The Buddha was a devoted nationalist: Buddhist nationalism,ressentiment, and defending Buddhism in Myanmar

Since 2012, Buddhist nationalist movements – especially the 969 movement and Ma Ba Tha – have emerged in Burma/Myanmar seeking to defend Buddhism against mainly the Muslim minority, with monks delivering nationalist anti-Muslim sermons to huge audiences. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how a discriminatory nationalist agenda can – by appealing to the common trope of Buddhism-in-danger – appear to be justified to Buddhists. Based mainly on nationalist sermons, as well as on fieldwork and nationalist publications, this article examines discourse on the Buddha as a nationalist. First, it argues that Burmese Buddhist nationalism, analytically, should be understood as a ressentiment ideological discourse that also informs a Buddhist-nationalist discipline claimed to bring karmic merit. Second, it traces the roots of this ideology to the colonial period. Third, the article outlines and seeks to define how ‘Buddhist nationalism’ should be understood in an emic sense.     

Karma accounts: supplementary thoughts on Theravāda,Madhyamaka, theosophy,and Protestant Buddhism

This article supplements Jens Schlieter's discussion of the cognitive metaphor of a karmic bank-account, adding selected points on karma monetary/fiscal metaphors as preserved chiefly in Pāli and Sanskrit sources. It explores various strands of the history of South Asian religions where distinct economic metaphors for karma come closer to the late ‘bank-account of karma’: i.e., the Vedic ‘three debts,’ a Hindu concept of God as accountant, the varieties of weighing the (mis)deeds, the Buddhist monastic status of debt and fiscal transactions, the equivalence of karma and debt as discussed by Madhyamaka thinkers, and others. While endorsing Schlieter's point, it also takes into account such modern Western sources as early theosophical discourse and ‘Protestant Buddhism.’     

The study of religion in West Africa 1959–1969

Messianic Judaism is an American-born movement of congregations that hold evangelical beliefs and follow Jewish practices. Scholars have viewed it chiefly as a new religious movement (NRM) or a controversial branch of Judaism. As a result, they have downplayed or ignored its largely evangelical Christian base. The first study of ‘gentile believers,’ this article argues that Messianic Judaism is best understood through the lens of religious seeking, a trend usually associated with alternative spiritualities and still under-theorized vis-à-vis conservative Christians, like evangelicals. First, it traces why Messianic Judaism appeals to growing numbers of North American Christians. Second, and more broadly, it argues that seeking is a spiritually satisfying religious practice that, for evangelicals, reiterates central themes of born-again life. Their experiences also clarify the limits that may constrain religious seeking; they seek to deepen and actualize a biblical worldview in religious sites viewed as proximate to their own.     

The Position of Metapsychology in the Formation of Psychoanalytic Knowledge and the Concept of “I” (Ego)

Psychoanalysis is unique in that competence in the field can be achieved only through applying the method to oneself. Different psychoanalytic schools differ in their understanding of the unconscious, about how to approach it, or how to define the specificity of the psychoanalytic interaction. Consequently, there are differences in the criteria for the definition of the ‘good-enough analysis’. There are many different opinions about how to select candidates, organise the curriculum and length of training. To define psychoanalytic talent is difficult; the uncertainty in the definition of criteria to use for selection is great; the problematic overlap between personal analysis and training is constantly present; to achieve conditions in which learning and creativity can develop is complicated by trainee, supervisor and their relationship to the Institute. Confrontations about training are often heated and divergent, as well as repetitive. Systematic studies about psychoanalytic education are very few. After a short discussion of the different concerns about selection, personal versus training analysis and the ambiguities of the supervisory situation, the author gives a review of three studies on how psychoanalytic education—as viewed by trainers and trainees—is conducted and experienced at the Swedish Psychoanalytic Institute. Training is felt to be well grounded in theory and tradition; nonetheless most do not have a sufficiently clear picture of training as a whole. Both candidates and trainers see the development of a psychoanalytic identity as the goal of training, where the competencies to be acquired are equated with important personality qualities. The candidates have a feeling of “being chosen"; they “wish to belong to a group who share an interest and fascination for psychoanalytic thinking and theory". All praise the warm and open atmosphere, and the mutual and continuous evaluations and the deep involvement of all. The surge to be rooted in an overreaching psychoanalytic ethic, the culture of gratitude within the Institute and the devotion to the task to train psychoanalytic clinicians for the future may preserve an idealised image of psychoanalysis and the fantasy that psychoanalysts are exceptional persons and give a mystifying colour to the psychoanalytic profession. This might also stand in the way of a more radical change in the traditions of training—according to the rather drastically changing climate in which psychoanalysts of the future will have to work.     

Beyond Total Effects: Exploring the Interplay of Personality and Attitudes in Affecting Turnout in the 2009 German Federal Election

This article addresses the role of personality traits in shaping electoral participation. Utilizing data from a survey conducted after the 2009 German federal election, we demonstrate that agreeableness and emotional stability increase electoral participation. Yet, the main contribution of this article is to link personality traits to attitudinal predictors of turnout. First, we demonstrate that attitudinal variables, including party identification, civic duty, political interest, and internal and external efficacy, serve as intervening variables that mediate the impact of personality on turnout. Second, we show that personality traits exhibit conditioning effects by increasing or decreasing the impact of attitudinal factors on electoral participation. By and large, the evidence suggests that openness, agreeableness, and extraversion render attitudes (somewhat) less powerful in affecting turnout while conscientiousness and emotional stability increase the impact of certain attitudes. Third, we put indirect and conditioning effects together and find that emotional stability and conscientiousness exhibit particularly interesting patterns of effects: They shape attitudes in a way conducive to higher turnout and make these attitudes more powerful in affecting voter participation.     

Typical Development of Roles and the Impact of Schizophrenia on the Development of Adult Social Roles

Abstract

This chapter is a literature review that explores the nature of interaction between parents and children with emotional disorders, issues between parents and professionals when children are psychiatrically hospitalized, and the nature of parent involvement in child psychiatric settings.     

Index to Volume 112

For various nonnormal distributions, the power of the Student t test can be increased if continuous measures are transformed to ranks before the test is performed. The power of the test can also be increased almost as much and, even more for some distributions, if measures are replaced by dichotomous variables with the values 0 and 1, instead of ranks. Similarly, the power of a significance test of correlation can be increased if scores are transformed to ranks, that is, with the use of the Spearman rank correlation method. Power can also be increased almost as much and in some cases even more if dichotomous variables are introduced, that is, if the phi coefficient is used as a measure of correlation.     

The military chaplain: a study in ambiguity

This article looks at the ambiguities in the role of the military chaplain from three points of view. The first considers the nature of the constituency within which the chaplain ministers, paying particular attention to the degree – or otherwise – of secularisation and the reasons for this. The second examines the role of the chaplain in relation to the two institutions which he or she serves (i.e. church and state) and the tensions that emerge as a result. These are articulated in terms of ‘an angle of eschatological tension’. The third is concerned with ‘the roles within the role’ – that is the variety of tasks that make up the role of chaplaincy and the degree to which these are compatible with each other. The significance of theology in the resolution of the ensuing issues is set against diminishing societal resources in terms of religious literacy.