Originally posted by FMF
The topic here is 'income inequality'. The topic is not 'income equality' ~ nobody significant or serious minded is proposing that "everyone should make the same amount of money" ~ but, instead, we are addressing the problem of 'income inequality'. What bearing does your spiritual mind map have upon your viewpoint on widening and narrowing income gaps in the world today?
The basic Buddhist ethical principle is compassion. Like the so-called “golden rule” (which, as whodey once pointed out, has versions across most cultures and religions), it is so general as to make application contextual, to say the least - that is, just trying to follow the principle does not guarantee that one will apply it well in each and every case. Nevertheless, I know, in any circumstance, whether my decisions are informed by compassion - or, say, self-justification. Both intention and action matter - they are not separated as in some ethical systems; but, again, intention cannot be an excuse for self-justification.
Compassion, however, may not always look “warm and fuzzy” - as one of my martial arts teachers once pointed out. And the Zen literature is full of examples of Zen masters shouting, shoving and smacking their students - sometimes euphemistically called “grandmotherly compassion” - in the attempt to awaken them, including, sometimes, just kicking them out. (The quote by Balthasar, below, might apply to Buddhists as well as Christians.) Buddhist compassion also has an element of detachment, based on the Noble Truths.
There are Christians who apply their understanding of the gospel message(s) to the socio-economic realm, and those who seem to not want to talk about it at that point. But, as with compassion and the golden rule, those whose economic decisions are faith-informed - and not seen as separate categories - might come to different viewpoints, depending on how they weight (relatively) different gospel principles (which is a necessary part of hermeneutics).
Some might point to prophetic warnings about the dangers of wealth, and the moral obligation of the community to care for the poor and the otherwise marginal - as well as “the stranger” (which is where Jewish ethics are situated). Others might point to the early community of disciples who chose to share everything in common, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” - with capital punishment the result for those who withheld a portion of their wealth or property from the community. [NOTE: This model was not, so far as I know
commanded - but does serve as an example of how one group of disciples recorded in the Bible saw things.] Others, such as Robbie might give greater consideration to passages commending withdrawal - insofar as possible from the affairs of “the world”, not from lack of compassion, but as a kind of exemplar-community. And on and on.
So I am not casting judgment on this or that understanding of the Torah or the Gospel.
As the Roman Catholic theologian Urs von Balthasar commented:
“When it comes to shaping one’s personal behavior, all the rules of morality, as precise as they may be, remain abstract in the face of the infinite complexity of the concrete.”
—Hans Urs von Balthasar, Presence and Thought: An Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa (from the Foreword).
Buddhist compassion, Jewish “to do justice and love compassion” and Christian “love of neighbor” I see as
active principles - i.e., unless activated by being put into action, they really lose all relevant meaning. And I do not think that any of them can be “spiritualized” so as to remove them from the active realm of ethics - including economics.
The Buddhist exemplar of detached compassion can be read here; it is a short read--
http://workingwithinsight.wordpress.com/2007/04/12/the-monk-hakuin-and-the-baby%E2%80%94just-the-way-it-is/
I am nowhere near that ideal - and the few times that I might have been, I didn’t think about it at the time. That is, I didn’t think about compassion or ethical principles or “being the Buddha” or anything like that - nor did I think about detachment: that wouldn’t be real detachment anyway. But I will say this: in some such cases, if I reflect back, it seems hard to tell who is the giver and who the recipient - and what exactly is the gift.
In the Pure Land tradition - where I currently reside, but with a strong Zen bent - no one can expect to attain any level of perfection. I likely will always be wrestling with the Buddha that I am (to put it a bit paradoxically).
Namu Amida Buddha: “I take refuge in the Buddha of limitless light” - that is not a person, let alone a divinity, but the archetypal Buddha of compassion, who accepts all refuge seekers into “the Pure Land in the West” - which is not a place, but a state of being. It is symbolical and mythological, in the strict sense - that is, a symbolical
pointing to a natural reality that cannot be described literally without resulting confusion (so say the modern Pure Land priests and scholars that I read), which makes it rather like a Zen koan I suppose. [Sometimes, you can’t really understand
how to ride a bicycle except by actually riding it.]
Now, I’m no more into who are, or are not, the “True Buddhists™” than I am into who are, or are not the “True Christians™”. Likely I’m a pretty poor Buddhist. But if the Buddhist ethic of detached compassion did not at least
inform my economics and politics, as well as other areas of my life, then I’m not sure I could call myself a Buddhist at all. In that context (which seems to be the context implicit in the OP), I cannot advocate for policies that would make the least well-off and the least-favored in society worse off, while making the most well-off and the most-favored better off. Nor can I advocate for policies that will advantage me while disadvantaging those who have far less than me. Nor can I opt out.
That means that I will be advocating for policies that violate certain ethics that are based solely on the sanctity of private property and individual liberty. This is not a denial of those values - it is a recognition of competing values, and a relative value judgment thereon, from my perspective as a Buddhist (likely influenced also by my Jewish and Christic heritages). Others will make that relative value judgment differently - and some will likely condemn me for mine, so be it. I do not condemn those who honestly, for example, rank individual freedom higher in their ethical ranking than, say, “doing justice and loving compassion”. They are faced with the same ethical struggle in the face of often competing ethical values that I also recognize. (Anyone who thinks all those lofty ethical values cannot be in conflict in the real world, I would say are not looking straight at the real world - but, perhaps, through the lens of some utopian ideal.)
You did not ask for comments on specific economic theories or policies, and this is not the forum for that, so I will not comment on that here. I will also not attempt to argue the specifics of what one might mean by terms such as “justice” and “compassion”. Such a discussion surely has its place - but one can hardly hold any view informed by such concepts if one empties them of all content, e.g., by employing a strategy of arguing to “radical ambiguity”. And one can hardly simply excise such concepts from one’s spiritual tradition, if that tradition itself proclaims those very concepts as ethical values.
Actually, I’m not attempting an argument here at all - again, that’s not what you asked for. So, again, I will rest on the Balthasar comment above - which really recognizes that ethical decisions need to be made, insofar as possible, on a basis of “all things considered”, not just this or that ideal considered.
Income inequality and spirituality
08 Jun '14 13:523 edits
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