Western Buddhism & Spiritual Hedonism

In his words 14

“Western Buddhism functions as the perfect ideological supplement to global capitalism.”
~0:00 A Lacanian Plea for Fundamentalism · Western Buddhism as capitalist ideology

“What I call Western Buddhism: at the very moment European capitalism triumphs at the level of infrastructure, Asiatic thought is establishing itself as the hegemonic ideology of global capitalism.”
~0:00 A Lacanian Plea for Fundamentalism · the paradox of Western Buddhism's ideological function

“if max weber to rewrite his legendary book on protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism today, the title of the book would have been the taoist or buddhist ethic and the spirit of global capitalism”
5:55 The Buddhist Ethic and the Spirit of Global Capitalism · Western Buddhism as ideology of capitalism

The stories that teach it

the jokes and anecdotes he reaches for when he works in this idea, ranked by how many of its talks they turn up in; each card is one story, with every retelling on its page

example · in 11 of its talks

Daisetz Suzuki's Knife

Žižek quotes Zen master D.T. Suzuki, who justified killing in war by claiming enlightenment allows one to see the 'dancing knife' as a phenomenon without substantial reality, thus bypassing ethical guilt.

anecdote · in 12 of its talks

Niels Bohr's horseshoe

Niels Bohr had a horseshoe on his country-house door; when a scientist friend asked why a scientist would keep a superstitious charm, Bohr answered 'I was told it works even if you don't believe in it', Žižek's model for ideology today.

anecdote · in 8 of its talks

Heydrich playing Beethoven string quartets

Reinhard Heydrich, organizer of the Wannsee Conference, played violin and held private string quartet evenings with his SS friends playing late Beethoven, an 'ontological scandal' showing that authentic aesthetic appreciation and absolute evil can coexist.

example · in 7 of its talks

Kung Fu Panda

The film mixes orientalist mysticism with cynical vulgarity, teaching that even if you make fun of ideology, it still functions, illustrating how modern ideology reproduces itself through cynicism.

example · in 7 of its talks

Dating agencies: 'find love without the fall'

French and American dating agency advertisements promise busy women that they can 'find yourself in love without the fall', for Žižek the very thing these agencies eliminate is what makes love love.

anecdote · in 7 of its talks

Himmler and the Bhagavad Gita

Himmler kept the Bhagavad Gita on him as the answer to how to murder Jews without becoming beasts, 'acting through a distance', doing one's duty detached from the deed.

Himmler's Posen Speech6 Santa Claus Belief6 Benjamin Libet's Experiment5 Da Vinci Code / Da Vinci, sex displaced onto Jesus5 Apartheid justified in multiculturalist terms5 coffee without cream / coffee without milk7 Remote-controlled rat5 Fight Club: Ed Norton beats himself before his boss4 Friend's hamster as fetish for dead wife4 Machines having sex / stamina training unit4

Where it comes up 65

119 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there

The Buddhist Ethic and the Spirit of Global Capitalism2012 · 1:09:56

3:26 Western Buddhism

… th what may be dismissed, but i don't think it's as simple as that, as some kind of a comical western copy of authentic buddhism, so-called western buddhism.

~16:17 Anātman

old free self. you don't really existentially accept it. and here again we come to buddhism. because metzinger, who is? a serious scientist, not some kind of a shitty new ager like those who claim, you know, the tauao of quantum physics. we are not …

49:00 compassionate war

… suzuki and some other japanese buddhists introduced the wonderful term of compassionate war.

+3 more in this talk

On the Desert of Post-Ideology2012-10-02 · 1:59:31

35:20 Western Buddhism

… I think that precisely what is predominant ideology telling us? It's what I like to call this enlightened Western Buddhism, you know.

1:31:10 compassionate war

… But let me assure you this problem was solved long ago with the wonderful notion of compassionate war, you know like you can also do you can do all the killing but with compassion and so on and so on.

16:37 acting with a distance

… And then God basically gives him a nice lesson of this famous act without being fully involved, no? And of this what we in the West identify, that's another point, does it really hold or not, as Oriental ontology.

+3 more in this talk

Debunking new-age spirituality | Slavoj Žižek, Rupert Sheldrake, John Vervaeke and more2023 · 29:04

7:21 Western Buddhism

… and i think unfortunately, and my japanese friends even agree with me here, that that's the case with so-called western buddhism, that's in the same there.

9:34 nirvana

… you must go through that, they have another name, you can call it nirvana, whatever, the zero experience, enlightenment, where you see there is no substantial reality.

9:53 cosmic dance

… you are just an empty brain observing the crazy dance of phenomena.

+3 more in this talk

Why Todestrieb is a Philosophical Concept2009-03-06 · 1:29:44

7:15 Western Buddhism

… today's ethical options? It seems to fit three of its main versions: liberal tolerant hedonism, immoral ethics, and what I ironically call Western Buddhism.

7:29 slightly spiritually enlightened consumerism

… You know, you can understand again, be faithful to your desire, as this general vague ethics which we have today, a kind of Dalai Lama meets Hollywood ethics, you know, this attitude of—we really live in strange times where we are no longer interpellated, addressed by ideology with the command "s …

50:16 samsara

… It's how did the fall into so-called Samsara, the wheel of life, occur? That is to say, the question that we should raise is the exact opposite of the main Buddhist concern: how can we …

Welcome to the Desert of Post-Ideology2012-08-23 · 1:00:34

59:07 Western Buddhism

… And I think that like Western Buddhism is one big fat hamster.

43:21 compassionate war

… And then Suzuki proposed the notion of a compassionate killing and so on and so on.

38:49 thoughts without thinker

… n Buddhist meditation this radical Satori, Nirvana, however it's called, aware as you know you reach the stage of-that's one of the phrases-thoughts without thinker.