White Saviorism and the Hippie Trail

Or, using "Eastern" Religions and postcolonial landscapes as a playground for self development.

Since even before the 1960s, the fascination (and horror) directed towards the landscape of the "Eastern Religions" has been a fascination for white onlookers. Through various points of colonial contact, as with the British Raj and the development of Eugenics and Orientalism as then-historical fields of study born from a shared philosophy of race, the history of Western understanding of Asian cultures has been marred by a number of racist presuppositions. Importantly, as it pertains to the "Eastern Religions" primarily Hinduism and Buddhism - though to a lesser extent practices of Shinto Animism, Zoroastrianism and others - the perception is that these are practices that can be freely incorporated into those of Western practices, nit-picked for appealing symbols and imagery.

By the 1960s, this principle became crystalized with western occult practices and other Western religious and countercultural beliefs in the...well, during the counterculture movement. Herein, Asia was seen as a land of enlightened gurus and ascetics, not a real place, but a playground through which well-to-do white people desperate to seem worldly could go and study under the "masters". Ultimately, this cannot be taken as an equal cultural exchange, even now, as the racist archetype of the "Eastern Master" remains a dehumanizing one, and the underlying belief of Western practitioners of these faiths typically is one of entitlement. This is not a set of assumptions condusive to learning.

This is by design, of course. It hardly deigns restating the fashion and extent to which "Eastern" religious and cultural symbols, practices and deities have been freely disassociated from their original contexts by Western "spiritual" practitioners. This monicker, "spiritual", is also used in a quite offensive context, as it posits that Eastern religious practices are somehow lesser in orthodoxy or respect than the Abrahamic religions. Though the common definition is that spirituality is a more individualized practice of religion, the way that it is used with respect to nonwestern or non-Abrahamic religions carries a diminutive connotation.

We still see this reflected in culture. Western perception posits that Eastern Religions are somehow "freer" more "expressive" and somehow don't carry the same cultural weight as Abrahamic religions, though this belies a deep lack of familiarity or care for the historical contexts and often-problematic cultural elements therein. By simplifying Hinduism or Buddhism down to colorful, foreign spectacle, it seems to imply that, in applying Western study to these traditions, one can understand them in a more superior fashion to those from within the culture. This pervading sense of superiority exists in much traditional Orientalist literature of the 20th century, critical analyses that overcompare Eastern moral and value systems to those of, Christianity or ancient Hellenistic faith.

Take me back home!

Oh, oops, nothing here.