Really cool post! Two things I was thinking about while reading:
I feel that framing this in terms of experiential vs. theological somewhat overlooks the middle ground between these two extremes. As a Buddhist, I have come to think that insight is neither experience (as we normally understand it) nor reason, but rather some type of tacit knowledge. Experience and theological reasoning may both *lead* to the development of that knowledge, but that knowledge isn't in itself experiential or rational. For example, the experience of riding a bike and reasoning about the mechanics of bike riding both lead to knowing how to ride a bike, but knowing how to ride is not an experience nor a set of doctrines/arguments/propositions.
Following that, I am not a fan of the individualist, take-what-you-want approach that is so common in modern Buddhist and spiritual circles (and I also think it's problematic that those two are now seen as almost entirely interchangeable, but that's a separate topic). This type of practice is focused on chasing pleasant experiences, not developing understanding, which requires using experience to better understand a "communal" framework. However, I don't think that framing the alternative as communal would be quite right either. Buddhists take refuge in the sangha, which, on the surface, seems like it would be communal, but there isn't really a communal imperative there. In the sense we'd tend to think of it, Buddhism is entirely individualistic — one of the earliest suttas, the Rhinoceros Sutta, implores practitioners to go out on their own like rhinoceroses if they can't find good spiritual friends. While the Buddha did praise spiritual friendship as the whole of the path, that friendship isn't really based on the types of communal feelings you discussed. So in that sense, Buddhism remains entirely focused on the individual, but not on individual *experience*, but rather on individual understanding as approached *through* the teachings of the commune. Consequently, the individualistic turn you mention seems to be not so much a turn, as the individualistic approach was already there 2,600 years ago. But that's a fairly minor point, and I do agree in general that things have taken a more individualist bent.
Really cool post! Two things I was thinking about while reading:
I feel that framing this in terms of experiential vs. theological somewhat overlooks the middle ground between these two extremes. As a Buddhist, I have come to think that insight is neither experience (as we normally understand it) nor reason, but rather some type of tacit knowledge. Experience and theological reasoning may both *lead* to the development of that knowledge, but that knowledge isn't in itself experiential or rational. For example, the experience of riding a bike and reasoning about the mechanics of bike riding both lead to knowing how to ride a bike, but knowing how to ride is not an experience nor a set of doctrines/arguments/propositions.
Following that, I am not a fan of the individualist, take-what-you-want approach that is so common in modern Buddhist and spiritual circles (and I also think it's problematic that those two are now seen as almost entirely interchangeable, but that's a separate topic). This type of practice is focused on chasing pleasant experiences, not developing understanding, which requires using experience to better understand a "communal" framework. However, I don't think that framing the alternative as communal would be quite right either. Buddhists take refuge in the sangha, which, on the surface, seems like it would be communal, but there isn't really a communal imperative there. In the sense we'd tend to think of it, Buddhism is entirely individualistic — one of the earliest suttas, the Rhinoceros Sutta, implores practitioners to go out on their own like rhinoceroses if they can't find good spiritual friends. While the Buddha did praise spiritual friendship as the whole of the path, that friendship isn't really based on the types of communal feelings you discussed. So in that sense, Buddhism remains entirely focused on the individual, but not on individual *experience*, but rather on individual understanding as approached *through* the teachings of the commune. Consequently, the individualistic turn you mention seems to be not so much a turn, as the individualistic approach was already there 2,600 years ago. But that's a fairly minor point, and I do agree in general that things have taken a more individualist bent.