Year

1936

Text

Type

Publication

Contributors (1)

Subjects

Chronology Entries (1)

#	Year	Text	Linked Data
1	1936	Babbitt, Irving. Buddha and the Occident [ID D28811]. … The chief obstacle to a better understanding between East and West in particular is a certain type of Occidental who is wont to assume almost unconsciously that the East has everything to learn from the West and little or nothing to give in return. One may distinguish three main forms of this assumption of superiority on the part of the Occidental : first, the assumption of racial superiority, and almost mystical faith in the pre-eminent virtues of the white peoples (especially Nordic blonds) as compared with the brown or yellow races ; secondly, the assumption of superiority based on the achievements of physical science and the type of 'progress' it has promoted, a tendency to regard as a general inferiority the inferiority of the Oriental in material efficiency ; thirdly, the assumption of religious superiority, less marked now than formerly, the tendency to dismiss non-Christian Asiatics 'en masse' as 'heathen', notably in Buddhism, only in so far as they conform to the pattern set by Christianity. Asiatics for their part are ready enough to turn to account the discoveries of Western science, but they are even less disposed than they were before the Great War to admit the moral superiority of the West… No country, again, not even ancient Greece, has been more firmly convinced than China that it alone was civilized. A statesman of the Tang period addressed to the throne a memorial against Buddhism which begins as follows : "This Buddha was a barbarian". One of the traditional names of China, "All-under-Heaven" (Poo-Tien-shia), is itself sufficiently eloquent… The problems that arise today in connection with the relations of East and West are far more complex than they were in Graeco-Roman times. The East now means not merely the Near East, but even more the Far East. Moreover, the East, both Near and Far, is showing itself less inclined than formerly to bow before the imperialistic aggression of the Occident 'in patient deep disdain'… The comparative absence of dogma in the humanism of Confucius and the religion of Buddha can scarcely be regarded as an inferiority… On the basis of evidence both psychological and historical one must conclude that if the Far East has been comparatively free from casuistry, obscurantism, and intolerance, the credit is due in no small measure to Buddha. It is so difficult to have a deep conviction and at the same time to be tolerant that many have deemed the feat impossible…	Person: Babbitt, Irving