Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Since someone brought up TNH, regarding his involvement in the civil rights struggle, things like this are of utmost importance..personally I wasn't trying to say one shouldn't be involved in political struggles that are for the good, I was talking about the well..prapanca that 90% of political conversations are - especially online.

I think if we are honest, most of the conversations we have about politics, (I said most, not all) do not lead to decisive action or even decisions on anything, just unease due to butting heads with someone whose affiliations we've already decided we don't like - even when the people involved have great rhetorical skills and sacks full ''o' book-learnin:)

How to know when a conversation is worth it? I've thought a lot about this, and I try to engage in them when I believe there is enough openness on both sides (and maybe roughly equal intellectual capabilities) that a genuine exchange can take place, if the walls of bias come down just enough, sometimes it can be worth it - however uncomfortable.
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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by DGA »

Politics in the strict sense is that which concerns the public good--matters of public concern.

Public discourse is, already, political. This includes the claim that politics should not be discussed publicly.

I'd like to find ways to encourage bodhisattva activity among all beings. It could be that conventional ways of describing politics are not up to that task. That shouldn't mean we shouldn't continue to seek out alternatives. Here's one that I find valuable.

http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethi ... iberation/
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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by treehuggingoctopus »

Thanks for the link, Jikan. Lovely stuff.
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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by bob »

"As recently as 14 March 2006, Luang Ta Maha Bua [recognized by many as a living Buddhist saint] asked Thaksin [Prime Minister of Thailand] to resign. In a sermon that the monk called "most vehement since the temple was set up," the monk said it was time for Thaksin to abandon the "rotten system he is presiding over". He described the government as "wicked, corrupt, power-hungry, and greedy".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajahn_Maha_Bua
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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by tobes »

I couldn't disagree more with the OP.

If you do not speak up in the name of what is just and right, than your pious silence is worth nothing.

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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by Kim O'Hara »

:applause: :applause: :applause:

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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by muni »

One can mean it well and try to help fellows to speak out for them, the result can be more harm, more suffering. (when we cling to the poor fellows and aversion for the harming other)

When the talking isn’t by selfcenteredness or personal issues, it can be very much to recommend, sometimes silence is to recommend; it depends.

Buddha I guess, gives advice to help to awaken, not to cling which is the basis of all suffering/harm.
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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by Huseng »

Kim O'Hara wrote:I have no great aspirations to either of those exalted achievements but I will be happy enough if I can maintain a good lay Buddhist life. What do you think that means for political engagement?
Buddhist morality is not really applicable at the national level because running a country requires the application of violence and at times lethal force. On top of that there is often a need for calculated evils to be committed in the name of preserving the greater good. This means having to tolerate injustices if it means peace albeit an unjust peace.

As a devout Buddhist committed to common Buddhist values one is unlikely to make a decent political leader in my opinion.

It would also be nice to know your own views and the reasons behind them ...
There's little need for most people to get involved in politics. I think the common people in most cultures are ignorant, overly self-interested, short sighted and unable to properly govern themselves, thus they really need not get involved in politics. Historically it has been strong leadership and a unified elite that produced the most stable and prosperous nations able to defend themselves against barbarians.

When you politically empower inept peoples and give them a voice, you actually can accelerate disintegrating factors whereby political power is dispersed amongst a greater number of individuals thus leading to political deadlock and opportunist demagogues offering rewards to supporters rather than solutions to pressing problems. The well-being and unity of the elites actually matters a lot because the alternative is an elite unable to properly manage things and thereafter inter-elite competition leading to some individuals capitalizing on existing fractures in society for their own benefit. Also, a unified elite, which incidentally generally holds a monopoly on violence, will almost always be able to put down internal rebellion and preserve peace. It is only when elites are fractured that rebellions can end up in revolution and subsequent chaos and anarchy.

The common people need to be looked after by their superiors, not empowered. This applies to Buddhists just as well. Plato states, "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." In the absence of capable leaders in power, you have all but inferiors in command. In my mind the capable should be called to positions of authority while their inferiors are governed with benevolence and tough love if need be. This does not mean a totalitarian state. There just needs to be strong leadership with active long-term planning. There has to be unforgiving rule of law, otherwise you end up with chaos.

So, consequently, most Buddhists because of their values will not make the best political leaders as they'll be unable to make the hard decisions necessary for the welfare of the greater good. That being said, it is good to have a virtuous and benevolence voice. I think, as has often been the case in Asian history, Buddhist advisers are a good idea.

Discussion of political topics is not wrong speech. It is just perhaps unnecessary ultimately for most Buddhists. Ideally, in my mind, a few bodhisattvas can act as advisers and perhaps contribute to balanced and well-informed political decisions.
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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by Malcolm »

Indrajala wrote: Historically it has been strong leadership and a unified elite that produced the most stable and prosperous nations able to defend themselves against barbarians.
You've been living the Sinosphere too long. Geography, not politics, has been the defining feature of political stability.
When you politically empower inept peoples and give them a voice,
Historically, most political systems fail because ineptness on the part of kings and elites.
It is only when elites are fractured that rebellions can end up in revolution and subsequent chaos and anarchy.
Elites usually become fragmented because they become decadent.
The common people need to be looked after by their superiors, not empowered.
This is basically a recipe for a totalitarian government in this day and age.
In my mind the capable should be called to positions of authority while their inferiors are governed with benevolence and tough love if need be.
The problem is with the definition of "capable". Who defines it?
This does not mean a totalitarian state.
In practice, it does.
There just needs to be strong leadership with active long-term planning. There has to be unforgiving rule of law, otherwise you end up with chaos.
What you actually suggesting is replacing the rule of law with the rule of persons. That's ok with me, but don't kid yourself that you are advocating anything other than a return to monarchy.
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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Thank you, Malcolm - I would have in much the same way and you've saved me the trouble. :smile:

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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by tobes »

Indrajala, politics does not equal national politics. They are not synonyms.

To be a political leader is not tantamount to being a leader of a nation-state.

The Mahāyāna is universal in scope: do you not recognise the possibility for a genuine Buddhist inspired cosmopolitanism?

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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by Zhen Li »

To be fair to Indrajala (not to say I am supporting his position, since I no longer support political positions as a matter of principle, just trying to keep this harmonious and kind), he did not actually claim that politics does equal national politics, he specifically confined his discussion to "the national level" in his introductory sentence.
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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Zhen Li wrote:To be fair to Indrajala (not to say I am supporting his position, since I no longer support political positions as a matter of principle, just trying to keep this harmonious and kind), he did not actually claim that politics does equal national politics, he specifically confined his discussion to "the national level" in his introductory sentence.
:anjali:
To be equally fair to Tobes, Indrajala's OP was not about national politics. He did slide sideways here:
Indrajala wrote:
Kim O'Hara wrote:I have no great aspirations to either of those exalted achievements but I will be happy enough if I can maintain a good lay Buddhist life. What do you think that means for political engagement?
Buddhist morality is not really applicable at the national level because running a country requires the application of violence and at times lethal force. On top of that there is often a need for calculated evils to be committed in the name of preserving the greater good. This means having to tolerate injustices if it means peace albeit an unjust peace.

As a devout Buddhist committed to common Buddhist values one is unlikely to make a decent political leader in my opinion.
Note that I wasn't asking about national politics or whether I should become a national leader, just about whether or how much, as an ordinary lay buddhist, I should engage in political discussion.
And since he did slide sideways, Indrajala again failed to answer my question.
:thinking:

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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by dzogchungpa »

I dont think discussion of political topics is necessarily wrong speech, but I think it's quite possible for discussion of discussion of political topics to be.
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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by tobes »

Zhen Li wrote:To be fair to Indrajala (not to say I am supporting his position, since I no longer support political positions as a matter of principle, just trying to keep this harmonious and kind), he did not actually claim that politics does equal national politics, he specifically confined his discussion to "the national level" in his introductory sentence.
:anjali:
I suppose we can let him answer, but note that he establishes a dichotomy between Buddhist morality and the national level...and then includes political leadership as a subsection of the national level. All of this seems to ambiguously imply that politics is tantamount to the governing of nation-states, and that Buddhist morality is incapable of influencing this with enough efficacy.

My point was: many of the great political movements in recent history have been related to specific issues which far transcend national concerns (think: feminism, civil rights, environmental politics, global peace movements etc). These movements all have or still need political leaders.

With respect to your own position - I can certainly understand the desire for political quietism. But to make this a matter of principle seems to miss something fundamental about that nature of politics: resisting that which is deeply unwholesome.

Failing to resist something which is deeply unwholesome allows that thing to keep manifesting.

To take my own examples, if you remained quietest through the 19th/20th centuries on the issues of: voting rights for women/and more generally gender equality, abolition of slavery/and more generally racial equality, cessation of ecological degradation, protests against wars for resources/power/self-interest....etc etc, then are you not endorsing institutionalised patriarchy, slavery, racisim, environmental destruction and imperialist conquests?

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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by Zhen Li »

I don't know if Indrajala wanted us to read on the assumption that he was only talking about the national level for his entire post, I thought he did, but perhaps he could clarify.

To reply to your question, I believe that unwholesomeness (akusala) is acting with volition accompanied by greed, anger, and delusion. Therefore, to resist unwholesomeness, you act with volition accompanied by non-greed, non-anger, and non-delusion. If you do that you are not acting unwholesomely or endorsing the unwholesome deeds of others unless you expressly engage in an act of endorsement, for instance, desiring, encouraging, and rejoicing in other people doing unwholesome actions - if on the other hand you do not engage in an act of endorsement, you are by default engaging in non-endorsement, which is not the same thing as discouragement of unwholesome actions, which is not the same thing as pointing out the faults of others and engaging in acts of blame, which is an act of anger, which has delusion as a requisite, and greed occasionally accompanies.

As regards questions of mass scale notions of actions, clearly we know that these do not exist, only individual actions exist, albeit conventionally, and so when we discuss mass scale actions we end up running into problems of complexity, which are beyond those of physics since they are social and involve the unpredictability of individual volition. Therefore, it's meaningless to speak of such things as being unwholesome on a large scale, that would be delusional, only the actions of individuals can be wholesome or unwholesome consistently, and only conventionally so. Consequently, we can neither speak of benefit nor loss from such matters, and thus we can neither speak of benefit nor loss from changing such matters, they are too complex for us to speak of such a thing whilst maintaining a respect for the intricacies of nature. In fact, while I am here fleshing out here what is implicit, I already addressed all of these issues in my OP, in points 2 and 6, but they are all interrelated since they refer to one specific kind of speech.

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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by Kim O'Hara »

dzogchungpa wrote:I dont think discussion of political topics is necessarily wrong speech, but I think it's quite possible for discussion of discussion of political topics to be.
Yes. What about discussion of discussion of discussion of political topics?

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Edit: I'm sorry. That was meta-meta-discussion. Let's get :focus:
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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by tobes »

Zhen Li wrote:I don't know if Indrajala wanted us to read on the assumption that he was only talking about the national level for his entire post, I thought he did, but perhaps he could clarify.

To reply to your question, I believe that unwholesomeness (akusala) is acting with volition accompanied by greed, anger, and delusion. Therefore, to resist unwholesomeness, you act with volition accompanied by non-greed, non-anger, and non-delusion. If you do that you are not acting unwholesomely or endorsing the unwholesome deeds of others unless you expressly engage in an act of endorsement, for instance, desiring, encouraging, and rejoicing in other people doing unwholesome actions - if on the other hand you do not engage in an act of endorsement, you are by default engaging in non-endorsement, which is not the same thing as discouragement of unwholesome actions, which is not the same thing as pointing out the faults of others and engaging in acts of blame, which is an act of anger, which has delusion as a requisite, and greed occasionally accompanies.

As regards questions of mass scale notions of actions, clearly we know that these do not exist, only individual actions exist, albeit conventionally, and so when we discuss mass scale actions we end up running into problems of complexity, which are beyond those of physics since they are social and involve the unpredictability of individual volition. Therefore, it's meaningless to speak of such things as being unwholesome on a large scale, that would be delusional, only the actions of individuals can be wholesome or unwholesome consistently, and only conventionally so. Consequently, we can neither speak of benefit nor loss from such matters, and thus we can neither speak of benefit nor loss from changing such matters, they are too complex for us to speak of such a thing whilst maintaining a respect for the intricacies of nature. In fact, while I am here fleshing out here what is implicit, I already addressed all of these issues in my OP, in points 2 and 6, but they are all interrelated since they refer to one specific kind of speech.

:anjali:
I agree with this definition of kusala/akusala. I do not agree with the conclusions you draw from it. In your view, there is no relation, no society, no polis, no economy, no ecology. No interdependence between particular conventional selves and these other structural things. There are just individual moral actors living in a vacuum. Such a reality does not exist anywhere I have ever been, and it is probably the deepest contrary to any Buddhist philosophy I have been acquainted with.

I grant you that we enter complex territory when we begin to contemplate complex social-structural interdependencies. But it doesn't follow that because it's complex it doesn't exist or is meaningless!

I suppose the key question is this: Can you be political with wholesome volitions?

I claim: of course! The absence of greed, anger and delusion does not imply the absence of prajna and karuna. With prajna one can make sound (normative) judgements and with karuna one can be concerned with far more than one's own individual state of mind.

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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by Kim O'Hara »

tobes wrote:I suppose the key question is this: Can you be political with wholesome volitions?

I claim: of course! The absence of greed, anger and delusion does not imply the absence of prajna and karuna. With prajna one can make sound (normative) judgements and with karuna one can be concerned with far more than one's own individual state of mind.

:anjali:
Hi, Tobes,
I agree, as you might have expected by now, but I would like like to propose a parallel key question, and answer it:
Can you be apolitical with wholesome volitions?

I think the answer is "no". Further, I think that here on the Mahayana DW the only doctrinally acceptable answer is "no", since (as I see it) the bodhisattva ideal is diametrically opposed to walking away from suffering.

Am I going too far in saying that? I don't know ... but I'm sure someone will advise me. :tongue:

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Re: Discussion of Political Topics is Wrong Speech

Post by reddust »

Why do we have to be political when working on positive changes in our world? I have a habit of asking naive questions, I am sure this is one of them. I have very little power on my own, my positive effort to help this world including myself is through refusing to buy into political ideologies, I find politics collects the worst kinds of humans at the top. Through out my time here on earth we have been at war, I have seen my politicians make promises and break them. I don't let people in my life do this why should I let my leaders do this? I refuse to buy products that are harmful to myself, community and world. This is how I vote now with my energy and intention. I don't trust any authority who says they are here to take care of me after having so many promises broken. I've done the same thing in meditation by letting go of negativity when it comes up, I don't buy into it. Is my body political too?

This subject so complicated I feel kind of foolish but, oh well I will put my thoughts out there and see what happens. I used to give my children choices, they were all my choices though. But the kids felt like they had freedom to choose. It kept them safe and under control until they figured out I was manipulating them. By that time they learned the rules of the world and could navigate correctly. I feel our leaders are doing the same to us but they are not letting us grow up and make our own choices. When someone does something wrong I get involved if I can, I've done this in Chicago and made friends with some young thugs. I was later told I could of been easily killed...now that was stupid but I couldn't stand them bumping into old folks and knocking them over. I didn't feel too political then, I felt like a mother. Plus the kids looked well cared for, I took a chance and learned a very long story about Gentrification and it's negative effects on native population. If I believed in modern psychology I would say our leaders suffer from Münchausen syndrome by proxy. I don't think politics can give us a positive answer to our problems. People get so mean when talking politics, I totally get the gist of this thread but we can't just sit by and let people get abused, used and killed. So I am still figuring it all out. I am sure that this has been happening for ever, it is samsara you know. Maybe the whole deal is that we try our best?
Politics (from Greek: politikos, meaning "of, for, or relating to citizens") is the practice and theory of influencing other people on a civic or individual level. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community, particularly a state. A variety of methods are employed in politics, which include promoting one's own political views among people, negotiation with other political subjects, making laws, and exercising force, including warfare against adversaries. Politics is exercised on a wide range of social levels, from clans and tribes of traditional societies, through modern local governments, companies and institutions up to sovereign states, to the international level.

A political system is a framework which defines acceptable political methods within a given society. History of political thought can be traced back to early antiquity, with seminal works such as Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Politics and the works of Confucius.

Modern political discourse focuses on democracy and the relationship between people and politics. It is thought of as the way we choose government officials and make decisions about public policy.
From wiki

EDIT: What is beyond politics?
Mind and mental events are concepts, mere postulations within the three realms of samsara Longchenpa .... A link to my Garden, Art and Foodie blog Scratch Living
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