Dear List:
The recent postings have made me examine what I think about choice and I offer the following as preliminary ideas.
I believe that human beings' mechanisms to make choices are socially conditioned. We are taught 1) that there are choices in life, and 2) the mechanisms to make these choices. Most often, people are instructed to fulfill desires in the hopes of reinforcing their sense of self -- Miles' example about cooking eggs. In each case the ability to choose is presented as an indication of selfhood. Individuals exists because of the unique choices they make. I choose, therefore I am.
Of course, this strategy of choice does not establish a solid sense of self. If it did the world would not be a place of escalating consumption and decreasing satisfaction. But once this pattern is established, a person continues to make choices to fulfill her individual desires, all in the quest of overcoming her sense of no-self.
But this approach has its difficulties. For example, for breakfast nowadays I have yogurt and bananas or some oatmeal. At one time it was a diet coke and ring dings. What happened to my old self? Did it cease to exist? Did I cease to be? Clearly, if I define self as what I chose in terms of eating breakfast then Brian ceased to exist when he stopped eating ring dings at 9:00 a.m. But clearly Brian does exist (or some sense of Brian), since he is writing this email. So using desires and their fulfillment as indicators of the existence of self is clearly problematic.
But if we accept for the sake of argument the Buddhist concept of no-self, these problems do not come into play. Also, the importance of freedom and choice remains undiminished.
The Buddhist concept of a human being (which Carrol has said could also be considered a materialist view) imagines a fluid identity which is changing every second. We possess a provisional self that is always in the process of making itself up as well as being made up by others. But can this provisional self choose? I would say yes since it takes part in making itself up. This provisional self also takes part in making up the provisional selves of others.
This is where choice comes in. Instead of being seen as a mechanism to fulfill desires in a vain attempt to shore up a solid sense of self, choice can be seen as the opportunity a person has to decrease suffering (how we would define "suffering" is another thread LOL). If my supposition is right -- that human beings possess a provisional self, but on the fundamental level of reality are interrelated, then decreasing suffering would seem to be a priority.
As I was writing this email, I read Charles' post about class consciousness and it occurred to me that the Buddha's notion of the interrelated self is akin to the notion of class consciousness. But instead of having to create this consciousness, Buddhism would say that we must uncover the interrelatedness that already exists which has been obscured by the fruitless pursuit of individualism. As Charles points out, the exploiting class has a stronger sense of class consciousness (interrelatedness) than the exploited class. From my Buddhist viewpoint I would argue that the exploiting class has a stronger understanding of the ultimate nature of reality (without necessarily coming from a Buddhist perspective) and by acting on this knowledge they are able to maintain and extend their control.
Freedom too is vital in this conception since human beings must be free to chose actions that decrease suffering rather than increase it. If the only choices we have, no matter how various, only serve to increase suffering, then we have lost their freedom since there can be no improvement.
To use Yoshie's example about healthcare. I will take as a given that universal healthcare would represent the greatest decrease in suffering.** The fact that we can choose to work for the establishment of universal healthcare means that all freedom has not been snuffed out (hence my being a resister -- I resist the forces that would eliminate freedom). Universal healthcare is still an option. As freedom increases so will the actual possibility of implementing universal healthcare. Further, once universal healthcare is established, there is then the choice to maintain it.
The danger of individualism is that it asserts that a) people express their "self" through making choices aimed at satisfying desires, an activity which is seen as a hallmark of the existence; and b) the fundamental unit of reality is the individual. This atomization of society through the attachment to desire can never lead to a decrease in suffering or the establishment of a class consciousness.
The Buddhist thinker Takuan Soho provides one of my favorite metaphors. He imagines a wagon, the payload of which is desire. The driver is will/intellect. Soho states that if you drive the wagon to a place of failure you will have failure; if you drive it to a place of success you will have success. Clearly all human beings have desires. We also have the choice to direct them. The simple mechanism -- have desire, fulfill desire -- is the real tyranny to be avoided since that is the mechanism most easily and often exploited by the capitalist class.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister
** Some people will say that having their money used (against their wishes) to support healthcare for all citizens causes suffering. This argument, like all such arguments, is flawed (from a Buddhist standpoint) since it misidentifies the source of the suffering. A person who clings to money (or anything else) is merely trying to prop up a sense of solid self through enhanced wealth, privilege, status etc. When that clinging is threatened they "suffer." But the source of their suffering is their attachment, not the action that is being taken. However, since our culture places such a strong emphasis on individualism, most people cannot see this truth.