134: Elon Musk, Buddhabro? (w/Ann Gleig and Brenna Artinger)

Elon, Elon, who are you? Where is your essential self? Where are you as you soar through your space fantasies, as you track and hedge and bet your billions, wondering if all those emeralds gave you an unfair advantage in life? 

What is the weather like on Mars? Have you found yourself yet, hiding in  millions of lines of self-driving code? Have you found your own face as you surveil your quivering workforce, bunking in the San Francisco headquarters you stopped paying rent on?

Is the real you playing endless video games, getting stoned with Joe Rogan, making an eleventh baby with a fourth partner? Do you feel  you’re connected to everything when you post at the speed of light?

As Musk teeters on the brink of ego death and financial annihilation, Matthew wonders about his inner life, especially after he dropped a Buddhist-type Easter Egg in a tweeted photo of his bedside table.

Is Elon Musk a Buddha-bro?  No surprise if he was.  After all, a big chunk of American  Buddhism lines up perfectly with Musk's reactionary centrism, performative transcendence, bog-standard conspiracism, and culture war shitposting.

Here to help us understand this strange world—and what kind of Buddhism could make Elon Musk a better human, if he gave a shit—are Dr. Ann Gleig, Aassociate Professor of religion and cultural studies at University of Central Florida, and independent scholar Brenna Artinger. We’ll be focusing on their awesome paper, “#BuddhistCultureWars: BuddhaBros, Alt-Right Dharma, and Snowflake Sanghas,”

Show Notes

Adam Jensen | Deus Ex Wiki 

THE CALIFORNIAN IDEOLOGY

Mindfulness in Silicon Valley | Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School 

#BuddhistCultureWars: BuddhaBros, Alt-Right Dharma, and Snowflake Sanghas 

Reactionary White Buddhists Have Joined The Fight Against Critical Race Theory 

Why Are White Buddhists So Angry? 

A Murky Scandal Involving a Powerful Punk Rock Dharma Teacher Is Dividing a Major Buddhist Community

Leaked Internal Report: Famous Buddhist Leader Noah Levine Was Accused of Rape and Assault

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