Daoism and the Dominant Paradigm

At work the other day I was asked to cover up some furniture with so that when some contractors came in to do some construction work they would be protected with dust. It wasn't a terribly difficult job, but it put me in a totally foul mood. This carried on with me for the rest of the shift, over the night, and on into breakfast the next morning.

I mentioned my emotions to my partner, Misha, and we talked about them over bacon and eggs. We came to the conclusion that the reason why I was so annoyed was because I had been asked to do a half-assed job that served almost no useful purpose, and, which resulted in totally unnecessary waste to the planet---and there was effectively nothing at all I could do about it.

The thing is that I was asked to use plastic film to cover up the stuff. And plastic film is useless at this job---even though most people use it. It doesn't drape properly, it is repelled by static electricity, and, it is so light that it gets moved even by the slightest air current. You can't tie it up with string, it is slippery so it slides off items easily, masking tape doesn't stick well to it, and, it actually attracts dust which doesn't stick to it (that's a neat trick)---which means that when you take it off a piece of furniture the dust will slide off it onto what you are trying to protect. For these reasons, I never ever use it for this purpose at home. Instead, I have a heavy-canvas drop cloth that I've used for years. It has none of the problems I've mentioned above, and on hot sunny days I can clean it off with soap, a deck brush, and, a garden hose.

So part of my funk was just about the half-assed, ridiculous job I had been asked to do.

Another part of this exercise in futility was the fact that once the work was done the plastic film would be removed and tossed into the garbage, and from there into a landfill. I'm a bit of an expert on our local municipal government as well as a manual labour drone, so I know about how much time, money, and, political anguish goes into solid waste issues in my town. So the idea that we would create another bit of stupid garbage in order to just go through the motions of protecting some not-terribly valuable (and easily cleaned) furniture just seemed irritating as Hell. 

My partner Misha took this annoyance and ramped it up a notch by pointing out that there is no sense at all blaming any of the people involved in this process. Each one of them exists in a system of thought and organization that creates a logical justification for the decision to do something inherently wasteful with only marginal utility. That is, the idea that the cost of disposal and the impact on the environment are rarely part of the design criteria of any decision. And, that in many cases it is more important to be seen to care about an issue than it is to actually accomplish anything. Until society decides to put an actual cost on environmental destruction, it is called an "externality" and ignored. And, in order to ensure the smooth functioning of a large, horizontally-organized institution, it is very important to let each individual know that their concerns are being considered by management. This means that people are rarely told "No, that's a dumb idea" and instead are told "OK, I'll get someone to do that right away."

The really annoying thing about all of this is the fact that as a species we are skating very close to the edge of an existential environmental disaster. I personally believe that we have already overshot the carrying capacity of the earth  and we are causing a lot of very expensive and deadly extreme weather due to anthropogenic climate change. And yet, none of this seems to filter down to the level of ordinary human behaviour around things like construction. There is nothing at all like a consensus around having to get "all hands on deck" to save humanity, instead it's just "the same old, same old." Until the government makes a collective decision to take climate change seriously and mobilize society to the same extent it did to fight World War Two, it is ridiculous to expect most ordinary people to just spontaneously "get with the program"---because there really isn't any "program".

We can mobilize the public to fight a war,
why can't we mobilize them to save our civilization?

When I'm able to get my rational mind to keep my emotions under control, I realize that as Daoists my lovely Misha and I have isolated ourselves from the rest of the human population. We see things so differently from people who "buy into" the "Dominant Paradigm" (DP) that sometimes we must seem like Martians to ordinary folks. And it goes the other way too. I often find it hard to understand how these people think. Mostly, however, I find it profoundly frustrating to be around what I call "DP'rs". I know that they cannot do any better, so there is no sense blaming them for their individual choices. But that doesn't mean that I am not annoyed with the casual and unconsciously brutal way they affect the natural world and future generations. To a large extent that's why I have spent most of my work life trying to avoid being around them. But sometimes I cannot avoid interacting with DP'rs, and this generates negative emotions.

I suspect that this has always been the way with Daoists. It's true that global environmental destruction is not something that loomed large in ancient China, but there was always the casual brutality of the ruling class towards the peasants (that's why Daoists were involved in the Yellow Turban Rebellion), or, the tendency of military leaders to smash and destroy anything or anyone in their way (that's why Changchunzi met with Genghis Khan to try and soften his aggression towards the Chinese people.) When you make the effort to "embrace the void", "hold onto the One", and, "follow the watercourse Way", you find yourself more and more estranged from DP'rs.

Environmental Vow 17: Liberal Christianity

Liberal Christianity

Many people who have problems with the “Olde Tyme Religion” of fundamentalism yet still see value in the life of faith have attempted to create liberal forms of religion.  Indeed, it could be argued that these formulations are the latest manifestation of gradual reform that has taken place within religious denominations since the reformation.   As I see it, however, there is an inescapable dilemma that faces liberal religion, namely, “How does one deal with the ancient formulations of the faith?”   That is, how do you reconcile the modern worldview with the scriptures and traditions that predate the enlightenment?  How does Christianity, Judaism and Islam “work” in a world where no sensible person, for example, can believe in the literal existence of the old sky-God of the Torah?


The Liberal Christian answer has been to create something which, for lack of a better term, could be called a “humanist” Christianity.   In general terms, this is an attempt to take away the problematic elements of the Christian tradition (e.g. God, miracles, parts of the scripture that support genocide, etc) and replace them with terms and beliefs more acceptable to modern sensibilities.  Theologians such as Paul Tillich have replaced the “old man in the clouds” with the “God of the philosophers”.  That is, he gives up on any idea of God as being a human-like entity that has volition, makes choices, gets angry with sinners, etc, and replaces him with vague, philosophical formulations such as God is “the ground of all being”.   In the same way, Biblical scholars such as Rudolf Bultmann used the methods of literary analysis to point out that our “holy” scriptures are mythological documents, not historical records.  The “God” of liberal Christians is a short-hand for for a complex, philosophical understanding of human existence and the stories about Moses and Jesus exist alongside those of Heracles and Hiawatha as culture-building myths instead of historically accurate records.


I would argue that aside from the relative intrinsic merits of this sort of religious formulation, there are tremendous practical problems that result from this sort of theology.   First of all, this sort of faith requires an enormous amount of effort to sustain.  Secondly, because it cannot engage the entire congregation of believers, it inevitably becomes “hidden” behind the traditional signs and symbols of the past.  This allows a sort of “ur-conservatism”# to take hold of the religious membership, which eventually holds the priesthood hostage.   Finally, because the “god of the philosophers” doesn't have the same sort of hold over people's consciousness as the “old man in the clouds” does, even if the liberal church avoids being held hostage by internal fundamentalists, it will inevitably find itself drawn towards a sort of extreme humanism that results in a theology of “being nice”.  This effectively neuters the institution and its leadership by removing any ability to develop “prophetic” moral reactions to the great problems of the day, such as the death of Nature.
 

Perhaps the biggest problem with liberal Christian exegesis is that it is so intellectually difficult.  If people really do want to understand the “god of the philosophers” and “Bible as myth”, they will need to undertake a daunting ordeal that involves reading very large books composed of academic prose.  Oddly enough, however, there exists a very large segment of the religious population who eagerly devour this sort of thing. #   But the plain and simple fact of the matter is that this sort of theological orientation simply cannot ever be anything other than elitist.  Ordinary parishioners, most of who have neither the education, nor the leisure, let alone inclination, will never put in the hours necessary to understand all of this stuff.


In a sense, liberal Christianity is a bit like what Indians would call Jnana Yoga.  That is, the path to salvation that comes from certain sort of intellectual knowledge about the universe.   This form of Yoga is not conceived as something that can be followed by anything more than an intellectual elite and as such is usually discouraged for most people.  The problem with liberal Christianity is that it doesn't exist within a structure that offers other clearly-defined options, such as Bhakti Yoga (the path of “love”) or Karma Yoga (the path of “works”.)   Nor does he inhabit a rigidly hierarchical society where people simply accept that there are mysteries that only the educated Brahmins can be expected to understand.  Instead, the Christian in a liberal congregation who cannot figure out what is going on will often try to find some other sort of way to accommodate him or herself to the congregation.


One of the things about religious symbols and rituals is that they allow people to function together on a shallow level while holding very different worldviews.   This is practically feasible because symbols and rituals function on a symbolic rather than explicit level.  This allows people to share an experience without realizing how radically different their understanding can be.


Take, for example, the symbol of the cross.  Some people see it specifically through the frame of “suffering”.  That is, they believe that it shows that in some sense suffering makes a person a better human being.  This view supports the sort of people who flagellate themselves (either literally or figuratively.)  Others see it as a symbol of Jesus as the scape-goat for the sins of humanity.  The cross reminds them that ultimately the only thing that really matters is whether or not one is “born again”.  Others see it as an execution device that was used to kill someone who rebelled against unjust authority.

If you see the cross in terms of suggesting that suffering is “noble”, then it will support a position that suggests that the best response to social ills such as poverty is to learn to endure them with grace and serenity.  The more we suffer on earth, the more we are rewarded after death.   In contrast, if you see the cross in terms of Christ as the scape-goat for humanity's sins, you will tend to believe that the core of “salvation” comes from accepting that scape-goat story.  Trying to be a good person or developing some sort of serenity, according to this worldview, is at best irrelevant and at worst the sin of pride.#    Finally, if you see the cross as an execution device for rebels, then Christ's message becomes one of the necessity of being fearless in one's opposition to injustice and support for the oppressed.   Seeking serenity and belief in a scape-goat, in this view, would be mere self-indulgence that hinders the creation of the God's imperial domain.


As long as the cross exists just as a symbol without any attempt to explain it's meaning in any detail, it can unify a congregation.  The various people sitting in a pew can all have different views on its significance yet be unified by their veneration for it as a symbol.  But once anyone attempts to “unpack” the symbol's meaning, then it becomes obvious to one and all that the “unity” of the congregation isn't quite as deep as once thought.   I once read, for example, of an attempt by an artist to create a new crucifix for a congregation that involved a sculpture of Christ as an obvious black man sitting on an electric chair.#   His reasoning was that modern American Christians fail to understand that in the context of Roman Palestine, Christ was a member of an oppressed minority (a poor Jew in the Pagan Roman Empire) who had been executed by the state in a specifically humiliating manner for breaking the law against rebellion.   The statue was absolutely vilified by some members of the congregation that had commissioned his work.  As memory serves me, it was never used.   The reason why is because his attempt to unpack one particular set of meaning made it cease to be an agent of unity for the congregation and instead become one of division.


The stories of the New Testament operate in a similar fashion.  Take, for example, the story of the trial of Christ.  The anti-Semite can read the account of the trial before the Sanhedrin as an example of the evil in the Jewish soul.  In contrast, the radical can read this group as not a Jewish group, but as instead an Ecclesiastic Hierarchy.   In this case, then the story becomes one of how the religious institution subverts and perverts the values it purports to support.  It all depends on whether the readers chooses to see in the Sanhedrin the Jewish pawnbroker down the street, or, the Papal court in Rome.   As long as the congregation just refers to the story in the Good Friday service there is no source of dissension.  But once one tries to unpack the meaning and explain what the story “is all about”, then all Hell risks breaking out.


When a congregation or denomination does try to explain what these symbols mean, the results can be dire.  For example, when the United and Anglican Churches of Canada decided to not only officiate at same-sex weddings but to also allow accept  homosexual clergy many members of the church decided that this was a “deal breaker” and left.  Sometimes this even happened en-mass with the congregations either becoming independent or joining some other denomination.   For the liberals, the question about homosexuals was one of discrimination and revolved around Matthew 25:40's “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me”.   For conservatives, the issue was that of following the divinely revealed morality of God and focused on Leviticus 18:22's "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination".#


The liberals in these congregations understand from their study of modern scholarship that the Bible is a human creation which needs to be reinterpreted by each generation as its collective knowledge increases.  But for those who have not gone through the laborious effort of studying the ponderous, academic texts on the subject this willingness to jettison old moral “verities” is scandalous.  In many congregations those clergy who have developed a liberal interpretation feel themselves to be prisoners of their more conservative members of the congregation who watch them with an “eagle eye” for evidence of dangerous “back sliding”. #    Many clergy realize find that if they say what they really think on a wide variety of issues they risk being removed from their position.  Even non-clergy liberals routinely “bite their tongue” because they do not want to risk ostracism from the congregation and the fellowship they seek.


To give conservatives their due, I think that they do have something of a point.


The problem with formulations of Christianity that give a primacy to philosophical concepts (i.e. God as “the ground of all being”) and which see the scripture as a human creation, is that it takes the “old man in the clouds” out of the religion.  That really is the point of liberal religion.  As I've pointed out previously, the old formulations not only no longer seem viable to modern ears, they have positively driven the best and brightest people out of the church.  But the “old man in the clouds” is a real, palpable sort of vision that engages people and motivates them in a way that vague, philosophical musings never seem to be able.  The Benedictine Abbeys were not built by people trying to serve “the ground of all being” or who were inspired by a man-made record of ancient myths.   They believed literally in God, the afterlife and that the Bible was absolutely true.


It is difficult to objectively quantify the level of a person's commitment to a religious vision, but one plausible way of doing so is to track the amount of money individuals with a specific type of religious orientation give to their religious establishment of choice.   The clear tendency seems to be that the more liberal a person is, the less they give to charity.  One study, for example, showed that when people were separated into different categories of “conservative”, “moderate” and “liberal”, they each donated, on average, $3255, $2,926 and $1,879 respectively to secular charities.  In addition, they also donated, on average, $1,841, $1,115 and $499 to their place of worship.#


There are a great many possible explanations for this difference in financial support.  I am not a statistician and this is not a book about that sort of analysis.  But it certainly seems obvious that if someone literally believes that there is a sky-god looking down on her from “on high” who can and will punish her directly for her behaviour, then she will modify her behaviour accordingly.  In contrast, someone who instead believes in some sort of vague philosophical principle will not feel a similar sort of need to act.

This is not to say, however, that conservatives are better people than liberals.  Human behaviour is extremely complex.  Our behaviour is driven by compulsions and drives that have very little to do with what we consciously believe about the universe.  The conservative who feels that the eye of God is always on him may still end up getting drunk on Saturday night and beat up his wife.  Similarly, the Liberal who doesn't believe in God or an afterlife can still live a life of calm sobriety.  The Gospel of Matthew expresses this point well:  “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”#   But having said that, the fact of the matter is that our behaviour is driven not by calm reason, but rather by emotions.  And “the old man in the clouds” is a much more powerful emotional driver than “the ground of all being”.  Moreover, it is a lot easier to get emotionally engaged in the stories of the Bible when we see them as being directly handed to us by God instead of as a collection of myths written by ancient people living in a long-dead world.


If the liberal no longer believes in the old man sky god, then what, ultimately, is the basis of her faith?  If we talk about God as “the ground of all being” we are really talking about “how the human mind works”.  And if we see the Bible as a collection of ancient myths written by fallible human beings, then we are really talking about “how the human mind has seen things in the past”.  Ultimately, liberal religion is a form of humanism.


And with humanism, we come back to the same problems I identified with Abraham Maslow's ethic of self-actualization.   The problem with this type of religion is that it no longer has any room for what Christians call the “prophetic spirit”.   That is, if one's religion does include some element of the “old man in the clouds”, then it is possible to believe that one is following his commandments and that you have the authority to demand a great deal from people.  You can say that they should turn from their sinful ways and that God wants them to build an abbey in what is now not much more than a swamp.  In contrast, if God is “the ground of all being” and an idea that was inherited from our ignorant ancestors, it is going to be a lot harder to generate the necessary enthusiasm to get much of anything off the ground.


And once you remove any sort of appeal to divine authority, you get left with Protagoras' saying that “Man is the measure of all things”.  At that point, it's pretty hard to push Christianity much farther than Douglas Adams'# characterization of Jesus' message:  “Why can't we all be nice to one another?”  Prophets are not “nice” people.  They offend when they point out where people fail to live up to some sort of ethical ideal.  And they also sometimes suggest that there are social goals that are more important than the comfort of the population.    Old Testament prophets could argue that God wants people to eat locally-grown, organic food and take the train instead of flying.   Humanists are left with “wouldn't it be nice if people thought about the consequences of their actions?”   Neither appeal is going to change the behaviour of the majority, but I would argue that a larger minority of Conservatives is going to effect a greater change than that of Humanists, simply because their appeal is based on more basic, emotional drivers.

Environmental Vow 16: Buddhism

Bringing in a Third Option

I hope that I have been persuasive with at least a few of my readers to the point where they believe as I do, that something like faith and duty are necessary for mobilizing humanity to save the planet.  Moreover, I also hope that they have been able to follow my explanation why traditional formulations are no longer acceptable to most citizens.  I also hope that people have followed my description of why Maslow's suggested ethic of “self actualization” has failed to fill the void.  Finally, I'd like to think that my little digression dealing with the complexities of freedom articulated clearly why I think it is important to reject naive assumptions about the relationship between the individual and the collective.

In effect, what I am suggesting is that in order to mobilize society in a way that will allow us to really deal with the problems that the human race will face during the coming time of environmental catastrophe we will have to develop some new way of mobilizing society.  This unifying force will have to mimic the best parts of faith and duty, without falling prey to the limitations that are all too obvious to modern people.  It will also have to avoid the problems that I have identified with the ideals of “self-actualization” and “follow your bliss” and instead has more in common with Cicero's ideal of “participation in power”.  


In the next part of this essay I'm going to examine some new trends in our society that I think show some promise about how we might be able to work our way out of the present mess.  


Buddhism

The big push to develop the new ethic of Self-Actualization or “Follow your bliss” came from a rejection of both patriotic duty and religious faith as the key motivational force in a person's life.  It was pretty obvious to a society that had gone through things like the reformation, the enlightenment and the World Wars that there needed to be something else to motivate intelligent people beyond religious faith and patriotism.  That is why thinkers like Maslow tried so hard to come up with some sort of replacement.   Unfortunately, in practice his suggestion quickly degenerated into not much more than “do your own thing”.  This is pretty thin gruel to live on in an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity.  It is totally insufficient to support people going through a period of crisis like the present ecological collapse.


Large minorities have decided to maintain their allegiance to traditional faith, which has led to the increased militancy of Protestant Fundamentalism and a sort of creeping Roman Catholic Fascism that places all power in the Pope.   Coexisting with and mostly overlapping with them are extreme patriots who exhibit a similar sort of belief in the value of the military and Executive authority to the exclusion of both the Legislature and Constitutional safeguards.   Beyond these reactionary tendencies, I would suggest that there are other, more promising currents at work.


One example is the emergence of North American Buddhism.   Even though it is difficult to find hard numbers, it appears that the number of Buddhists is growing very quickly in North America1.   While much of this growth comes from Asian immigration, a significant fraction (estimated at about 20-25%2) are Western converts of European descent.   While the absolute numbers of actual converts are quite small, the important point to remember is that Buddhism is not just another flavour of the Middle-Eastern religion once held by most North Americans, it is significantly different in what it understands a religion to be.  The fact that it is becoming a significant minority player on the North American religious scene is extremely relevant----not because of its numbers, but rather because of what it says about how the general public increasingly views religion itself.


The Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all defined by the relationship between the believer and God.  This relationship is defined by a codified belief system that comes from divine revelation, tradition and ecclesiastic institutions that provide definitive “orthodox” interpretations of that revelation and tradition.  It is very important that the “believer” believe in what orthodoxy teaches or else bad things will happen---excommunication, execution for heresy or apostasy, and, eternal damnation.   In effect, it all comes down to loyalty to a cause.  If someone breaks ranks and starts thinking for herself, an angry hierarchy---both ecclesiastic and divine---will punish her for disloyalty.


Buddhism is very different.  It sees the world in terms of impersonal forces and scientific laws.    For this system there is no point in believing a creed on faith except in the provisional sense of taking advice from someone more experienced and experimenting to see if it works as described.  Moreover, a belief without understanding is seen as worthless because it means that it cannot be applied to a given situation with the sort of “skillful means”3 that is necessary to jump the gap between theory and practice.   There is no “angry God” who punishes you after death---just your own unresolved internal conflicts that manifest themselves as hallucinations on the deathbed4 or the impersonal law of karma that will create consequences that continue after the individual has expired.5  


What is important is the specific effort one puts into gaining real insight into what it means to be a human being.  This is achieved through a myriad of different practices that are tailored to different types of people who have lived in many different societies.  As such, a perennial question that is asked about Buddhism is whether it is a religion at all, or “just” a philosophy of life or school of applied psychology.  It is because of this emphasis on the process of self-investigation instead of a revealed belief system that even a thorough-going, self-proclaimed atheist such as Sam Harris is able to suggest that there is much of value in the Buddhist tradition.6  


This is not to say that Buddhism is exclusively or even fundamentally a science of the mind.  In many ways it is similar to the Abrahamic religions in that it also has a belief-system that has developed a complex enculturation process aimed at fostering a specific sort of mindset.  It has sects.  They have rituals.  Its monasteries and nunneries have rules of behaviour similar to the rules that govern Christian monasteries.  But it does have that one significant distinction in its core beliefs are---at least theoretically---based on the personal experience of individual monks and nuns, as opposed to submission to the will of an unknowable God, and, the Ecclesiastic hierarchy that speaks in his name.  


In a variety of ways this basic Buddhist message has at times been twisted and made into something that more resembles the Abrahamic religions.  For example, Zen Buddhism has made a fetish of lineage that has given far too much power to some Zen Masters, which they have gone on to abuse.7   Similarly at least one master of the “crazy wisdom” tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, the late Chogyam Rimpoche, has been accused of abusing the extreme authority given to him by his followers.  In addition, the Institutions that govern Zen Buddhism were co-opted by the Imperial Japanese Empire in support of brutal oppression of other nations.8   Similar problems also exist in just about every other  branch of Buddhism.9   In each of these cases the well-known injunction of the Buddha that all his followers should be “lamps unto oneself” was ignored in favour of the ideal of the “Master” who's understanding was so greater than an ordinary human being that they were told to ignore the promptings of their own reason or conscience.


But having acknowledged all of these particular problems, there is still at the core of Buddhist religious tradition a central vision that suggests that people should ultimately not submit to any authority except themselves when it comes to spiritual matters.  One recent version of this statement that seems to be widely copied on the Internet states it thus:

Believe nothing on the faith of traditions,
even though they have been held in honor
for many generations and in diverse places.
Do not believe a thing because many people speak of it.
Do not believe on the faith of the sages of the past.
Do not believe what you yourself have imagined,
persuading yourself that a God inspires you.
Believe nothing on the sole authority of your masters and priests.
After examination, believe what you yourself have tested
and found to be reasonable, and conform your conduct thereto.10

 Moreover, I would suggest that it is exactly this ideal of intellectual freedom that is most appealing to Western converts.


Is it possible that a Buddhist-based religious revival could occur in the West during our coming “dark ages” of ecological collapse?  Could Buddhist monasteries play as important a role in saving nature much as Benedictine ones did in saving Western Europe?


Unfortunately, I think that that is an overly optimist read of the situation.  Western Buddhism's emphasis on the importance of introspection as a means of gaining enlightenment has resulted in a significant tendency that allows naive followers to ignore all other elements of the human experience.  I have, for example, a wall-hanging that I purchased from an order of Tibetan monks that says

Mind is the forerunner of all states.
If with a mind that is calm and clean,
With him does bliss follow,
Mind is supreme, all are creations of mind.
One speaks or does a thing,
Like the never deserting Shadow.11
-Dhamapada

Obviously, if “Mind is supreme”, then the environment is a secondary issue that a good Buddhist shouldn't invest much energy into preserving.   Unfortunately, I think that this rather flippant understanding pretty much accurately sums-up the worldview of many, if not most Western Buddhists.


The Tibetan monks that I purchased this hanging from understood the fallacy of this point of view.  That is why when they gave their demonstration of harmonic chanting they also insisted on showing a debate between two monks on Buddhist theory.  (Unfortunately, since it was delivered in Tibetan instead of English, this point was lost on just about everyone in the audience.)   The point they were trying emphasize is that meditation---while key to Buddhism---is only one element of a far bigger system.


Almost the only element of Buddhism that most Western Buddhists see are meditation classes.   And in substance, these almost invariably work from a therapeutic instead of a religious model.     Psychotherapists serve a significantly different role than do religious teachers.  Religions are supposed to tell us things about the universe---what is “right”, what is “wrong” and how society should work.  Therapists, on the other hand, are only legitimately concerned about the individual they are treating.   Ultimate issues are set aside so they can focus exclusively on how to help an individual person become more functional in her day-to-day life.  That is why psychiatrists, for example, assume the posture of being “non-judgemental” in their interactions with the client.  Meditation taught outside the structure of the Eightfold Path is non-judgemental, but within its bounds, it is very much the opposite.


The Eightfold Path is an attempt to find the absolute essentials that a person must have in order to live a “good” life---in both senses of the word.   When we say that someone led a “good” life it can mean that it was relatively pleasant and the person who lived suffered less than most.   We can also say that a person was a “good” woman, even though she suffered from terrible deprivation---because she was a moral, honourable and engaged person.  Because Buddhism teaches that a great deal of our sense of well-being is derived from our mental state instead of the physical situation we inhabit (e.g. “Mind is the forerunner of all states---”), it believes that it is impossible to separate these two definitions of “good”.   In effect, the fact that the two senses of the word are linked reflects a fundamental truth, not a mere happenstance of language.  For Buddhists, enlightenment is not just a mental state that can be scotch-taped onto just about anyone.  Instead, it is the result of having a certain way of looking at the world and behaving in a certain way.    


The Eightfold Path of Buddhism is an attempt to link together both sides of “good” in an easily remembered prescription for how to live the best possible life, both in terms of personal satisfaction and in terms of morality.   The are:  right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and, right concentration.    Note that the Western popular understanding of Buddhism---derived from all those meditation classes---usually only includes the last two, “right mindfulness” and “right concentration”.   Almost no emphasis is placed upon any sort of theoretical understanding of humanity and its place in the universe, or, “right view” and “right intention”.  (This was the element of the Eightfold Path that those Tibetan lamas were trying to emphasize in their scholarly debate that I mentioned above.)  Nor is there any emphasis usually placed upon how a human being should interact with his society at large, or, “right speech”, “right action”, and, “right livelihood”.   If there is any attention paid to “right effort”, it probably revolves around how much effort a person should put into their meditation practice.
 

The key issue that explains why Western citizens are usually only exposed to and embrace the last two parts of the Buddhist Way centres around the issue of renunciation.   Buddhism in Asia has primarily been a religion of monks and nuns.  In the West, it is primarily a religion for lay people.   Monks and nuns are people who have made a very conscious choice (at least the ones who entered the convent voluntarily) to live a certain way and give up a wide range of opportunities and activities that are taken for granted by most of the general public.  The idea is that as a way of training the mind (as well as being able to form a stable community) monks and nuns voluntarily agree upon living a very specific way.  This special way of living has been codified in different ways by different Buddhist sects and traditions---just like orders of Christian monks and nuns have adopted their “rules” that govern their life.   And if you look at the rules that exist, you can see that they are in some cases very specific.


Theravada Buddhism, which is one of the older schools of Buddhism, has a very large number of rules and regulations governing the behaviour of monks and nuns.   A collection of rules, the Bhikkhu Pāṭimokkha, has been translated by Buddhist scholar of the name Thanissaro Bhikkhu and published on the Internet.12  Here are a few bits and pieces so readers can get a flavour of the rules and regulations.   From the chapter titled “Pārājika: Rules entailing expulsion from the Sangha (Defeat)” comes:

Should any bhikkhu intentionally deprive a human being of life, or search for an assassin for him, or praise the advantages of death, or incite him to die (saying,): "My good man, what use is this evil, miserable life to you? Death would be better for you than life," or with such an idea in mind, such a purpose in mind, should in various ways praise the advantages of death or incite him to die, he also is defeated and no longer in affiliation.

From the section titled “Saṅghādisesa: Rules entailing an initial and subsequent meeting of the Sangha” comes this:

Should any bhikkhu — corrupt, aversive, disgruntled — charge a bhikkhu with an unfounded case entailing defeat, (thinking), "Perhaps I may bring about his fall from this celibate life," then regardless of whether or not he is cross-examined on a later occasion, if the issue is unfounded and the bhikkhu confesses his aversion, it entails initial and subsequent meetings of the Community.

Obviously putting a hit on someone is not monkish behaviour, but it is also against most societies' legal codes anyway.   Suggesting suicide as an option or bearing false witness are not usually dealt with by civil courts, but it is also easy to see that these would be very serious crimes in a spiritual community.  I don't think anyone would find these rules onerous to follow.


But these codes tend to have many, many rules that govern many different elements of monastic life.  They exist because it is really difficult to get people to live together in these sorts of communities without having them blow up due internal friction.  These are a very few of these more “practical” rules.

Should any bhikkhu accept robe-cloth from the hand of a bhikkhunī [a Buddhist nun] unrelated to him — except in exchange — it is to be forfeited and confessed.

Malicious tale-bearing among bhikkhus is to be confessed.

The damaging of a living plant is to be confessed.

Should any bhikkhu knowingly lie down in a dwelling belonging to the Community so as to intrude on a bhikkhu who arrived there first, (thinking), "Whoever finds it confining will go away" — doing it for just that reason and no other — it is to be confessed.

Monks shouldn't have “special friend” nuns that do favours for them.  Monks shouldn't be “tattle-tales” and “gossips”.   Monks shouldn't trample the flowers at the monastery.  Monks shouldn't intrude on the private space of other monks.  These are simple rules aimed at keeping the peace.


As anyone who reads through these long lists of rules---and all the Buddhist sects have their own---can see, being a monk or nun was, and still is, very much not an issue of “follow your bliss”.   Instead, it is a pretty heavy undertaking that involved a radical restructuring of a person's priorities and physical surroundings so he can integrate himself into a community that survives on very limited resources.  It is very much the same sort of radical renunciation that a Benedictine monk took when he decided to give up his life as an aristocrat and became a brother who would drain swamps, cut hay and get up in the middle of the night to sing divine services.  Of course, in both Buddhist and Benedictine cases the change was a lot less dramatic for those who jumped into monastic life from being a poor peasant.  But it was, and still is for modern Buddhist monastics, a very far cry from the life of the middle-class North American who takes a few meditation classes, begins a regular meditation practice, and begins to call himself a “Buddhist”.

I've raised this point as an outsider to the Western Buddhist world and had several very engaged people reinforce this assessment.   For example, one person responded to a blog posting with the following comment:

For thirty years I taught Buddhism in various capacities; as a monastic, as the Abbot of a Temple, as a Prison Chaplain, in courses as Junior Colleges. The one aspect of Buddhism which I found impossible for the students to absorb was renunciation. Any time renunciation was brought up (and you can’t really talk about Buddhism without discussing renunciation since renunciation is central to its world view) people would argue that renunciation is not necessary, or no longer necessary, or that it is misguided; that one can have everything one wants on a material level as well as spiritual attainment. In discussions I have had with other Buddhist teachers my experience has been affirmed, they also found it literally impossible to communicate the place renunciation holds in Buddhism. (One wit put it that Buddhism in the West is ‘the upper middle class way’.)13


So while traditional Buddhist abbies might very well serve the same function as the Benedictines did during the Dark Ages, Western Buddhism doesn't have at its core the same commitment to lifestyle change that Eastern Buddhism had through the Eightfold Path and different monastic codes of conduct.  Instead, I think it can be said that it has been “infected” by Maslow's self-actualization ideal to the point where people simply aren't willing to accept the renunciation prescription that is encapsulated in the Eightfold Path and various monastic codes.


Having said that, it still is profoundly worthwhile to see that so many Westerners still want to find a religious option for their life that also includes the notion of “be a lamp unto yourself”.  Moreover, it is important to realize that even if people do not immediately twig onto the Eightfold Path, the very act of deciding to follow a regular meditation practice is itself a much greater commitment than that usually required by the Abrahimic religions.  For those people who do stick to a meditation regime, there is a significant chance that they will want to pursue a deeper understanding of Buddhism, which will in turn lead them towards a more authentic experience.  But the end of a road is not the beginning, and many a traveler never makes it all the way.

Environmental Vow: Part 15

Some People's Curious Unwillingness to Admit That Sacrifice Even Exists

There is yet another issue at play that needs to be discussed:  the relationship between “freedom”, “choice” and “sacrifice”.  I think one of the best ways to understand the relationship is to consider the significant fraction of the public that has been so seduced by the ideal of “do your own thing”, that they seem to believe that the concept of personal sacrifice is conceptually impossible.  Primarily, this boils down to the notion that no one ever does anything that they do not want to do simply because if they didn't want to do it, they wouldn't.   This response often comes out in conversations similar to the following one that I once had with a friend after I mentioned to her that I had decided to never fly again.

“Why would you decide to never fly in an airplane?”
“Jet aircraft release a lot of climate changing C02 into the atmosphere, so I've decided that this is a sacrifice I can make for the good of future generations and Mother Nature.”
“No, it's not a sacrifice. You simply choose to not fly.  You're afraid of flying, aren't you?  Don't worry, it's safer than driving a car.”


What I believe is happening in these sorts of situations is that people are confusing several different things for a variety of reasons and on the basis of that confusion jumping to unwarranted conclusions.


It is true that people often do announce that they are making a sacrifice for the greater good when in fact what they really are doing is seeking social recognition and status for their actions.  The corporation that “donates” money to a university but expects public recognition, a tax write-off and demands to set research priorities is an example of this sort of “giving” that really turns out to really be a purchase.   This sort of “sacrifice” is really a very self-conscious act of hypocrisy.  A more subtle, unconscious type of hypocrisy can also cloud sacrifice---as when a grasping parent demands constant attention by children for the “gift” of birth and nurturing until the age of majority.  An even more subtle case involves the sense of self-worth that can come from “doing the right thing” when everyone else isn't.  This sort of behaviour is common in religious organizations and usually labelled “self-righteousness”.   Finally, as in the example above, the “sacrifice” could be an excuse to cover up some other, not necessarily self-serving, reason for following a course of action---such as when my friend assumed that my decision to stop flying was just an attempt to hide my fear.  


In the case of environmental activism, it certainly could be the case that some people in leadership positions are enamoured by the attention they receive from the media and citizenry.  This cannot be a universal phenomenon, however, simply because for every person in a leadership position there needs to be many more who are supporters.  If only a small number of people involved in a situation can bask in the glory, it cannot be the case that everyone is in it for the prestige.  


And the issue isn't just one of activism.  People routinely “do without” in order to support some sort of higher ideal.  For example, a woman who has a child doesn't “want” to go through childbirth, have her sleep constantly interrupted or clean dirty diapers, yet she does these things willingly because they are necessary if she is to be a mother.  They are undesired yet necessary means to a desired end.   In much the same way, soldiers do not want to advance into battle and all monks have problems with at least some elements of monastic routine---yet they accept that these undesired things are necessary to pursue the desired ones.   In a similar vein, some people do choose to live without an automobile, not fly on airplanes, eat relatively inconvenient and expensive locally-grown, organic food, etc, because they think that the act is in defence of Mother Nature.


Yet, like my friend, many people are loathe to admit this.  I suspect that they often do so for two reasons.  First of all, if they admit that they didn't actually like doing the unpleasant means that they already do, they might feel that they are betraying the desired end.  In the case of a mother, she might feel that she is betraying her child if she admits that it isn't much fun washing dirty diapers.   Secondly, if a person admits that people do often do unpleasant things in order to pursue some other desired end, an implicit moral imperative comes into play.  When Henry David Thoreau went to jail rather than pay taxes in support of what he considered an unjust war (against Mexico) a visitor asked him why he was behind bars.  Thoreau's response was to turn the tables on the questioner and ask him “Why aren't you in here with me?”


This raises another important point.   When I brought up Cicero's definition of “freedom” as participation in power, I suggested that the relevant issue is engagement in the process.   I went on to suggest that the emotional connection with the community that comes from engaging with it has a lot to do with the experience of living a “free” life.  I would also suggest that there is an other element of engagement that needs to be considered:  personal responsibility.


A lot of people understand “freedom” in terms that take out any sense of personal responsibility.  That is, “freedom” for them is just another aspect of consumerism---like when you wander down the isle of a grocery store and have to choose between Coke and Pepsi.   This sort of consumer “choice” is totally value-free because there is little (if any) difference between the two options.  Both are  carbonated sugar-water beverages flavoured with cola nut extract, produced by multinational corporations and packaged in disposable aluminium cans.   There are consequences to both a person's health and to the environment (both negative) if a person decides to purchase either one of these products, but there is none at all over which particular brand.   If you look at people's lives, you find that even though North Americans have an enormous ranges of choices in their lives, the practical impact of those choices is limited---mother nature and your liver don't care whether you purchase Count Chocola, GMC and a split level as opposed to Lucky Charms, Chrystler and a ranch style.


This type of choice wouldn't be a problem but it has become so ubiquitous in our consumer society that many people confuse this “choosing” with the sort of important morally-based decisions that we have to make as both individuals and a society.   This leads to a conflation of the idea of consumer choice with democratic referendum.  Consider the sort of routine arguments that come about from public planning.  If the city suggests that suburban sprawl damages the economic and environmental viability of the community, and therefore zoning should be changed to force higher-density development, at least some members of the community will start arguing that developers “only build what people want” and if “people wanted higher density, they'd build it”.   This argument totally misses the point that the benefits from living in a low-density suburb go to the individuals that bought the home whereas the costs (such as increased infrastructure expenses) are paid for by the entire community.  


In situations like the planning of cities, freedom as “participation in power” involves getting the entire community involved in the process through elected representatives and hired staff who are expected to think about the good of the entire community.  In contrast, freedom as “consumer choice” narrows the terms of reference to “what's in it for me?”   Amongst other things, freedom as “consumer choice” is freedom devoid of any personal responsibility for the consequences of your individual decision.  “Participation in Power”, in contrast, suggests some sort of engagement with the wider community (i.e. the other people “participating”) that places a burden on the individual to think of the consequences of his decisions on these other people (and, by extension, the community of nature.)


Almost all environmental decisions suffer from this confusion of consumer choice and free choice because almost all environmental problems are the result of choices in the way people live their lives.  If we continue to labour under the assumption that being able to live “freely” ultimately means not having to think about how the impact of those choices will affect other people, it is hard to see how anything at all can ever be done to avoid ultimate and total catastrophe.   In effect, if the world is going to deal with the environmental crisis and remain a democracy, people are going to have to make personal individual sacrifices in how they live their lives.  As Mohandas Gandhi would have said, people are going to have to learn how to “Live simply that others may simply live.”

Environmental Vow: Part 14

An Alternative Model of Freedom

I've raised the idea of restorative justice not to solve the problems of our criminal justice system, but instead as a bit of a “thought experiment” to illustrate the different ways in which the concept of “freedom” can be understood. My suggestion is that the ideal encapsulated in the ethic of “self-actualization” and “follow your bliss” (at least as popularly conceived) is based on a flawed definition of freedom, one that is specifically centred on the individual. As I've suggested, as people naively express this ideal in their personal lives, it boils down to “do your own thing”. And, as I've pointed out, the ethic of “doing your own thing” has no real answer to the question “Why not become a crack whore? Couch potato? Greedhead? Sex Maniac? etc.” Adherence to this ideal has not only discredited so-called “progressives” in the eyes of the Right, it means that they have no moral grounds for suggesting that there is an imperative (moral, religious or patriotic) for people mobilize in order to deal with our climate catastrophe.

At this point, I'd like to introduce a more sophisticated definition of “freedom”, one that can go a long way, I believe, in answering the problems that have arisen from the “do your own thing” worldview. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the ancient Roman, once wrote that “Freedom is participation in power.” This definition will probably sound startling to some readers, so it might be helpful to mention that I first heard this quote mentioned by the consumer advocate and community organizer Ralph Nader. What he was saying was that “freedom”, in the political sense, does not flow from the absense of the Gestapo or the Inquisition, but instead from how engaged the citizenry is in the daily life of their society. It is possible to consider an enlightened dictatorship with complete freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, etc. But insofar as the people who live in that state do not have feel that they have any control over who is making the big decisions in their life, they still live in a dictatorship and they are not “free”. As a result of this reasoning, Nader was saying that if you want to be politically free you have to be actively engaged in the political process.

I believe that this new definition also works when we go beyond the realm of politics. “Power” is more than just government. Engineers and scientists, for example, gain power by learning more about the physical world that surrounds us. Even ordinary people who know how to fix a leaking toilet or change the operating system on their computer insofar as they can do so participate in the power of modern technology. It is certainly the case that when people are confronted by something that they don't know how to repair or even operate they feel especially powerless and unfree.

I would further suggest that the fundamental issue is not the specific knowledge that a person gains from learning about the machinery that surrounds them. Just because I can change the operating system on my computer doesn't mean that I know how it works or could even write a very simple program. The “mastery” I feel is ultimately pretty shallow and inconsequential. But the process of learning how to download open source software and install Linux on my laptop has resulted in my becoming personally “engaged” with the technology in a way that cannot happen by going into a store and buying a new computer pre-loaded with a MS Windows package.

In much the same way, the “freedom” that Cicero and Nader are talking about comes not from having all that much real control over the political process (even citizen groups have to have leaders and followers, after all.) Instead, the relevant issue is how much the person has invested their own personal well-being into the group project. This means that when we think about the phrase “freedom comes from participation in power”, the emphasis should be upon participation, not power.

At this point we can see where the value of restorative justice comes into play. It sees the key issue in criminal activity as being that of an individuals's alienation from society instead of their personal “evil”. The solution, therefore, is to reintegrate the offender into the community instead of merely punishing him. The Lakota elders reintegrated the murderer by making him responsible for supporting the wife and children of the man he killed. The modern example I gave teaches the offender that there really are individual human beings who are harmed by property crimes like burglary, which thereby deflates the comforting illusion that their offenses are only against impersonal, inhuman insurance companies. Insofar as this initiative is successful, it means that if the would-be criminal contemplates committing similar crimes in the future, the crime will have to be understood specifically as an act that is done to specific human beings who will suffer as a result. This makes the crime “real” in a way that it wasn't before, which is to say that the criminal has been brought back into the community of man.

Once we start seeing freedom in this way, we can see how religious people like the Benedictines and soldiers like General Wolf could see themselves as being “free”. Insofar as they felt that they were emotionally “participating” or “engaging” in enterprises much bigger than themselves---the monastery or regiment---they felt “free” in the same sense as understood by Cicero and Nader. Obviously the individual soldier driven into the army by poverty or oblate given to the Benedictines while still a young child, did not initially “participate” very much in the “power” that compelled them. But even so, many of these people no doubt did end up identifying with the community that they found themselves in, accepted its ideals, and ended up finding satisfaction in the life. Proof of this fact exists around us insofar as many people still find enormous personal satisfaction from living in religious communities. Similarly, a great many veterans of the Armed Forces are tenatiously loyal to their branch of the service even many years after being discharged.

The important point to understand in using Cicero's definition is to change the emphasis from that of being free from constraint to that of engagement in something bigger than one's self. The “free” man is not one that is free from coercion---a necessary, but not sufficient state of affairs---but rather one that is engaged with something that fulfills him. The philosopher Jean Paul Sartre pointed out much the same thing when he suggested that there is a difference between what he called “freedom from” and “freedom for”. Many people seek freedom from constraints of one form or another (work, rules, etc), whereas the truly free man seeks freedom to follow some sort of higher idea (art, justice, etc.) This is where the difference lies between the crack whore and a great man like Martin Luther King Jr. comes into play. The former never set out to become enslaved to cocaine, it was just the result of a series of bad choices and/or consistently bad luck. The latter, on the other hand, devoted himself to the ideal of civil rights and did what was necessary to pursue it. Both came to a bad end, but the former is a sad tragedy whereas the latter was heroic martyrdom.

Environmental Vow: Part Fourteen

I've raised the idea of restorative justice not to solve the problems of our criminal justice system, but instead as a bit of a “thought experiment” to illustrate the different ways in which the concept of “freedom” can be understood. My suggestion is that the ideal encapsulated in the ethic of “self-actualization” and “follow your bliss” (at least as popularly conceived) is based on a flawed definition of freedom, one that is specifically centred on the individual. As I've suggested, as people naively express this ideal in their personal lives, it boils down to “do your own thing”. And, as I've pointed out, the ethic of “doing your own thing” has no real answer to the question “Why not become a crack whore? Couch potato? Greedhead? Sex Maniac? etc.” Adherence to this ideal has not only discredited so-called “progressives” in the eyes of the Right, it means that they have no moral grounds for suggesting that there is an imperative (moral, religious or patriotic) for people mobilize in order to deal with our climate catastrophe.


At this point, I'd like to introduce a more sophisticated definition of “freedom”, one that can go a long way, I believe, in answering the problems that have arisen from the “do your own thing” worldview. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the ancient Roman, once wrote that “Freedom is participation in power.” This definition will probably sound startling to some readers, so it might be helpful to mention that I first heard this quote mentioned by the consumer advocate and community organizer Ralph Nader. What he was saying was that “freedom”, in the political sense, does not flow from the absense of the Gestapo or the Inquisition, but instead from how engaged the citizenry is in the daily life of their society. It is possible to consider an enlightened dictatorship with complete freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, etc. But insofar as the people who live in that state do not have feel that they have any control over who is making the big decisions in their life, they still live in a dictatorship and they are not “free”. As a result of this reasoning, Nader was saying that if you want to be politically free you have to be actively engaged in the political process.

I believe that this new definition also works when we go beyond the realm of politics. “Power” is more than just government. Engineers and scientists, for example, gain power by learning more about the physical world that surrounds us. Even ordinary people who know how to fix a leaking toilet or change the operating system on their computer insofar as they can do so participate in the power of modern technology. It is certainly the case that when people are confronted by something that they don't know how to repair or even operate they feel especially powerless and unfree.

I would further suggest that the fundamental issue is not the specific knowledge that a person gains from learning about the machinery that surrounds them. Just because I can change the operating system on my computer doesn't mean that I know how it works or could even write a very simple program. The “mastery” I feel is ultimately pretty shallow and inconsequential. But the process of learning how to download open source software and install Linux on my laptop has resulted in my becoming personally “engaged” with the technology in a way that cannot happen by going into a store and buying a new computer pre-loaded with a MS Windows package.


In much the same way, the “freedom” that Cicero and Nader are talking about comes not from having all that much real control over the political process (even citizen groups have to have leaders and followers, after all.) Instead, the relevant issue is how much the person has invested their own personal well-being into the group project. This means that when we think about the phrase “freedom comes from participation in power”, the emphasis should be upon participation, not power.

At this point we can see where the value of restorative justice comes into play. It sees the key issue in criminal activity as being that of an individuals's alienation from society instead of their personal “evil”. The solution, therefore, is to reintegrate the offender into the community instead of merely punishing him. The Lakota elders reintegrated the murderer by making him responsible for supporting the wife and children of the man he killed. The modern example I gave teaches the offender that there really are individual human beings who are harmed by property crimes like burglary, which thereby deflates the comforting illusion that their offenses are only against impersonal, inhuman insurance companies. Insofar as this initiative is successful, it means that if the would-be criminal contemplates committing similar crimes in the future, the crime will have to be understood specifically as an act that is done to specific human beings who will suffer as a result. This makes the crime “real” in a way that it wasn't before, which is to say that the criminal has been brought back into the community of man.


Once we start seeing freedom in this way, we can see how religious people like the Benedictines and soldiers like General Wolf could see themselves as being “free”. Insofar as they felt that they were emotionally “participating” or “engaging” in enterprises much bigger than themselves---the monastery or regiment---they felt “free” in the same sense as understood by Cicero and Nader. Obviously the individual soldier driven into the army by poverty or oblate given to the Benedictines while still a young child, did not initially “participate” very much in the “power” that compelled them. But even so, many of these people no doubt did end up identifying with the community that they found themselves in, accepted its ideals, and ended up finding satisfaction in the life. Proof of this fact exists around us insofar as many people still find enormous personal satisfaction from living in religious communities. Similarly, a great many veterans of the Armed Forces are tenatiously loyal to their branch of the service even many years after being discharged.


The important point to understand in using Cicero's definition is to change the emphasis from that of being free from constraint to that of engagement in something bigger than one's self. The “free” man is not one that is free from coercion---a necessary, but not sufficient state of affairs---but rather one that is engaged with something that fulfills him. The philosopher Jean Paul Sartre pointed out much the same thing when he suggested that there is a difference between what he called “freedom from” and “freedom for”. Many people seek freedom from constraints of one form or another (work, rules, etc), whereas the truly free man seeks freedom to follow some sort of higher idea (art, justice, etc.) This is where the difference lies between the crack whore and a great man like Martin Luther King Jr. comes into play. The former never set out to become enslaved to cocaine, it was just the result of a series of bad choices and/or consistently bad luck. The latter, on the other hand, devoted himself to the ideal of civil rights and did what was necessary to pursue it. Both came to a bad end, but the former is a sad tragedy whereas the latter was heroic martyrdom.

Environmental Vow: Part Twelve

The Ethic of “Self-Actualization”

The decline of faith and honour as motivating emotions only partially explains why so many people seem incapable of motivating themselves beyond despair in order to deal with environmental collapse. A decline in a previous emotion doesn't explain why nothing better has come along to replace it. We also need to understand the motivation that most people have used to fill the void left when these two older ideals disappeared. The best label that I can think of to describe this replacement is “self-actualization”.

The term itself is most strongly associated with Abraham Maslow (it seems there is some debate about the actual origin of the phrase.) In a nutshell, his overall psychological theory posited that human beings are motivated by what he called the “hierarchy of needs”. These are hierarchical in that one particular need needs to be met before the next one presents itself to the human being. Starving people will take great risks to get food. But once someone has enough food and water, their willingness to take risks declines dramatically. And until someone has a certain sense of security in their life, no one cares about what other people think of them. Finally, until someone feels a certain level of self-confidence about one's place in the commuity, no one is going to invest much effort in following their particular dream. In Maslow's view, therefore, “self-actualization” is the pinnacle of human achievement.


The meaning of self-actualization is encompassed in the title. The idea is that each individual (i.e. “self”) has a certain potential to achieve a variety of things. Once the lower-order essential needs of that individual have already been met, then a drive manifests itself to work on and realize this potential (i.e. “actualize”.) Maslow summed this up by saying “What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.” According to this theory, people who have achieved this goal, tend to manifest the following personality traits:

• They tend to have a realistic appraisal of both themselves and the world around them.
• They tend to be interested in solving the problems that they see in the world around them.
• They tend to be spontaneous and can at times be unconventional in behaviour.
• While capable of being gregarious, at times they embrace solitude as an opportunity to focus on developing their skills and potential.
• Self-actualized people do not become jaded with the world. Instead they continue to experience a sense of wonder all through their life.
• They also often experience what Maslow termed “peak experiences” of seemingly profound emotional importance.

Maslow's theory makes a lot of sense if you understand the time at which it was written. The Great Depression had ended, the Second World War had been won, and modern technology was promising limitless material wealth. For the first time absolute want was gone for the vast majority of people in Western nations. Secondly, the great totalitarian threat posed by the Axis dictatorships had been removed which meant that many people felt safe and secure for the first time in decades. Finally, the postwar growth of the welfare state and the spread of democracy to the whole of the “Western world” implied a great “leveling out” of the old class structures that had once placed the majority of citizens in a precarious social position (think, for example, of the great strides we have made in civil rights.) And indeed, during the 1960s it seemed that huge numbers of people were following the dictim of “What a man can be, he must be.”

I'm prepared to give Abraham Maslow the benefit of the doubt as to what exactly he intended with this theory. He was attempting to offer a descriptive definition of the sort of life that he thought the very best of humanity pursued. Unfortunately, this viewpoint inevitably morphed into a prescriptive ideal that was offered to individuals who were perplexed about how to live their lives. Probably the most famous prescriptive statement in this vein was by Joseph Campbell: “My general formula for my students is 'Follow your bliss.' Find where it is, and don't be afraid to follow it.”

Unfortunately, this ideal became debased to the popular “do your own thing”, which often ended-up being bastardized into not much more than simple ego gratification. And, if we think about the implications of what his theory says, the spread of this “dumbed-down” version shouldn't come as any great shock. First of all, the ideal of “self-actualization” makes no mention whatsoever of anything outside of the “self”. The traditional virtues of faith and honour were not inward directed towards the individual, but outwards directed to either God or society. To replace this outward focus, the most that Maslo could come up with to replace this was the concept of “peak experiences”.


“Peak experience” was the label that Maslow used to identify what had previously been described as a “religious” or “mystical” experience. It is very clear from his little book, Religion, Values and Peak Experiences, that he was consciously trying to come up with a way of describing the experiences of religious people in terms that excluded all reference to “God” or any other sort of supernatural reality. In effect, he was trying to pull out what he considered the “core” of spirituality from the incidental cultural and historical effluent (e.g. “religion”) that had built up around it.


This may or may not be a valid thing to do, but the practical result of his particular formulation (and all its subsequent popular incarnations) makes the entirety of the “peak” experience revolve around the ego of the individual experiencing it. This completely inverts the traditional relationship that exists between religious mystics and their conception of the Divine. If you read the literature of mysticism you will find time and again that mystics humble their ego to embrace the “God within”, “Buddha Mind”, “Brahman, “Dao” and so on. Ultimately this puts the religious mystic into the headspace where their prayers boil down to not much more than “Thy will be done, Lord”. Because Maslow decided to pull out all the---what he thought “extraneous”--- religious stuff out of mysticism, the casual reader cannot help but think that the only option left is to understand “Peak Experience” as being not much more than “My will be done.” As a result, mysticism ceases to be about shrinking the ego in order to embrace the universe and becomes instead a glorification of the ego.


This becomes obvious if you think about how one of the supreme virtues under the Maslow viewpoint, “spontaneity”, can very easily slide into being an out-and-out vice. As I have pointed out above, the ritual and routine of monastery and regiment have proved essential to inculcating the willingness of individuals to place the needs of the many before the desires of the individual. The ideal of spontaneity turns this totally on its head and suggests that it is a very bad thing to think of the greater good and the long-term instead of the here and now.


If the Benedictines had viewed spontaneity as an ultimate virtue, they would never have submitted to the routine of the monastery---which involved things like rising in the middle of the night to chant the divine service. It is also very hard to believe that they would have drained the swamps and built the abbeys that were necessary to tame the howling wilderness that Europe had become after the barbarian invasions. And if soldiers in the Allied armies of WWII had valued spontaneity very highly, it is doubtful if they would have submitted to the tyranny of drill seargants and “official regs”. And the end result of that would probably that we would all be currently living under some form of totalitarian nightmare.


It is understandable that a psychologist living in Maslow's time and place would suggest that spontaneity is a virtue and that the highest good is to “self actualize”. He was writing when the USA was going through a post WWII boom that had brought prosperity beyond the wildest dreams of any other human civilization. Moreover, he was addressing a population that had suffered regimentation and external discipline that was also unparalleled in human history. Millions of self-employed farmers had been forced to migrate to the cities and learn to follow the dictates of the clock and foreman on an assembly line. Moreover, because of conscription, almost all adult males had been forced to submit to military discipline while in the armed forces. Given the extreme regimentation of personal life in the 1940's, 1950's and early 1960's, it was almost inevitable that some sort of backlash would present itself. And once prosperity and peace took away the fear of poverty and invasion, people were ready to accept any notion that suggested that submitting to authority was not only annoying, but wrong.


But if an entire civilization gives itself over to “doing its own thing” it becomes fundamentally incapable of dealing with any sort of existential problem. I would argue that one of the reasons why our society seems incapable of dealing with the environment is because far too many people have bought into a watered-down and bastardized version of Maslow's philosophy of life. As a result, they think that any idea that they should “do without” and “suck it up” for the greater good is not so much unnecessary as it is existentially wrong or even immoral. The ordinary members of the public who are simply casting about for an excuse to do nothing can latch onto this ideal and use it to ignore any calls for sacrifice. And the people who are in a leadership position in the environmental cause refuse to use the language of morality, civic responsibility and self-sacrifice because they buy into the Maslovian “ur-philosophy” of the West to the point where they feel it would be “wrong” to use such language.


Of course anti-environmental politicians and religious groups have no such scruples. They routinely mobilize their followers using the language of morality and sacrifice. The fact that liberals refuse to engage in this sort of discussion reinforces their belief that the Left is a danger to society specifically because it is “amoral”. In their description, liberals are proponents of “situational ethics” who do not understand the difference between right and wrong. Unfortunately, these right wing people who do have an ethical bedrock have chosen a bizarre set of fundamental issues to ground it upon. Most seem to believe that denying the right of women to have an abortion is far more important than preventing wars that kill and maim innocents through “collateral damage”. Many also seem to believe that preventing the use of contraceptives is more important than preventing the spread of terrible diseases like AIDS. For almost all, the right to use private property trumps all attempts to deal with poverty and structural inequality, or any other calamity such as environmental collapse.


The ethical choices that the Right grounds its politics upon have convinced Liberals that it is fundamentally wrong-headed to even use the language of morality. This discredits appeals to morality of all sorts---which in turn reinforces their commitment to the Maslovian worldview.


Society seems to be stuck in the self-reinforcing situation that Yeats described all so well: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”. People of good will who might get involved in saving the planet if there were any sort of leadership find themselves adrift, which leads to despair. And people of good will who might be able to be leaders in the fight for Mother Nature find themselves intellectually incapable of actually pursuing this goal in an effective manner because their commitment to the self actualization ethic makes it impossible to articulate the environmental crisis in terms of moral faith and/or patriotic duty.

Environmental Vow: Part Eleven

Problems With Honour:

In much the same way that people have learned to question the faith that motivated past generations, so they now question traditional definitions of “honour”. To understand why this concept has declined as a human motivating force, I think that it is important to understand exactly what role that it played in society. I believe that if we do so, we can see the decline of “honour” as being a somewhat natural result of changes in the way that people relate to each other.


While, as I suggested earlier, the concept of “honour” has always played a role in developing the group cohesion necessary for the creation of an effective military force, I would suggest that we need to understand that the primary locus of “honour” is the individual officer or man, not the collective being of the “regiment”. If the overwhelming majority of men in a regiment feel that their personal honour is dependent on their being brave, the incidental result is group cohesion and because of this we talk of the “honour of the regiment”. But the fact is that only individual people can respond to this emotional complex. The collective is just an intellectual abstraction. And that individual concern about one's “honour” is the result of specific social and economic imperatives. Once these ceased to be of importance to most people, the concept itself began to decline. I would suggest that one can see this point if one looks at the history of dueling in Western society.


Dueling grows out aristocratic societies where power is directly associated with ones military prowess.


Ancient Vikings, for example, settled various legal disputes through a practice known as “Holmgang” which was a form of ritualized combat. The idea was that a man could challenge any other man to combat over disputed money, land, a woman, or a simple insult. If the person challenged refused to fight, then he would be declared “nioingr” and he would then be considered an “outlaw” and in some jurisdictions have all his land and money confiscated. If, on the other hand, the insulted of the parties is killed in the duel, a modest payment (one half of the normal fine for simple manslaughter) would have to be paid to the family of the dead. If the insulter died, that was considered his own fault and no penalty was levied.


The important thing to understand about individual combat like the “holmgang” is that one's “name” or “honour” was seen as being directly tied to one's ability and willingness to fight to defend it. This was implied in the ritual that one went through to become a medieval knight. Nowadays people believe that all that was involved was kneeling before a king and being tapped on the shoulder with a sword. But in the beginning the feudal overlord actually slapped or punched the knight in the face. The idea was that this was the last insult that the man would be able to accept without having to fight for his honour. And, as we see in the “holmgang”, “honour” was not just some sort of emotion felt by a person---it had legal, social and financial importance. Refuse to defend your honour when called to holmgang and you risk being declared an outlaw (that is, no longer being defended by rule of law which meant than anyone could rob or kill you with impunity) and having all your property seized. The ultimate idea is that any sort of priviledge that one enjoys in a feudal society rests upon your ability to fight. Whether it is your land, your wife or your title, if you are too weak to defend it by sword, you did not deserve to possess it.


Social customs like dueling and the holmgang come about as a way of introducing fairness into an inherently unfair situation. That is because the combat involved at least has rules that attempt to “level” the playing field. Without the rules of the holmgang, for example, the Viking Chief with the largest group of retainers would simply send his men out to steal whatever he wanted. At least with the holmgang a poor yet strong warrior had the chance of fighting a duel with the mightiest chief and winning. And the threat of being challenged to holmgang no doubt served as a check on the arrogance and abuse of power by the powerful.


In the same way, in societies with extremely weak and corrupt legal systems; where police simply did not exist; and where communications were so primitive that one could escape justice simply by riding a horse for a day or two into another jurisdiction---people were pretty much “on their own” when it came to defending themselves. Even in the 18th century, if you did not stand up to bullies by yourself, they could and would rob you of everything you owned. That is why gentlemen were expected to know how to fight with a sword and gun. And the rules of the duel were similarly codified in order to “level the field”. That is why, for example, the person who was challenged was allowed to choose the weapons (so an expert with one weapon couldn't challenge people to a type of fight where they didn't have a chance.) The institution of dueling was a logical social response to the intractible problem that the strong tend to prey upon the weak.


People forget how very common dueling used to be right on up until the early 19th century. While statistics on the subject would probably be impossible to find, one indication of how common it once was is to consider the number of famous individuals who had fought duels at one time or another in their lives. Four British Prime ministers who ruled between 1780 and 1829 fought duels (William Petty, Pitt the Younger, George Canning and the Duke of Wellington---although only Pitt and Wellington fought while actually holding the office of PM.) In 1777 one of the signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Button Gwinnette, died as a result of being wounded in a duel. In 1804 the then sitting Vice-President of the USA, Aaron Burr, shot and killed a previous Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton in a duel. One could go on and list dozens more very important people from various walks of life. Below the very wealthy and famous, there existed the ordinary gentry, who also seem to have been involved in dueling to a significant degree, if one can believe the literature of the 18th and 19th century. Amongst the common people, although there is less evidence, I suspect that it was also common for people settle slights to their “honour” by violence. One piece of evidence for this comes from our language. If you have ever wondered what the term “at loggerheads” means when two people are arguing, it refers to a sort of low-class duel between two non-gentlemen fight using a tool that consists of a iron bar with a heavy weight on one end (i.e. a “loggerhead”.)


Laws had existed for hundreds of years to discourage dueling but they had been routinely ignored by all and sundry because the institution served a useful purpose by protecting the weak from bullies. People who fought duels took pains to ensure that there were no witnesses and that fights took place in areas of disputed jurisdiction. But even if a case came to trial and enough evidence existed, judges and juries still refused to convict. But as societies have become wealthier and more complex, governments eventually created modern police forces and court systems that have made dueling no longer a necessary defence for the weak. It became possible for middle-class individuals to hire lawyers to fight their duels before a judge using arcane arguments instead of having to meet with pistols at dawn. When this new way of doing things became part of everyday life, popular opinion turned away from dueling. It no longer served a useful public function and instead just became ridiculous. At that point anti-dueling laws began to have teeth because judges and juries started to convict. Eventually the practice died out.


As society changed, however, the concept of “honour” continued to exist although it ceased to serve its original purpose. The necessity of protecting a person's legal and financial standing in the community by force had disappeared. But the secondary purpose, that of encouraging group solidarity during time of war, still existed. Without the objective necessity of having to defend one's self in a lawless world full of bullies, “honour” increasingly became something that the government wished to inculcate in the young instead of an essential survival skill. As a result, it became something that was taught at school and imposed by social sanction. Children were forced to memorize stirring poems of heroic sacrifice. There were encouraged to read “ripping yarns” about soldiers and explorers. And if as young men they refused to respond when their country called, there would be young women to hand out white feathers to any young men who were not in a uniform. In effect, “honour” had become a tool used by nation states to mobilize its citizenry for total war.


The First World War brought this entire edifice crashing down because it sent thousands of the Western World's “best and brightest” to a very nasty doom for what turned out to be a very dubious cause. The revulsion many of these men felt for the way that they had been “played” is expressed by some of the so-called “war poets”. These were highly-educated young members of the British elite who found themselves suffering and dying as junior officers on the Western front. Take a look at the last stanza of Wilfred Owen's poem about a gas casualty, “Dulce et Decorum Est”.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

This decline hasn't been complete or uniform. Just as there is still a percentage of the population that still believes in the “Olde Tyme Religion”, there is still a fraction of the public that can believes in the jingoistic glories of military service. But that percentage has declined dramatically in most nations. This decline has been masked to a certain extent for two reasons. First of all, for many people the iconic image of war is World War II. And that conflict was quite exceptional because it could easily be seen as an absolutely necessary war. This meant that a lot of people who were very jaded could still be convinced to put on uniforms and fight to stop the institutional racist insanity of the Axis powers. Similar support for the cold war existed in the beginning (for somewhat similar reasons, given the brutality of Communism) but began to wither away when the moral ambiguity of proxy wars in places like Vietnam became obvious. “Luckily” for the military, by that time the increased mechanisation of warfare meant that there was no longer the need to mobilize huge conscript armies. A small volunteer force of highly-trained “professionals” is all that is needed today. This means that there are still generally enough people around who believe “Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori” to fill the recruitment quotas.


But just as in the case of religious faith, those individuals who are most engaged in environmental issues consist of that fraction of the population that is most likely to cast a jaundiced eye upon any appeal for honourable sacrifice. You cannot appeal to people to “do without” or make exceptional effort in order to help the nation or future generations get through our current environmental crisis if the entire coin of honourable sacrifice has been totally debased in their eyes. Once people have been badly swindled they find it very hard to believe even the most honest of appeals. Again, just as with religious faith, we are back into the Yeats territory of “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”