Interview with John Burdett for Adam Dunn at cobrapost.com (page citations are from the US galley)
1. Please describe the climate of “functional barbarism” to which Sonchai alludes. [cannot find the page reference but the phrase is memorable]
“Functional barbarism” is Sonchai’s epithet for the modern age, globalism in the most general sense. To his Buddhist eyes, the whole construct of modern society, which of course includes the modern parts of Asia, is based not only on illusion in the sense that the material world is a mere trick of perspective, but on a kind of moral illusion: we Westerners tend to think of ourselves as humane, sensitive, educated, enlightened, generous, only wanting the best for the Third World etc. To Sonchai this is grotesque nonsense. Behind the undoubted success of applied science, our motives are essentially barbaric, and as a consequence we are producing a barbaric world driven by greed and militarism, despite all our good intentions.