[Buddha-l] Re: Greetings from Oviedo

[Dan Lusthaus]

Joy,

You take what you think is a "clue" a construct an elaborate set of
dichotomies and analogies, none of which were buried in the clue.

Speaking of context, the context of the Zen teacher's surgeon story was a
question from a woman in attendance who was weighing several choices and
wondering which was "good" and which was "bad." The moral of the story in
that context was precisely that an action itself -- including cutting
flesh -- was neither good nor bad; it's value can only be determined
contextually.

Hence equating Hiroshima with Bali can only be done at the expense of
ignoring context. On the simplest level, one act ended a war, the other
intensifies one; on an even simpler level, one ultimately saved many lives
(including Japanese lives -- anyone familiar with the Japanese ethos of the
time knows that the govt. was ready to sacrifice every civilian in the
country to save the Emperor, and it armed housewives with brooms and white
smocks so that they would attack any invasion on the beaches, something they
were already doing with horrible losses not only to allied soldiers but the
native civilian population which in fact voluntarily became combatants; not
to mention the those under Japanese occupation in South-East Asia and the
Pacific islands who by that point in the war had not only been raped and
plundered and had no food, but were being eaten by the occupying Japanese
troops who themselves had no food and nothing further to plunder but the
very flesh of the people they were occupying). Hiroshima, moreover, was not
an "innocent" city, but a target with major miliitary strategic importance.

But the dichotomies you draw are also too simplistic and reductive. Because
ending a war and ultimately saving lives is a good, while driving Hindus out
of Bali (or Kashmir, or Afghanistan, or Pakistan, etc.) is not, the violence
does not have the same value. That doesn't make violence itself either good
or bad. Violence ultimately is just another form of impermanence, one more
problematic than dying of old age since it seems in many cases to be
avoidable. But "many" is not equivalent to "always." Or put another way,
it's not that one act is simply good, and the other is bad, it's that one is
better than the other, and the other is worse than the first. Motive and
consequence are, at minimum, to factors to consider when making such
evaluations.

Bush is a simpleton. One could argue that the removal of the Taliban and the
disabling, even temporarily, of the Al Qaeda network and international
training program were noble and justifiable, and a way to improve the life
of the Afghani people. It was also a brilliant military campaign that wrote
a new chapter in the annals of military history (due, largely, to military
strategies and weaponry developed during the Clinton term). Iraq has become
a disaster, for reasons too numerous to recite, which tarnishes and
recontextualizes the Afghani project as well. The real world is messy, not
simple yes and no, good and bad, surgeon and thug (there are better surgeons
and worse surgeons, Robin Hoods and Bali bombers).



> the case of Hiroshima, represents
> the intentional murder of innocents, who die and don't survive unlike
> the symbolic patient. That is the big difference.

No. The big difference is the war -- for the US -- began at Pearl Harbor,
not Hiroshima. The Japanese were not going to surrender easily (surrender
was considered a contemptible act -- which is why not only did the Japanese
treat POWs with horrible contempt, but most fighting squads fought until 96%
were dead; surrender was not in the script), which meant they would have to
be pounded into surrender.

> If you think in terms
> of history and universals like nations, peoples, corporations etc. yes
> they will survive and perhaps their situation (of the symbolic "they"
> since individuals don't count) will be "better" than those of their
> predecessors. But the physical reality of the individuals who are the
> victims of intentional violence is *not* that world of ideas.
>
> The suffering caused is real, more real than the notion of a "better
> world". If you kill real innocent people intentionally for an idea
> (including statistics about what would have happened or could have
> happened if...), than according to my ethical values (which some may
> call Mappo) that is wrong.

Joy, the logic of this, if you follow it, would mean that it would have been
better for the Allies to have left France occupied by the Nazis, rather than
risk their own and possibly innocent French lives. Or for the French to let
themselves be slaughtered by the Nazis (once the Jews were gone, who would
the Nazis turn to next?) rather than mount a resistance. That's not a vision
I can subscribe to, nor would I consider it very moral. It's confused and
even suicidal (better to kill oneself than to kill another? But killing is
killing, so how can oneself rather than killing another be better? Letting
others kill you when you know that's what they are going to do is Assisted
Suicide. And if you are killing yourself to avoid killing someone, then you
are innocent, so killing yourself is killing someone innocent, rather than
killing someone not innocent... very confused and a bit twisted, the sort of
knots R.D. Laing liked to untangle).

Dan Lusthaus