"Benumbed By Beheadings?"
I'm a bit of an e-penpal with Dick Meyer, the editor of cbsnews.com. "Benumbed By Beheadings?" is the title of his new online editorial where he questions why the ugly killings of single hostages in Iraq has ceased to be front page news, since the acts are so gruesome to those of us who mourn every lost American.
It seems to me that my reply to his column deserves broader distribution, because of the moral issues it delves into, so I reproduce it here:
"Perhaps a way into this issue is to ask a hypothetical question: How much less "evil" would these killings be if they were done as they are in our prisons: privately, by invitation only, with hospital gurneys and IV's?
"My answer, as a Buddhist, is not a jot less. But why, then, do we feel such personal nausea at beheading? My answer, as a Buddhist, is because of our own private illusion (which is not true) that our "self" and our body are identical.
"Thus a death by violence which excessively maims the body appears to us "cruel and unusual", as our Constitution puts it. This is an illusion of cruelty, sustained by the fact that beheading is now truly "unusual" even among the most penally bloodthirsty of peoples: the Chinese or the Texans, for example.
"Real cruelty is something like crucifixion, drawing and quartering, or immolation by fire--all the forms of killing where causing pain and suffering prior to death is the punitive point. It is also things such as the lovely Japanese practice of not setting a definite date for your execution, so you wake up every morning listening for the footsteps because today might be the day. These are more evil than mere death.
"Beheading is not more evil, save for the grief and shame it causes in those who mourn, and the mental suffering in those who anticipate it. But since this mental suffering among we who oppose them is why the terrorist insurgents do it, our turning away, our refusing to suffer, is a functional, if ugly, response.
"For we may, in the end, be constrained to do far more evil--exponentially multiplying suffering to the perpetrators as well as multiplying force against them--than they have done to us, simply to get them to stop. For such evil we will need to be unfeeling and dehumanized.
"It is a choice I hope we do not face, for the consequences of it will be more horrible for us in the long term than it will be for them in the short term. But we may yet face it, and may not have the moral strength to reject it."
It seems to me that my reply to his column deserves broader distribution, because of the moral issues it delves into, so I reproduce it here:
"Perhaps a way into this issue is to ask a hypothetical question: How much less "evil" would these killings be if they were done as they are in our prisons: privately, by invitation only, with hospital gurneys and IV's?
"My answer, as a Buddhist, is not a jot less. But why, then, do we feel such personal nausea at beheading? My answer, as a Buddhist, is because of our own private illusion (which is not true) that our "self" and our body are identical.
"Thus a death by violence which excessively maims the body appears to us "cruel and unusual", as our Constitution puts it. This is an illusion of cruelty, sustained by the fact that beheading is now truly "unusual" even among the most penally bloodthirsty of peoples: the Chinese or the Texans, for example.
"Real cruelty is something like crucifixion, drawing and quartering, or immolation by fire--all the forms of killing where causing pain and suffering prior to death is the punitive point. It is also things such as the lovely Japanese practice of not setting a definite date for your execution, so you wake up every morning listening for the footsteps because today might be the day. These are more evil than mere death.
"Beheading is not more evil, save for the grief and shame it causes in those who mourn, and the mental suffering in those who anticipate it. But since this mental suffering among we who oppose them is why the terrorist insurgents do it, our turning away, our refusing to suffer, is a functional, if ugly, response.
"For we may, in the end, be constrained to do far more evil--exponentially multiplying suffering to the perpetrators as well as multiplying force against them--than they have done to us, simply to get them to stop. For such evil we will need to be unfeeling and dehumanized.
"It is a choice I hope we do not face, for the consequences of it will be more horrible for us in the long term than it will be for them in the short term. But we may yet face it, and may not have the moral strength to reject it."
posted by Joseph Marshall | 11:32 AM
7 Comments:
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: Compare and Contrast — Bloodthirtiness
"Thus a death by violence which excessively maims the body appears to us "cruel and unusual", as our Constitution puts it. This is an illusion of cruelty, sustained by the fact that beheading is now truly "unusual" even among the most penally bloodthirsty of peoples: the Chinese or the Texans, for example."
So. It is your opinion that the Texans are 'bloodthirsty'? Praytell, how so. How many people have the Texans, officially, put to death? Compare that with the numbers put to death, officially, by the Chinese.
Yes, Texas has Waco. But the Chinese have Tiennamin Square; 84 vs. 1000+. But the Texans changed their governor the following election. Did the Chinese change their premier? I don't think so.
Texas has that dragging death thing. Not only the black man, but the white man as well.
On the other hand, China has it's problems with doctors. Their first experience with 'socialized' medicine, after the Communists came to power, was rather 'interesting'. Ask me about it.....sometime. [Note: It did, dramatically, reduce the spread of STDs, but the repurcussions are that people don't trust doctors anymore. And that's nearly 60 years later.] And that was a government-sponsored and supported pogrom, er program.
So, please tell me how the Texans are as 'bloodthirsty' as the Chinese.
RE: Beheadings
Ho hum.... Reality TV has jaded the American pallette. They're going to have to come up with something more 'dramatic' in order to keep their audience. And I think they're planning something.
By the way, when's the last time you hand a close encounter, of the third kind, with a dull knife? And no anesthetic?
RE: Our Response
"For we may, in the end, be constrained to do far more evil--exponentially multiplying suffering to the perpetrators as well as multiplying force against them--than they have done to us, simply to get them to stop. For such evil we will need to be unfeeling and dehumanized." -- Joseph Marshall
Indeed.
I suggest the Pershing Method. A simple, swift death by bullets, dipped in pigs blood.
Worked in the PIs against the Moros.
Or, if you are opposed to capital punishment, let them tend pigs for the rest of their natural lives and when they die, their carcasses are fed to pigs. That would take more time. Not quite as expeditious, but it would have the same 'affect'.
As for choices, well....it all depends on whether or not they can be dissuaded from their current course. The longer they hold to it, the more people are going to suffer.
There will come a point at which we must, and will, decide that enough is enough and take on the REAL Jacksonian approach. The question in my mind is, will there be cosmic flash-cubes or not. I think it will go that far, unless we act with greater resolve sooner. Everything else is just so much back-handed appeasement.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. We will not be the first to use WMDs. But we only use one type.
I had hoped to be clearer with this one than I appear to have been, given your response.
As a Buddhist, I neither condemn nor condone what other traditions call "immoral" behavior. We call it "unskillful action" and regard it as essentially self-correcting since it always results in human suffering explicitly for the perpetrators, in the absence of any corrective action on their part.
This does not mean I would not relieve the future sufferings of ANY individual, if I could. But the only way for that to happen is for that individual to learn what the "correctives" are and practice them by themselves. No one can do them for you, no one can do them for me. Nor does it mean that I would refuse to PREVENT someone acting unskillfully, if it is in my power and my best judgement to do so, within the limits of behaving skillfully myself.
As Buddhists we have an explicit obligation to teach about this IF we are asked and to keep it out of people's way if we are not asked. I mention it here because I don't think I can reply to your comments without it. So I will speak declaratively and dispense with redundant repetition of, "Buddhists' think".
Killing is ALWAYS unskillful action, no matter who does it, or for what reason. Circumstances may force the choice on you in any given life, but, just as when you are forced to rescue your child at the cost of your own life, you cannot wish the ultimate consequences away. You can only "correct" them in the time between when the killing is committed and the ultimate consequences "ripen", often several lives down the road.
Killing another human being is exceptionally unskillful action, because, unlike killing an animal, you not only take a being's life, you take their chance to be religious, which animals, in their present life, do not have. The extra suffering you cause with killing is summed to the actual taking of life itself, hence the executioner's sword is about the same, if not exactly the same, as bullet to the brain or the gurney and IV. But crucifixion, say, is far worse.
Mental assent to killing by someone else or to the possiblity of you killing in the future, plants the seeds of the forced choice of killing in future lives.
So if it truly "ripens" without "correction" you must undergo the suffering of "having no choice" but to kill and if the actual killing "ripens" you must undergo the suffering of horrendous physical and mental pain in a future life.
It is this mental assent that I meant when I spoke of "penal bloodthirstiness", by which I did not mean anything but an attitude toward judicial execution, hence "penal". We execute criminals in Ohio, too, but there is no question in my mind that in China and in Texas, such punishments are applied far more proactively and with far greater gusto, than here in the Buckeye State. And I think the evidence of this is perfectly plain.
This is the result of deeper and more widespread mental assent to the particular form of killing known as judicial execution among the people in those places. It is, if you will, a "hang 'em high" syndrome, and I cannot concieve of you disagreeing that such widespread mental assent does not occur both in Texas and in China, if you think about it.
We live, all of us, on the edge of a moral precipice when we have a "precious human birth". We are capable both of the actions which will lead to the absolute end of our constant round of suffering lives, and of the actions which could lead to aeons of unbearable torment. No other form of "sentient being" has this great chance or this great danger.
Within the limits of years of horrid sloth, I have done what I can to live and act skillfully. But I never forget that the corresponding great danger is never more than inches or minutes away from me or any of us who share this "human realm".
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: Here's Some Karma Com'n at You
Talk about your coincidences. Here's a passage from an article up on NRO that sort of hits the nail on the head....
"It follows that there is no policy that will successfully end their jihad against us short of total surrender and mass conversion to their brand of Islam. They see us, quite explicitly, as animals who deserve slaughter. The terrorists' recent response to Tony Blair's statement that he would not negotiate with them was eloquent: We are not interested in negotiations, they said. Either the British withdraw or we will slaughter the hostage." -- Michael Ledeen, at NRO
This form of murder is not about us. It is about them. Akin to rape being a function of power, so is their prefered from of murdering us. That includes Buddhists, who are not "people of the book". [Note: I think they got this from the Mongol horde which sacked Baghdad. The Mongols stacked three piles of human heads outside the city gates; men, women and children.]
It's a power trip to cut off the head of your lessers.
Here's the source...Know Thine EnemyRE: A Better Explanation
Thanks for that.
However, the comparison of China to Texas is as comparing Stalin to a duly appointed judge; not particularly apt. And very much out of context with respect to what is going on in the world of jihad.
Stalin killed to maintain power. So do the Chinese Communists. The judge orders death through a drawn out and codified system of laws. There is something of a difference. But if you are opposed to the death sentence in the first place, I can see how you see the two as similar.
But looking at the jihadis, you see something completely different. Something we have not seen since the Rape of Nanking, a willingness for wholesale slaughter, treating other people as if they were animals.
And these people will win-out inside of Islam. Why? Because they will silence the opposition within by doing the same to them. It has been repeated oft enough in history. Most recently, The Terror, as practiced by Stalin during the purges of the 30s and the Cultural Revolution by Mao in the 60s and 70s. However, I'm sure Pol Pot can also be listed.
What is the Buddhist response to this?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
The Buddhist response is simple to articulate though, admittedly, emotionally difficult to do: Keep your moral balance and your head screwed on straight.
ALL human beings do what they do because of basicly the same set of mistaken beliefs about themselves and the same lack of understanding of the long term consequences of their actions. No one of us is "inherently" evil, despite the deepest of confusion and the worst actions.
So you don't have to get especially more emotionally upset at someone who kills for one reason than someone who kills for another, or at someone who kills 10 people, or 1000 people, instead of merely one. Such emotional upset is purely gratuitous and doesn't help the clarity of your moral judgement a jot.
That said, you have to deal with whatever you are faced with as skillfully as you can. So the first order of business is an attitude check. Your hypothetical mental assent to any killing is both useless and, in the long term, dangerous because it clouds your moral judgement.
This does not mean that you, as a Buddhist, will never be faced with the unavoidable choice of "kill or be killed". And it does not mean that you will never kill when faced with it. The roots of our past run deep and we have no idea what we may have mentally assented to in past lives--the "kill or be killed" dilemma is a potential for all of us.
But we don't have to sew MORE of the mental seeds that lead to it, right now. We don't have to give our mental assent to the notion that killing someone or something is ever a "good idea".
As a Buddhist, if you are forced for ANY reason to kill something or someone, all you can do is apply the "corrective antidotes" you have been taught to deal with the consequences. The first of these is the acknowledgement that your act WILL have bad consequences for you and you alone unless you do something about it.
In fact, some of the greatest enlightened teachers of my particular "lineage", or teaching tradition, have been people who were placed precisely in this situation. It gave them good reason to work hard at being Buddhist, and hard work counts here as everywhere.
The magnitude of the "kill or be killed" choice simply has nothing to do with the moral principle involved. Buddhists, like anyone else, may end up having to do very bad things and make the best of it. But they know that "making the best of it" starts with NEVER losing your understanding that you can do or may have done very bad things, indeed.
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: All Well & Good
"Keep your moral balance and your head screwed on straight." -- Joseph Marshall
That's nice. Christians are supposed to do as much as well. And all the rest of it is nice too. But, it all seems to be on the individual level. At what point and in what manner would Buddhists deal with situations like 9-11 and the prevention of similar events?
Or, on a more day-to-day basis. How would they prevent abductions and murders, as going on in Iraq today.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Even those who do not take up the sword can die by it.]
Buddhist countries have armies. Buddhist countries have police. The problems are no different, collectively, for them than anyone else and there are no particularly different Buddhist solutions. There are no particularly Christian solutions, or Muslim solutions, or Hindu solutions to these problems either.
The point of my post has been from the beginning about the mental attitude we take toward our world. For the Buddhist, this is as real an issue, personally, as the problems in the world we are addressing. For a Buddhist, it is also important, for the sake of moral clarity, to keep the distinction between these two things absolutely clear.
It seems to me that a fair reading of your comments suggests that you still have trouble distinguishing between these two things, and that your questions refer more to your own confusion of them than what the post has to say.
Dick Meyer's point was the dreadful nausea we feel when confronted with these beheadings, and the degree to which we become deadened to that same nausea. I essentially provided a Buddhist explanation for the nausea, and the implications of the jading of our emotions, no more.
Buddhist countries have armies. Buddhist countries have police. The problems are no different, collectively, for them than anyone else and there are no particularly different Buddhist solutions. There are no particularly Christian solutions, or Muslim solutions, or Hindu solutions to these problems either.
The point of my post has been from the beginning about the mental attitude we take toward our world. For the Buddhist, this is as real an issue, personally, as the problems in the world we are addressing. For a Buddhist, it is also important, for the sake of moral clarity, to keep the distinction between these two things absolutely clear.
It seems to me that a fair reading of your comments suggests that you still have trouble distinguishing between these two things, and that your questions refer more to your own confusion of them than what the post has to say.
Dick Meyer's point was the dreadful nausea we feel when confronted with these beheadings, and the degree to which we become deadened to that same nausea. I essentially provided a Buddhist explanation for the nausea, and the implications of the jading of our emotions, no more.
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