authenticity and authority

Whatever my disagreements with the general thrust of post-World War II French existentialism, one of the best lessons to come out of that school of thought can be phrased this way: "Don't be a sheep."

A paper I just found online offers a good reason why. The writer says:

[It] is my contention that an idealized Asian version of Zen has been uncritically accepted in America and that it is a source of problems here.

It's not just theists who drink the Kool-Aid and defend the indefensible. Interesting and disturbing read. While the paper's focus is on Zen institutions in America, the larger theme is, I think, that authority is a tool that can be far too easily abused, as ongoing priest scandals in the Catholic Church would indicate. We could expand this notion to cover other walks of life: politics, academics, etc.


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