American Academy of Religion 2009, Day 1

The first presenter on this panel was very well meaning and had some mildly interesting things to say, but as with much of the “Buddhism and Science” dialog, it was mostly a bunch of “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Beginning with a quote from Lopez’s new book on the subject, Dr. Cho tried to argue for a slightly more positive reading of the exchange between Buddhism and science than Lopez allows for, but ended with a warning about “the prison that the label of science creates.” It seemed obvious that the talk was well-meaning, but the content was a string of sentences full of jargon, most of which I found my Orwellian self translating into simpler, clearer, language. (In case you haven’t read it, Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” is a must read for any writer. In it, he argues for clear speech and writing over convoluted “academic” English.)