Something About My Personal History: Part Three

One issue that I have been wrestling with over the years is that that of Cultural Appropriation. That is, how can I possible have any appreciation of what Daoism is all about without speaking Chinese, being Asian, or, having ever lived in China? Moreover, isn't there something inherently wrong about claiming any affiliation with a tradition from another culture?

As I see it, where one falls on this question comes down to whether one views religion as being inherently universal or bound up with a specific cultural identity. This insight came to me when I was attending a Roman Catholic mass. The priest was waxing eloquent about how much he enjoyed the Corpus Christi celebrations of his childhood. I grew up in a nominally Protestant, but totally non-religious family so what he was describing was as alien as if a Hindu was describing a festival in favour of the god Durga. What the experience was really bringing home to me was that I simply did not have any religious background at all---Christian, Daoist, Buddhist, Hindu, or anything else.

I understand what the priest was getting at, however. The overwhelming majority of believers are people who were simply born into a faith and never had to put any thought or effort into learning about it. It was just "there" like the sorts of food they eat and the language. But I don't think anyone who takes religion seriously would want to find themselves in the position where they are saying that all religion is, is a tradition. If so, it begins to sound dangerously like superstition and nothing else.

A very closely related issue revolves around the issue of orthodoxy. Some people feel that they can come up with very hard and fast rules about what is and is not "real" Daoism, and anyone who fails that test is at best deluding themselves and at worst a charlatan. The problem that I see with this sort of argument is that I have never been able to find any really significant meaning to the word "orthodox". In my study of religion I've repeatedly found a lot more significant difference between believers within a religious faith than "insiders" are usually willing to admit. And, strictly speaking, each and every one of those people believes that they are "orthodox" in one way or another. (That is to say, "heterdoxy" or "heresy" are inherently negative terms that no one uses to label themselves.) So the term "orthodox" is simply a way of saying "Yeah for me and mine" and "heterdox" is a way of saying "Boo for thee and thine".

And related to the question of orthodoxy is that of tradition. As I mentioned before, Eastern teachers often create very long lineage charts to show that their tradition stretches back to antiquity. The problem with this is that contrary to these claims, this is simply not historically true. There had to have been gaps in the chain of transmission. So what happened when the chain broke down? The fact of the matter is that in all religious traditions there have been charismatic individuals who started traditions either by themselves or as the result of a collective decision by a group. And if you accept that someone in the distant past created a tradition, then the question arises about why can't someone do the same thing today?

The problem is that once one chips away at the inviolability of historical tradition, one ends up opening a Pandora's box of potential innovation. That way leads to cults, New Age chicanery, and God knows what else. I understand this point, but on the other hand there are also significant problems with the status quo too. First of all, there are people like myself who were simply not raised in any religious tradition at all yet feel a strong impulse towards something. I might be white and speak English, but I am no more a cultural Christian than I am a Daoist. Am I supposed to stay on the outside of religion for the rest of my life simply because I didn't have the good luck to be born into a family with a religious tradition? Secondly, the existing religious structures of the world are falling to pieces because of their insane inability to adapt to a rapidly changing society.

My feeling is that we are going through a period of rapid religious change and in such a period we have to accept that there is going to be a huge amount of wild experimentation. Once we settle down and have a mature world culture (in tune with Mother Nature), then the good parts of this spiritual mix-master will survive an evolutionary sifting out and the bad stuff will disappear into the compost heap of history. In the interim, I respectfully stand on my right to do what makes sense to me and my own personal history.

So a Daoist I am.