[Buddha-l] A voice from the not so far past--1897-1993

[jkirk]

Mortified by what our government is still promoting and doing, I thought of 
quoting one of our seers from a previous period:

"At every significant point where there is an economic factor to be faced, 
..."ideology" produces an "illusion."...Where empires are striving for world 
markets, [we] are "ideologically" inclined to ponder the ways of "universal 
spirit" [to which I add: in our contemporary scene, the new-agey calls for 
universality and spirituality as cure-alls for world chaos. JK]
From: Kenneth Burke,  _A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric of Motives_. 
Cleveland and New York: Meridian Books. World Publishing Company, 1962. 
p.632).

Kenneth Burke wasn't a Buddhist, but he cited Buddhism a few times in his 
writings, not necessarily in connection with the point he made here.
But I always felt that he was a Buddhist at heart. His work strove for 
facing realities as against living by commercial manufactured illusions, in 
particular those illusions constructed by ideologists to conceal the 
economic realities of global capitalism and exploitation-- in other words, 
the prime propaganda of the US government today.  How many of his literary 
compeers were commenting on the striving after world markets in his day?
Reading him, I find, is often inspiriting in these times of darkness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Burke for a quickie look, + much else.

Joanna