[Buddha-l] Aung San Suu Kyi and the latest Burmese prosecutions

[Richard Hayes]

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 5:43 PM, Zelders.YH <zelders.yh at wxs.nl> wrote:

>
>  The Buddha
> then proposes a set of rules in which conflicts might be solved and
> consensus reached through a process in which every opinion might be
> brought forward and considered by all. How "democratic" can one get ?


The Buddha sets down the rules for solving disputes when he is not around.
The rules themselves are not arrived at through a legislative process in
which proposals are made and then voted upon. For me to call a process
democratic I would expect motions to come from the demos and to be decided
by a vote from the demos.


>
> As he had great authority as a revered spiritual teacher those rules
> were codified as part of the code of conduct by his followers. Does
> that make him an authoritarian leader in any ordinary sense of the term ?


That seems to me exactly what an authoritarian leader in the ordinary sense
of the term does.

>
>
>
> In all seriousness, I don't think you can blame the Buddha for the
> mess made by contemporary myopic authoritarian regimes in South and
> South-east Asia. And hey, let's not forget that we're discussing a
> legendary figure, even as the legend has a historic kernel.
>

I'm not blaming the Buddha for anything. People are quite capable of making
terrible messes of things without his help. I am simply observing that
Buddhist tradition does not provide models other than the authoritarian ones
that prevail in most Asian countries. I thought this was an uncontroversial
and harmless observation.

>
> --
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes