4 ms·

I know this is off topic, but why the heck is it called Dharma? Just a cool sounding eastern word? It's like calling something 'The Gospel' or 'The New Testamen

I know this is off topic, but why the heck is it called Dharma? Just a cool sounding eastern word? It's like calling something 'The Gospel' or 'The New Testament' or the 'Quran Protocol'. I get that it's hip for westerners to yank Buddhist words, but this one really pushes my East Asian buttons. It doesn't even semantically make sense--in fact, it's a total antonym in many ways.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
marsrover 9y ago
> It's like calling something 'The Gospel' or 'The New Testament' or the 'Quran Protocol'. Yeah, I don't think that is true, at all. Dharma is a concept and you've listed books (or close enough to books). According to Wikipedia, > In certain contexts, dharma designates human behaviours considered necessary for order of things in the universe, principles that prevent chaos, behaviours and action necessary to all life in nature, society, family as well as at the individual level. With this definition, I think the author has given the project a fine name. Beyond that, I really think you're getting bent out of shape about something very insignificant and don't think this has anything to do with "westerners [yanking] Buddhist words". It's no different than naming something Apache, Vista, Yahoo, or Google. It's just a name. And just to add, also according to Wikipedia, > The antonym of dharma is adharma (Sanskrit: अधर्म), meaning that which is “not dharma”. As with dharma, the word adharma includes and implies many ideas; in common parlance, adharma means that which is against nature, immoral, unethical, wrong or unlawful. So, either you don't know what Dharma or Adharma is yourself or you just don't know what's an antonym.
- jmagoon 9y ago
  Different cultures have different definitions of the loanword. For East Asian Buddhists, Dharma generally means the teachings of the Buddha. As in the phrase, 'Turning the wheel of Dharma'. I guess if you pick that one section of wikipedia and say that's what it means, then sure. Dharma is also used by Hindus--I'm not Hindu, so I won't comment on what the word means for them. Saying "it's just a name" is a valueless claim. Of course it's just a name. Names have meaning, and in this case, the word has four thousand years of history in Asia. I just don't understand why this particular name was chosen, and why borrowing something fundamental to two major world religions is the logical choice for a protocol. "The Gospel", in my understanding of the Christian term, is also a concept, and not a book.
- ue_ 9y ago
  Although I agree with what you're saying, I personally find it a little irksome beacuse we're calling some kind of lending/contract/whatever system 'dharma', not that it's adharmic, but it's like when you see someone wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt, or buying soap embossed with "Fight Cub". Instead of focusing on the impermanence of phenomena, dispassion and the attainment of peace, we're... making contracts or borrowing or something? Yes, I'm being facetious, but I think GP has a point. It seems as though a cool sounding word was chosen and used for the fun of it. And this is what words become, it just feels somewhat irresponsible to start a potential change in culture to favour your hot new tech over sage advice to better the human condition. So while the original word isn't gone, it is always at risk, and with the loss of words comes blunted ability to explain concepts. So while I would not describe it as 'yanking', I would more describe it as 'eroding', which doesn't have to be a good thing or a bad thing, but it's happening. I'm hardly one to talk about "cultural appropriation", as nobody in particular really has claim to ownership of culture, but the naming does sit somewhat off with me, though it's just a personal preference of course. Adorno wrote about the commodification of art in The Culture Industry. Can the same be said about our ideas? Gramsci wrote about cultural hegemony, can the same be observed in our replacement of the meaning of words in this way?
- djtriptych 9y ago
  This is an oversimplified answer. Dharma certainly has religious significance to many millions of people. So, it's not "like any other name". It's evocative, and if you are unaware of just which feelings you are evoking, your product is at risk. Consider the case of the javascript test runner, Karma. It was originally named testacular. Possibly a play on spectacular, but also close enough to testicular to make female consumers of the library a bit uncomfortable. Ultimately, products have to be sold to someone, and this is a problem that makes that job harder. Dharma does carry a secular sanskrit definition, but sanskrit is not a precise written language like English. The meanings of words are often only discoverable in context, and approachable only with a prior familiarity of common illustrations and allegories depicting the concept. Westerners, unfamiliar with such depictions as the Bhagavad Gita, which MOST Indians are familiar with, are severely disadvantaged in discussing the true concept behind the word. Relying on a particular English transliteration is risky.
  - unabridged 9y ago
    This is kind of ironic since Karma is also a sanskrit word with religious significance. But at this point it has been fully accepted into english.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Dharma does carry a secular sanskrit definition, but sanskrit is not a precise written language like English. The meanings of words are often only discoverable in context, and approachable only with a prior familiarity of common illustrations and allegories depicting the concept. But for the part about it being different in this regard from English, this is probably true of Sanskrit. But that's not a different from English; lots of things in English require similar (local and cultural) contextual information to understand.
- Communitivity 9y ago
  I can see all of your points, and they're valid, but... > Yeah, I don't think that is true, at all. Dharma is a concept and you've listed books (or close enough to books). When someone labels something as cultural appropriation is not a matter of whether it is a true label or not, what matters is that some number of people from that culture consider it to be cultural appropriation. If they do, then it's a problem and the project owners need to decide if they'll change the name or not. At the beginning of the project, there's no large cost to changing the name, so I'd change it if it was my project. That said, coming up with names is hard. I've been told I'm good at it. Not sure if that's true, but here are three alternatives: Lifeline, EthereaL, Enablr, Xtension. The Dharma project owners may use any of these names to rename their project for free in perpetuity, if they wish. Post here if you do though, because otherwise I have ideas for several of them (not ethereum loans, or even loans).
novalis78 9y ago
Originally, "dharma" just meant "thing/object". More abstract (and derived therefrom) is a bifurcation into "true thing, real thing, truth, etc.." and on the other end of the spectrum "object, mental object, thought". Think of Carolus Linnaeus and not so much religion.
- jmagoon 9y ago
  I understand the historical origin (though claiming it has a single original meaning is an extremely strong position), but the common understanding for Buddhists refers to the teachings of the Buddha and the eightfold path, which is very much a religious term. I generally don't mind people taking things from religion in the punk rock sense, but I guess I just don't get this one.
- ue_ 9y ago
  The word seems to be used in both contexts in the Buddhist Pali canon, at least from what I can tell.
guruparan18 9y ago
I got reminded for Dharma initiative from Lost. It has quite a fan following off screen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma_Initiative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma_Initiative
dang 9y ago
I completely understand the feeling, but you're asking this on a site that uses the word 'karma' for internet points. That ship has sailed, the battle is lost, language just morphs in ways we don't like. Probably it always has.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

marsrover 9y ago

> It's like calling something 'The Gospel' or 'The New Testament' or the 'Quran Protocol'. Yeah, I don't think that is true, at all. Dharma is a concept and you've listed books (or close enough to books). According to Wikipedia, > In certain contexts, dharma designates human behaviours considered necessary for order of things in the universe, principles that prevent chaos, behaviours and action necessary to all life in nature, society, family as well as at the individual level. With this definition, I think the author has given the project a fine name. Beyond that, I really think you're getting bent out of shape about something very insignificant and don't think this has anything to do with "westerners [yanking] Buddhist words". It's no different than naming something Apache, Vista, Yahoo, or Google. It's just a name. And just to add, also according to Wikipedia, > The antonym of dharma is adharma (Sanskrit: अधर्म), meaning that which is “not dharma”. As with dharma, the word adharma includes and implies many ideas; in common parlance, adharma means that which is against nature, immoral, unethical, wrong or unlawful. So, either you don't know what Dharma or Adharma is yourself or you just don't know what's an antonym.

jmagoon 9y ago
Different cultures have different definitions of the loanword. For East Asian Buddhists, Dharma generally means the teachings of the Buddha. As in the phrase, 'Turning the wheel of Dharma'. I guess if you pick that one section of wikipedia and say that's what it means, then sure. Dharma is also used by Hindus--I'm not Hindu, so I won't comment on what the word means for them. Saying "it's just a name" is a valueless claim. Of course it's just a name. Names have meaning, and in this case, the word has four thousand years of history in Asia. I just don't understand why this particular name was chosen, and why borrowing something fundamental to two major world religions is the logical choice for a protocol. "The Gospel", in my understanding of the Christian term, is also a concept, and not a book.
ue_ 9y ago
Although I agree with what you're saying, I personally find it a little irksome beacuse we're calling some kind of lending/contract/whatever system 'dharma', not that it's adharmic, but it's like when you see someone wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt, or buying soap embossed with "Fight Cub". Instead of focusing on the impermanence of phenomena, dispassion and the attainment of peace, we're... making contracts or borrowing or something? Yes, I'm being facetious, but I think GP has a point. It seems as though a cool sounding word was chosen and used for the fun of it. And this is what words become, it just feels somewhat irresponsible to start a potential change in culture to favour your hot new tech over sage advice to better the human condition. So while the original word isn't gone, it is always at risk, and with the loss of words comes blunted ability to explain concepts. So while I would not describe it as 'yanking', I would more describe it as 'eroding', which doesn't have to be a good thing or a bad thing, but it's happening. I'm hardly one to talk about "cultural appropriation", as nobody in particular really has claim to ownership of culture, but the naming does sit somewhat off with me, though it's just a personal preference of course. Adorno wrote about the commodification of art in The Culture Industry. Can the same be said about our ideas? Gramsci wrote about cultural hegemony, can the same be observed in our replacement of the meaning of words in this way?
djtriptych 9y ago
This is an oversimplified answer. Dharma certainly has religious significance to many millions of people. So, it's not "like any other name". It's evocative, and if you are unaware of just which feelings you are evoking, your product is at risk. Consider the case of the javascript test runner, Karma. It was originally named testacular. Possibly a play on spectacular, but also close enough to testicular to make female consumers of the library a bit uncomfortable. Ultimately, products have to be sold to someone, and this is a problem that makes that job harder. Dharma does carry a secular sanskrit definition, but sanskrit is not a precise written language like English. The meanings of words are often only discoverable in context, and approachable only with a prior familiarity of common illustrations and allegories depicting the concept. Westerners, unfamiliar with such depictions as the Bhagavad Gita, which MOST Indians are familiar with, are severely disadvantaged in discussing the true concept behind the word. Relying on a particular English transliteration is risky.
- unabridged 9y ago
  This is kind of ironic since Karma is also a sanskrit word with religious significance. But at this point it has been fully accepted into english.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Dharma does carry a secular sanskrit definition, but sanskrit is not a precise written language like English. The meanings of words are often only discoverable in context, and approachable only with a prior familiarity of common illustrations and allegories depicting the concept. But for the part about it being different in this regard from English, this is probably true of Sanskrit. But that's not a different from English; lots of things in English require similar (local and cultural) contextual information to understand.
Communitivity 9y ago
I can see all of your points, and they're valid, but... > Yeah, I don't think that is true, at all. Dharma is a concept and you've listed books (or close enough to books). When someone labels something as cultural appropriation is not a matter of whether it is a true label or not, what matters is that some number of people from that culture consider it to be cultural appropriation. If they do, then it's a problem and the project owners need to decide if they'll change the name or not. At the beginning of the project, there's no large cost to changing the name, so I'd change it if it was my project. That said, coming up with names is hard. I've been told I'm good at it. Not sure if that's true, but here are three alternatives: Lifeline, EthereaL, Enablr, Xtension. The Dharma project owners may use any of these names to rename their project for free in perpetuity, if they wish. Post here if you do though, because otherwise I have ideas for several of them (not ethereum loans, or even loans).

novalis78 9y ago

Originally, "dharma" just meant "thing/object". More abstract (and derived therefrom) is a bifurcation into "true thing, real thing, truth, etc.." and on the other end of the spectrum "object, mental object, thought". Think of Carolus Linnaeus and not so much religion.

jmagoon 9y ago
I understand the historical origin (though claiming it has a single original meaning is an extremely strong position), but the common understanding for Buddhists refers to the teachings of the Buddha and the eightfold path, which is very much a religious term. I generally don't mind people taking things from religion in the punk rock sense, but I guess I just don't get this one.
ue_ 9y ago
The word seems to be used in both contexts in the Buddhist Pali canon, at least from what I can tell.

guruparan18 9y ago

I got reminded for Dharma initiative from Lost. It has quite a fan following off screen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma_Initiative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma_Initiative

dang 9y ago

I completely understand the feeling, but you're asking this on a site that uses the word 'karma' for internet points. That ship has sailed, the battle is lost, language just morphs in ways we don't like. Probably it always has.