Charles writes:
> I'd say we want a society that is in accord with everybody's , individual
self-interest without the fulfillment of some people's self-interest
preventing the fulfillment of other people's self-interest. I don't think
the goal is to get rid of selves (pace Brian), so if selves are going to be
around , it is best to meet their interests, or else they will revolt, by
their very nature.
In a later post Charles, you criticize the 500 years of effort by liberalism to bring about a just and fair society. Yet here, you support the liberal notion of individual self-interest as the goal of society. Isn't it this very notion, which lies at the root of liberalism, one of the main reasons that liberalism has failed?
And for the umpteenth time: what I am speaking is not getting rid of selves. I am writing about replacing the liberal concept of self with the Buddhist conception of self. Liberal personhood with its reliance on the satisfaction of desires is inherently unstable and cannot support a successful new political order.
Dennis writes:
> Which is why it's worth studying and appreciating precapitalist cultures -
they often say things and think things which capitalized societies have
forgotten, or don't dare to utter.
And which is why I think Buddhist economics and political philosphy has a lot to offer.
Mike writes:
> It seems to me that the destruction of self is immoral and not in my
interests.
But is it in your self-interest to cling to a notion of self that forces you to endorse capitalism?
To me the point is to resist domination of all sorts. What sense does it make to object to being a wage slave, but then create the notion of "self-interest" and become a slave to that?
Ted writes:
> According to him the human "self" is a potentially rational self and the
"interest" of an
actualized rational self is relations of mutual recognition.
And mutual recognition is the Buddhist notion that other is self and self is other. If it is rational for me to be concerned with your self-interest, then your self-interest is my self-interest. And if your self-interest is mine, then we must share the same self. Again, Marx was merely restating what the Buddha had said centuries before.
Jon writes:
> Perhaps it would not be amiss to recommend that anyone worried about this
conflict between right and democracy have a look at Plato's "Apology" and
"Crito."
Are there any particular versions you recommend?
Chris writes:
> I'm no expert on this, but as far as I know the main influence from India
on Greco-Roman thought, via the Skeptics, was Hinduism
I am no expert either, but recent scholarship showed that Buddhist thought was also known in the Greek and Roman worlds. The influences are just begininng to be recognized.
Charles writes:
> Bourgeois pursuit of self-interest in indifference to the self-interest of
others contradicts humanity's most fundamental principle of Darwinian
fitness.
But yet you advocate people being allowed to pursue their own self-interest.
> Communism seeks to reaffirm the original principle - communalism - that
differentiated humans from other species.
And isn't one of the foundations of communalism a Buddhist notion of self? Maybe the theoretical cave people could practice communalism because they had yet to develoop the Western liberal notion of self and self-interest.
jks writes:
> You have to be procedurally correct too, and in fast, procedural
correctness trumps [being right].
But doesn't that mean that something that is procedurally correct, but results in persecution (as in the case of anti-same-sex marriage amendments) is possible under Rawlsian notions of liberal democracy?
Miles writes:
> I associate the Enlightenment with scientific rationality, epistemological
individualism, and a skepticism of religious authority. Is this really
consistent with Buddhism?
Yes.
> Do Buddhists agree that scientific practice and the dissemination of
scientific knowledge is the key to human progress?
Buddha siad that no one should take what he said on faith. He said everyone should test what he said empirically, and only then decide whether or not to believe it. Buddha believe that person should act as lamps unto themselves.
> I assumed you guys privileged religious faith over "linear", "Western"
rationality.
As I have written many, many times, Buddhism is not a faith in the sense of being a revealed truth. Buddhism is a set of rational, empirically proveable beleifs about the nature of existence.
> Yes, the human brain is capable of "logic/rationality". But this mode of
thinking that you like is a social product, not a cultural
niversal. --There is a huge pile of historical and cross-culturally
research that supports this claim.
As hard as I try, I do not get your point. If every human being is "rational," how is rationality a social product? I agree that the premises people use are social products, but the machinery of logic is hardwired into human beings.
Also, can you give citations for this research so that I can do some more study? I would like to understand the point you are making.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister