Graham Priest

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386 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Mar 2020 last heard Mar 2020

Graham Priest’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Elucidations · Elucidations Episode 124: Graham Priest discusses Buddhist political philosophy · 21 Mar 2020 podcast

So often

If you want to change things, you're gonna have to worry about the backlash.

Now, we know that without some kind of organization

probably central organisation or coordinated organisation, you've got buckler's chance against a coordinated backlash.

So you need this if you're going to fight a backlash.

Now here's the catch twenty-two.

You need the central organisation, otherwise you can't get there.

But once you've got the centralised organisation, you have this feature of power structures that it's going to start to run for its own benefit.

So you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.

I don't think there's any easy solution to this question.

No, I don't think that necessarily follows, although it might be true, and I think for a start one really needs to draw a distinction between the philosophy and the religion.

You're right, as a philosophy, there's no god in Buddhism, and so there's no sense in which there can be divine revelation.

And uh in one of the sutras, the Kalama Sutra, the Buddha says, Don't believe something just because someone tells you, some priest tells you, because it says so in a sacred text.

You know, you m make your mind up.

Figure it out for yourself.

Well, it's a bit more nuanced than that, but you know, that's the bottom line.

So there is this kind of don't believe it just because someone in authority tells you.

You go and see whether it makes sense for yourself.

Okay, that's the philosophy.

I mean, it must be said that Buddhism as a religion is enormously hierarchical and top down, and uh y the you know, a novice monk actually has to, you know, do what the head of the temple says and uh don't try sort of arguing too much with them about it, otherwise you might not get very far into pre certain stuff.

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