucian and Daoist philosophers who somehow did not discover, while Guénon did, that the latter was simply the esoteric expression of the former; and perennialism would certainly have a difficult time explaining how the Jesuits and the Confucian philosophers were too stupid to realize that they believed the same thing all along.

5/9

oh good thread

I should also like to point out the delightful irony of this perennialist picking and choosing, that this luxury is only afforded to them by the free religious marketplace of secular modernity in which ideas such as theirs thrive; it is their natural habitat. Only in such a context is it so easy for them to be religious cosmopolitans. This, as Schuon admits, was not a luxury which Bernard of Clairvaux had, and Schuon provides ample excuses for Bernard’s mystical outlook having done nothing to counter his prejudice against Islam (2005: 36–37). Traditionalism owes its entire existence to modernity, which itself is a vague, fictitious construct (Josephson-Storm 2017: 306). It orients itself around this fiction—its entire existence is a reaction to it—along with all its presumptions to secularization and disenchantment, and it does nothing to challenge this narrative at all. Is it not so ironic, that this ideology emerges with such hostility against the very thing which gave birth to it? Religious pluralism, in its recognizable modern form, which would include perennialism and traditionalism, is made possible only by the religious freedom and the separation of church and state supplied by modern liberal democracy. Otherwise, the traditionalists would not have the luxury to rave as they do against organized religion with its damned exoterism and dogmatism, yet they despise the Protestants who set in motion the very events which eventually afforded them that luxury. It is such a blatant form of hypocrisy, yet it is common to all forms of neoreactionary idiocy, whether it be the tradcaths who claim to oppose religious freedom while making use of that same freedom to dissent from the church, or the Islamists and jihadists in the Muslim diaspora who rail against Western morals, while they would not be allowed to agitate as they do in a Muslim country.

6/9

In fact, all neoreactionaries seem to share the same shortsighted critique of ‘democracy,’ whether it be traditionalists, neo-monarchists, neo-Nazis, jihadists, or whomever. What Guénon views as “the most decisive argument against democracy” is plainly sophistic and arbitrarily excludes the possibility that democracy could receive spiritual sanction (2001: 73). Of course, he also conflates modern democracy (more clearly termed republicanism) with direct democracy (2001: 74), a strawman argument which all the reactionary critics of democracy are forced by their impotence to make. In modern democratic republics, power is not in fact, nor intended to be, vested in the majority, contra Guénon (2001: 72); they are specifically designed to avoid situations in which a majority can tyrannize a minority. Ironically, Guénon claims that democracy involves “the negation of the idea of an elite” (2001: 78) when one of the common criticisms of liberal democracy is that it causes power to be invested in an elite. In fact, democracy is not contrary to the aristocratic principle at all, only to hereditary aristocracy, but not to a natural aristocracy of merit. And I am not so moved by Guénon’s whining about the “relative and contingent” nature of hierarchies based on wealth, while he lauds the modern caste system, which was much more relative and contingent before British rule.

7/9

There is a lot more that I could say about Guénon and the traditionalists. I could delve deeper into Guénon’s misrepresentation of Sufism, his orientalism, his paradoxical anti-intellectualism, or his obsession with speaking of things about which he knows nothing, and which are far out of his field of expertise. However, I think I have said enough, at least for now. I should have liked to be more neutral, more charitable to Guénon, but I cannot help but hold him and his beliefs in contempt, although I used to have much admiration for him and for traditionalist/perennialist thought. It is one of those ideologies which can be so obviously false and easily irrefutable to someone with just a bit of knowledge, provided they’ve been educated against it, yet which is held up by confirmation bias and poor education. And it’s not just a benign ideology. It’s actively harmful to mutual understanding, often comes coupled with dangerous ideologies, and doesn’t make anyone into a better person. The proliferation of ideas such as this among the masses is enough justification in my mind for including mandatory religious studies classes in school curriculums to counter them.

8/9

Bibliography

Guénon, René. The Crisis of the Modern World. Sophia Perennis, 2001.
Guénon, René. Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion. Sophia Perennis, 2004.
Josephson-Storm, Jason Ā. The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences. University of Chicago Press, 2017.
Lings, Martin and Clinton Minnaar (eds.). The Underlying Religion: An Introduction to the Perennial Philosophy. World Wisdom, 2007.
Prothero, Stephen. God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World and Why Their Differences Matter, reprint ed. HarperCollins, 2011.
Said, Edward. Orientalism, 25th anniversary ed. Penguin Books, 2003.
Schuon, Frithjof. The Transcendent Unity of Religions. Quest Books, 2005.
Sedgwick, Mark. Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press, 2004.
Smith, Huston. The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions. HarperCollins, 1991.
Stark, Rodney. The Triumph of Faith: Why the World is More Religious than Ever. Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2015.

9/9

>>18470130
Whos the lady and why are her breasts so massive? Are they fake or what kind of condition is she suffering from? Is she fitting literall cabbages under her shirt?

>>18470130
Traditionalism is just an ideology for stupid people because it puts broad and contradictoruly swats of reality under two vague and abstract dual terms of tradition and modern.

>>18470190
Momo Momose, Japan's only M-cup gravure model.

Solid read, thanks anon. Myth of Disenchantment was a good book, but it's overstated.

very good thread
yes nice nice
post more critique please

>>18470203
>you're stupid if you're not a transhumanist freak

>>18470220
Traditionalism and transhumanism is basically the same thing.

>>18470130
My advice is to work this out in a short essay and try and get this published online somewhere.

>>18470239
Oh... kay?

>>18470247
Both are just bundles of vague and meaningless abstract terms that could mean just about anything.

TL;DR because you posed disgusting women.

>>18470254
Fag

>>18470252
Maybe if you're a muddleheaded simpleton

>>18470130
>The first, most intuitive objection to traditionalist perennialism is that it just seems obviously false
Uh yeah, stopped reading here.

>>18470257
>muddleheaded simpleton
Core example, you use insults, but you could as well have called my hylic or materialist, they are all vague and absteact terms without meaning.

>>18470262
https://youtu.be/DISHFF3BQmw

>>18470265
Sorry you lack capacity for abstract thought

>>18470265
Lacking access to a dictionary or basic verbal intelligence is not a problem with words, it's a problem with you.

>>18470276
Thinking in abstractions is a sign of a lower intelligence, because you can not hold the variety of concrete experiences in front of you, you are forced to use vague and meaningless abstractions and pretend they are real.

>>18470279
No intelligent person would pepper their talk with nonsense anstractions that dont mean anything and even end up believing the abstractions are more real then reality.

Nice btw I hit a nerve.

>>18470281
>hinking in abstractions is a sign of a lower intelligence,
How can you say this with a straight face whilst simultaneously claiming Guenon is the anti-intellectual? lmao

>>18470284
You still haven't shown how they don't mean anything. All you've done is demonstrate that you don't know what they mean. Materialist, hylic, and so forth, all have specific meanings. Sure, they can be given slightly more specific meanings depending on the exact context of discussion, but that is irrelevant to the general meaning when there is no obvious context present.

>>18470287
Intellectual is another meaningless abstraction.

>>18470294
They dont and I dare you to give them apparant and concrete definitions.

>>18470302
>I dare you to give them apparant and concrete definitions.
I don't have to give them anything, because they already hold them thanks to the prior establishment of the English language, as well as philosophical tradition. For example, a materialist is someone who holds that matter is in some way the prime element of existence. That is possibly the most general definition, but if we want to examine it specifically with respect to philosophy or philosophical attitudes, then we can narrow that definition to someone who specifically thinks the fundamental unit of all existence is physical matter, which is a type of monist view.

>>18470284
Pepper your angus.

>>18470316
He's just trolling to derail the thread. No one's that dumb surely

>>18470316
>materialism is someone who believes only in matter

Again nothing apparent or concrete in that definition.

>>18470327
Please show me how the concept of matter versus nonmatter isnt just playing with vague and meaningless abstractions

>>18470333
Are you aware that physicalism has replaced materialism in philosophy, because materialism has practically been refuted? Matter is not the only fundamental unit of existence, which was confirmed scientifically. So clearly it is concrete, and you are genuinely stupid. This is totally ignoring the fact that materialism nor physicalism are totally obvious in themselves, given the nature of consciousness and qualia.

>>18470132
I am not going to read all of it but I am going to respond to this
>He simply inverts the theory and transforms this progress into a form of regression
No, we don't "invent" the theory of regression, since it already exists in the Bible(the fall of man and the end times) and in the Hindu Cycles. We just affirm what the traditions say because we believe in them. The fact that they are in complete antithesis with the modern one, it is means that the later is false.

>>18470347
>one abstraction has replaced the other abstraction

Still nothing changes, explain.

>>18470340
>Please show me how the concept of matter versus nonmatter
The double slit experiment. Check it out. Or how about shine a laser into your retina so you can "directly perceive" the difference, concretely and without abstraction.

>>18470351
How is progress not similar to a return to the golden age or the end of the kali yuga. Most moderns knew their greeks and bible better then guenon.

>>18470355
>reality is a meaningless abstraction
Ok, I think we're done here.

>>18470356
And it matters dividing these pehenomena into abstractions? You can get some point across by saying this is material and this is nonmaterial.

>>18470360
You make reality into a meaningless abstraction.

>>18470358
>How is progress not similar to a return to the golden age or the end of the kali yuga.
Because the Kali Yuga is established at the end of the most depraved state of humanity, suddenly and through a cataclysmic event (Kalki's conquests and slaughter of demons, Judgement Day, etc.). And there is no gradual progress that moderns believe exists today, there is only gradual regress. Without the interference of the gods or God, or godlike men, there is no progress, and that progress is like a thunderbolt, not a slow descent into depravity that we see today.

>>18470379
So its the same thing only its slower and not cataclysmic. Gotcha

>>18470358
The Golden Age will only manifest after a total collapse of the world, triggering Jesus return. The return of God will be a relatively sudden thing compared to the drawn out (but accelerating) decay we are in.

>>18470340
"Concrete" is an abstraction.

>>18470391
So basically after a nuclear and environmental disaster humanity itself will rebuild itself as a utopia.

>>18470396
I dont use the term concrete as something singular, so it is not, when I start talking about the concrete please tell me.

>>18470396
Also not awnsering my question.

>>18470399
No, humanity will not rebuild itself. When the Beasts have taken the world as theirs, Jesus will return and restore order.

>>18470405
It goes abstract to negation to concrete until you get to the Absolute, which is the sum totality of everything, which then folds back in on itself to the start again.

>>18470412
Jesus is a meaningless abstraction.

>>18470416
Meaningless abstractions

>>18470440
How exactly is the son of God a meaningless abstraction? He is God incarnate.

>>18470130
Good thread anon.

Everyone here should read picrel. Especially those espousing "traditionalist" views.

>>18470516
Fraud who didn't even read hegel

>>18470389
No, because it operates in the opposite direction and has specific properties already described in the scriptures which can be traced with respect to the "direction of travel", some of the most obvious of which being piety (respect for God or gods) and pious respect for proper order. They are qualitatively different conceptions from each other.
Evola already spoke about this in detail with respect to perspectivism. The entire notion of "progress" or "regression", in themselves and ignoring real context, is only meaningful from a certain perspective, but the actual ontological status, regardless of perspective, is still clear and indisputable given the qualitative and ontological differences between modern and traditional civilization. And so, whether you want to call it "progress" or "regress", you cannot dispute ontological objectivity of each "end-point", meaning that the teachings handed down from traditional civilizations are themselves utterly opposed to the teachings given to us by modern civilization.
So to finalize, it's like saying, "so it's the same thing but totally different at an ontological level." It's simple intellectual dishonesty, which doesn't make sense even at the shallowest level of analysis. They are not the same thing, but you are free to view what we see as regression as progress, because you are a free being and you can only conform to your own nature and desires.
>>18470515
Don't respond to it, it's a troll or a bot.

>>18470130
>>18470132
>>18470135
>>18470140
>>18470145
>>18470149
>>18470157
>>18470162
>>18470169
Without a doubt the most based thread on this board in months.

>>18470412
>Jesus will return and restore order.
he already came and went

You know, maybe if you bothered to not post coombait I might have read your blog

>>18470545
Then you should have no problem reading, comprehending, and perhaps even criticizing 450 odd pages from those 2 volumes. Read it.

>>18470606
Is there any point when I don't even agree with the premise of an open society to begin with?

>>18470586
>he can't reign over his beastly impulses
Ngmi

>>18470606
Why don't you read this
https://hegel.net/en/kaufmann1959.htm
And I did read it maybe 15 years ago. Liberal pablum as I recall.

>>18470651
>Hegel was not a pagan like Shakespeare and Goethe
lol what

>>18470672
They were both uncannily obsessed with Greek and Roman myth in their artwork. Goethe actually with some Germanic myth if you consider his treatment of Walpurgis

>>18470564
Oh right haha. I'm a tad gullible and fairly new here so still getting to grips with the cancer. Cheers and good comment above.

>>18470622
Do you only read texts that conform to your sensibilities?
>>18470651
Isn't Popper's main drive to show the effects of certain interpretations of Hegel ideas? Hegel can be assumed to not have a dog in the race as Plato and Marx had, hence making the search for his intentions and original meanings irrelevant to the subject matter. Also, it is Hegel we're talking about. Everything by and around him is mired in vague and obtuse language, making almost any claim defensible. Also read the after-notes for volume 2, which is about 200 additional pages.

>>18470564
Right, its different because of "abstractions" gotcha

>>18470728
Hegel was rather moderate politically and not a totalitarian. If absolutely anything can be taken from his work and he's more of an inkblot then he's not really to blame either. Given the quality of his scholarship in evidence here I see no reason to revisit this text. Apologies to OP for off topic posting.

>>18470622
Challenge yourself. Read the work, find the strongest arguments, and refute them.

Didn't read this thread, Jezebel posters (especially the yellow fever variety) need to be beheaded.

>>18470767
I don't really want to spend time refuting something which is based on a psychological framework totally different than my own. It makes no difference to me. Popper might be correct, within his own conceptual framework, as far as I'm concerned.

>>18470782
You're probably better off spending your time doing that than browsing a Mongolian basket weaving forum though.

>>18470516
>Popper

>>18470768
If you get bothered by booba, you're still in the "ruled by carnal instincts" phase. Transcend it!

>>18470130
>Anti-Guenon (pbuh) posters are stupid coomers
I don't think anyone was surprised

>>18471135
t. wanker

>>18471211
>>18471213
No.

>>18470564
Both are the same 'god over time will destroy my enemies.' Same ressentiment.

>>18471211
It's obvious Marxist drivel, no one is surprised people like that are coomers

>>18471396
Boomer hands typed this post

>>18471404
seethe, tranny

>>18471414
Seethe, boomie

>>18471448

>>18470132
I've refuted this whole garbage essay

>His imagination of an ideal, ancient past cannot allow him to consider the possibility that the so-called ‘traditional societies’ were never particularly pious in the first place (Stark 2015, chap. 2). Ironically, to accept traditionalism requires one to commit to a very modern view of the world.
This is absurd, there isn't any good evidence to suggest that past societies were less religious and superstitious than the modern world. Facts and facts, and acknowledging them is not a "modernist view"
>Ritual cannot possibly be an end in itself, as it is for the Hindu Mīmāṃsā.
Yes, of course not, the Mimamsa was BTFO by other Hindu thinkers for this
> yet the traditionalists all suffer from a modernist repulsion to what they deride as “literalism”
It's not modernist at all but medieval Islamic and Hindu thinkers attacked literalism at times as well, this is another misrepresentation
>The perennialists have surely seen the fruits of their own efforts in the modern, pathological obsession with reducing all scripture to ad hoc allegory,
they don't reduce "all scripture" to allegory, that's a strawman, Guenon attacked Christians who deny that Jesus was resurrected as practically fake Christians, to just give one example. In any case allegorizing was common among the early Church fathers so that's not a modernist viewpoint
>All of these prejudices, all of them modern
Wrong, as pointed out above
> Of course, they can have no patience for anything which compromises that vision, and those things they must dismiss as “heterodox,” such as Buddhism, which Guénon denies any esoteric pedigree (2004: 93),
That they would label certain things as heterodox or orthodox is not in itself an indication of any contradiction in their worldview, quite the opposite in fact, one would not expect every religious doctrine on the planet to align with the truth, given the wide range of differences in ideals, viewpoints etc from various human cultures around the world throughout the ages

>>18472189
>Likewise, his work on Hinduism betrays the fetishism of Vedānta which was so characteristic of 20th century orientalism, a tendency which the Theosophists did so much to popularize within modern spiritualist movements, in which Hinduism is so often conflated with Vedānta, or if not that, the other schools are simply made instrumental to Vedānta; the traditionalists have not escaped this sin, perhaps owing to their Theosophical heritage.
This is a correct position which they take, the Vedanta was singularly influential within Hinduism like no other school and more than any other school, Vedanta has become centric to Hinduism. The Samkhya, Vaisheshika, Yoga etc starting from the beginning of the common era were all either made irrelevant or were subordinated to Vedanta. The vast majority of Indians follow sects of Hinduism whose theology is derived from one or another Vedanta school. The latter Tantric schools emulated the Vedanta schools in coming up with a systematized theology and took many ideas from them. Trying to place Vedanta as on par with Samkhya or Yoga shows that you have no understanding of the historical reality of what took place in India and within Hinduism.
>something which Said criticized Massignon for doing
>unironically citing Said
lol
>A favorite of Guénon and numerous other traditionalists is Ibn ʿArabī, while someone like Ibn Taymiyya gets little love.
Boo hooo hooo why won't they praise muh proto-salafist hylic retard!!?!? This isn't a modernist take but Ibn Taymiyya was heavily criticized by many traditional Muslim scholars of his time for his rulings that contradicted long time-honored positions of the Ummah and that criticism by Muslims scholars opposed to his takes has continued up to the modern day. Also, does the author not realize that he makes himself look retarded by using "reactionary" as a pejorative while simultaneously defending Ibn Taymiyya?

>>18472193
> The perennialists are fond of using an analogy in which absolute truth is compared to the summit of a mountain, while the various religions are viewed simply as different paths towards that same summit (Lings and Minnaar 2007: 229, 231; Smith 1991: 72–73). This of course assumes that everyone is trying to reach the same goal in the first place, but as Stephen Prothero writes, “If practitioners of the world’s religions are all mountain climbers, then they are on very different mountains, climbing very different peaks, and using very different tools and techniques in their ascents”
This is wrongly implying that the Traditionalists viewed that even people who have no interest in esoterism/non-dualism are still trying to reach that same peak, but this is a strawman since the Traditionalists don't say or imply this (maybe Schuon but he can be discounted, I'm speaking from Guenon's perspective) but rather from there view it would just mean that the people in question weren't trying to climb this mountain leading towards esoteric realization at all.
>Guénon, at least initially, was more consistent than other perennialists in that he did not try to conflate the teaching of Buddhism with Vedānta and the Abrahamic religions.
That's because Guenon initially understood Buddhism as medieval Indian Buddhists understood it, because he studied medieval Hindu writings and say them discuss the 3 major medieval divisions of Abhidhamma schools, and on the other hand the Mahayana Shunyavadins and Yogacharins, none of these are close to Advaita in their ontology or epistemology, but it's not in fact clear whether any of them are the doctrine taught IRL by Buddha. If you had never closely studied the Pali Canon *in Pali* and had only studied or was aware of the doctrines of the medieval schools of Buddhism, this would be an entirely reasonable position.

>>18472198
>A basic study of Buddhism should inform you why nirvāṇa cannot be conflated with ātman, yet even one as clever as Seyyed Hossein Nasr has not avoided this blunder (Lings and Minnaar 2007: 121); nor has he transcended the anti-scientific prejudices of Guénon.
This is only true if you are understanding Buddhism through the lenses of the medieval schools, but as Coomaraswamy's works demonstrate, if you toss out the assumptions that later Buddhist schools projected onto the Pali Canon, then you can build a case for Buddha teaching Upanishadic absolutism implicitly, although it's not definitive. Buddha himself in the Pali Canon refuses to say that the Atman exists or that the Atman does not exist when asked directly. Both the Nirvana and Atman are held by Buddhists and Advaitins respectively to be unconditioned.
>It would indeed make an idiot of Shankara if he of all people was unable to realize that the Buddhism which he so tirelessly argued against was identical to Vedānta all along.
Not really, because Shankara was just familiar with the medieval Buddhist schools and their explanation of Buddha's teachings, he never studied the Pali Canon *in Pali*; and the view the medieval Buddhist schools present is diametrically opposed to the view that Coomarswamy shows *could potentially* be interpreted as that of Buddha in the Pali Canon.
>Not to mention all the Confucian and Daoist philosophers who somehow did not discover, while Guénon did, that the latter was simply the esoteric expression of the former;
That they were viewed as compatible by some people in East Asia is attested to by the existence of the Neo-Confucians who often integrated ideas from Daoism and Buddhism alike and found them to be compatible with Confucianism

>>18472206
>and perennialism would certainly have a difficult time explaining how the Jesuits and the Confucian philosophers were too stupid to realize that they believed the same thing all along.
This is ignoring that point that Confucianism is something that almost exclusively concerns itself at the societal level, with moral order, with harmonious relations between people and so on, while Christianity is its own entire religion with its own metaphysics, soteriology and so on, so of course they are different. The aspect of East Asian tradition which comes closest to Christianity (that is that it also deals with the metaphysical) would be Daoism, and as books like "Christ the Eternal Tao" demonstrate, people have noted their affinity before.
>I should also like to point out the delightful irony of this perennialist picking and choosing
That's not an argument against their viewpoint or a demonstration of a contradiction in anything they are saying
>Traditionalism owes its entire existence to modernity,
Not true, perennialist views by various Hindu, Christian and Muslim thinkers, is well attested to throughout the medieval era
>which itself is a vague, fictitious construct
Nonsense, that the modern world is characterized by immense departures in every sphere of life from what have been the norm throughout most of human history is an objective fact.
>Religious pluralism, in its recognizable modern form, which would include perennialism and traditionalism, is made possible only by the religious freedom and the separation of church and state supplied by modern liberal democracy.
Complete bullshit, religious pluralism and freedom was always the norm throughout Indian history even though the Indians never had democracy until the modern era; and it was the norm for large slices of Chinese history as well who have never had liberal democracy.
> It is such a blatant form of hypocrisy,
It's not hypocrisy for the above reason.
>What Guénon views as “the most decisive argument against democracy” is plainly sophistic
How so? It's sophistic to dismiss something as sophistic without showing why and how, the author here is being a hypocrite
>and arbitrarily excludes the possibility that democracy could receive spiritual sanction (2001: 73).
It can't for the reason that things which receive genuine spiritual sanction reflect the hierarchy of the cosmos and all existence and that in democracy there is no hierarchy of a qualified ruler ruling over the less qualified masses, instead the masses squabble with one another to temporarily exercise control like a bunch of plebians fighting over the steering wheel of a sailing ship, and the people who emerge in such circumstances are far from being the most qualified in terms of spiritual understanding and being rooted in a higher principle.

>>18472218
>Of course, he also conflates modern democracy (more clearly termed republicanism) with direct democracy (2001: 74)
They both suffer from similar flaws and his arguments show the inadequacies of both
>In modern democratic republics, power is not in fact, nor intended to be, vested in the majority, contra Guénon (2001: 72); they are specifically designed to avoid situations in which a majority can tyrannize a minority.
The people ruling over the majority as just as bad and as unqualified as the masses in these instances
Ironically, Guénon claims that democracy involves “the negation of the idea of an elite” (2001: 78) when one of the common criticisms of liberal democracy is that it causes power to be invested in an elite.
This is not a spiritual and intellectual elite, which is what Guenon was talking about, but an oligarchic elite of the banks, media class, military-industrialists and so on; which have no rooting in any higher principle, they are rootless cosmopolitans
>In fact, democracy is not contrary to the aristocratic principle at all, only to hereditary aristocracy, but not to a natural aristocracy of merit.
In democracy those that succeed to rulership are either those that can inspire and make the greatest impression upon the minds of the lowest common denominator of the masses, that is by appealing to those of a lower nature, or those that succeed are those who are selected by self-interest oligarchs, neither are fully qualified to rule.
>And I am not so moved by Guénon’s whining about the “relative and contingent” nature of hierarchies based on wealth, while he lauds the modern caste system, which was much more relative and contingent before British rule.
Only relative to how it was enforced under the British reorganization of aspects of Indian society, not relative in the sense of not based on higher principles

>>18472189
>>18472193
>>18472198
>>18472206
This thread is now blessed by Jamgön Ju Mipham Gyatso. Understanding that Consciousness and Emptiness are non-dual will rise from the ocean of nectar like a white lotus, but only if you post "/lit/ forced guenonfag to read a book" in this thread

>>18472226
>Understanding that Consciousness and Emptiness are non-dual
Nonsense, they are mutually exclusive, emptiness by definition has no awareness but consciousness is defined by sentience or awareness, so they can't be non-dual to each other.

>>18472224
good stuff guenonfag keep it up

>>18471475
Very cope

Bruh what the fuck is going on in this thread?
I just popped back in while on my work break to find this shitshow unfold.

>>18470132
>His imagination of an ideal, ancient past cannot allow him to consider the possibility that the so-called ‘traditional societies’ were never particularly pious in the first place. Ironically, to accept traditionalism requires one to commit to a very modern view of the world.

Romanticism towards the past is not a position of modernity, modernists have a certain tendency to take heritage from a time before the time before them(if that makes sense), to say that everything said before and among them was wrong and that the modern view is the true return to tradition(See Enlightenment thinkers tracing their intellectual heritage from the Romans, Protestants claiming to be the true successors to early Christianity and Wahhabis and Islamic modernists claiming to follow the True Salaf) Guenonians believe in a Golden Chain, the unsevered connection between generations, the passing of tradition, this is inherently anti-modernist.

>>18472218
>Complete bullshit, religious pluralism and freedom was always the norm throughout Indian history even though the Indians never had democracy until the modern era; and it was the norm for large slices of Chinese history as well who have never had liberal democracy.
This, lazy assumption OP made

>>18470130
>the world’s religions seem to disagree with one another. How can it be said that they are the same, or that they share a common origin?
Obviously because time changes rite and dogma, but the essence stays the same. Suggesting a common origin to religion is a better guess than any materialist sociologist can make on the origin of religion.

>>18470516
>Karl Popper was born in Vienna (then in Austria-Hungary) in 1902 to upper-middle-class parents. All of Popper's grandparents were Jewish, but they were not devout and as part of the cultural assimilation process the Popper family converted to Lutheranism before he was born[18][19] and so he received a Lutheran baptism.[20][21]
(((Open Society)))

>>18472715
>but the essence stays the same
How? Serious question.

>>18472741
uhh, through God's will?

>>18472724

>>18472760
I can't tell if you're joking here or not.

>>18472741
>How? Serious question.
Because the same primordial truth of non-dualism/transcendental-unity reveals itself at the start of the genuinely revealed religious traditions because they all descend from the same eternal truth, then this teaching is either concealed within esoteric groups (Sufism), taught relatively openly although still with some degree of esoteric initiation and secrecy (Hinduism, Taoism) or it's lost upon subsequent generations (Guenon seems to have believed this teaching in Christianity didn't survive fully to the modern day but other Trad authors disagree with him on this)

>>18470130
>enter big titty thread
>it's all asians

>>18471087
back to twitter

>>18472992
Cringe

>>18470206

>>18470130

OP is a fag and a hylic