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Home » Opinion » Foreign Views
Sages of both East and West agree on spirit
By Greg Cusack |
January 31, 2011, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
DEAR Mr Wang Yong:
I read with great interest two marvelous pieces appearing on your opinion page on January 12: "Predators and idealists vie for our souls," by Tan Chung, and "East meets West in love of lucre," by yourself.
Tan Chung's piece recalled the teachings of the greatest sages in Chinese history (including Confucius, Mencius, and Zhu Chi) whom I was privileged to meet through a recent course I took on the history of China.
As a person schooled in Roman Catholicism, I instinctively recognized many commonalities between that faith discipline and the teachings, advocated discipline and ritual of Confucius.
Habits of the heart
Monastic wisdom teachers of many faiths have instructed their students in the usefulness of ritual, which is intended to make good practices (and the proper orientation of one's mind and spirit) actual habits of the heart. They knew the power of habits to influence behavior, and the rituals and habits they advocated were intended to foster the virtues of wisdom (whether in the Judeo-Christian or Buddhist sense), living an upright and honorable life, and peaceful relationships with others.
I believe your article, Mr Wang Yong, hits the "nail on the head" by stating that we have all, West and East, lost our way. Our former spiritual disciplines have become slack and empty. Pagan (in the Christian usage) and barbaric (in the Chinese sense) "values" have moved in to take their place.
"Wherever you go, East or West," you wrote, one "choke[s] on the same polluted air and are swamped with the same materialism. In cars, villas and sugar daddies we all place our trust ... the West has found itself a welcome guest in a China that has been brainwashed to believe in the Reaganomics of conspicuous consumption."
You go on to ask how and why this has happened. You state, "Human greed alone cannot explain it. It's a universal belief in man's power over nature - largely originated in the Industrial Revolution of the West from the 18th to the 19th century - that makes the sky the limit of human greed." Powerful words that resonate with me!
Some in the West have argued, "Capitalism is value-neutral." But it is not!
In one sense it "fits" in each culture into which it is introduced because it promises to bring more "things" (beginning with the essentials) to people long without them.
On the surface, this seems a good thing. However, because its engine is both constant and expanding consumption, and its fuel greed and seeming self-empowerment, in a very short time it undermines any alternative long-standing values, consciousness, and relationships which stand in its way.
Half truths
Advocates of capitalism (and, perhaps, those of every other economic system) mask this by cloaking capitalism in words that are often native to each new land. So, in America, capitalism helps "your children achieve more than you every dreamed of," while in China it is a vital mechanism to help China "achieve her proper place among nations." These are half-truths. (Many - perhaps most - of the people mouthing them believe they are speaking the truth.)
The underlying problem is, however, that once a society's roots to its traditional spiritual depths have been broken - including a true consciousness of others, especially those abused or in need - then the false religion of excessive individualism and greed grabs a powerful foothold.
There are no limits to how much you should have! To how much you have the right to want! And for those who fall behind, or who are unable to keep up, well - that is their fault.
Human beings seem to have always held in awe those with money and power. Capitalism enshrines this tendency in the proffered model of the "successful entrepreneur" who, by amassing great sums of money, has both performed community service (by providing vital goods, or building homes, etc) and exemplifies what is possible for the rest of us if we only work hard enough.
Moral chaos
Thus in the West traditional liberal arts educations are increasingly difficult to obtain (what is their "use"?), those who do not fit into this obsessive economic model (small farmers, artists, philosophers, teachers) are marginalized, and the "common good" is seen as an argument from the "left" as various ways to deprive the wealthy of their justly earned deserts.
Moral chaos!
I wish I had proposed answers to this mess. I still believe that most human beings would rather do good than harm; that most of us wish to live in peace and true harmony with each other than to quarrel; and that overwhelmingly we desire peace for our children and sustenance for our planet.
But to attain this kind of orientation we have to rediscover our spiritual principles. The great wisdom teachers of both East and West knew that it is vital that we devote time and discipline to our spiritual life.
Do not athletes and musicians spend hours each day in training, both learning and disciplining their bodies and habits? Why should our interior life deserve less?
A great basketball star takes years to attain success; how can we believe that a person can be truly wise, just, and good without study and discipline?
In the long run, societies can exist without basketball players but not without wise and just men and women.
There was a great comic strip when I was young called "Pogo." (Its characters were all humanized swamp creatures.) One of the lines I have never forgotten from that strip was, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
As the West and the East look in their respective mirrors, whom do we see looking back?
(The author was a member of the Iowa state House of Representatives. He also served in the Iowan executive branch. He retired in 2004.)
I read with great interest two marvelous pieces appearing on your opinion page on January 12: "Predators and idealists vie for our souls," by Tan Chung, and "East meets West in love of lucre," by yourself.
Tan Chung's piece recalled the teachings of the greatest sages in Chinese history (including Confucius, Mencius, and Zhu Chi) whom I was privileged to meet through a recent course I took on the history of China.
As a person schooled in Roman Catholicism, I instinctively recognized many commonalities between that faith discipline and the teachings, advocated discipline and ritual of Confucius.
Habits of the heart
Monastic wisdom teachers of many faiths have instructed their students in the usefulness of ritual, which is intended to make good practices (and the proper orientation of one's mind and spirit) actual habits of the heart. They knew the power of habits to influence behavior, and the rituals and habits they advocated were intended to foster the virtues of wisdom (whether in the Judeo-Christian or Buddhist sense), living an upright and honorable life, and peaceful relationships with others.
I believe your article, Mr Wang Yong, hits the "nail on the head" by stating that we have all, West and East, lost our way. Our former spiritual disciplines have become slack and empty. Pagan (in the Christian usage) and barbaric (in the Chinese sense) "values" have moved in to take their place.
"Wherever you go, East or West," you wrote, one "choke[s] on the same polluted air and are swamped with the same materialism. In cars, villas and sugar daddies we all place our trust ... the West has found itself a welcome guest in a China that has been brainwashed to believe in the Reaganomics of conspicuous consumption."
You go on to ask how and why this has happened. You state, "Human greed alone cannot explain it. It's a universal belief in man's power over nature - largely originated in the Industrial Revolution of the West from the 18th to the 19th century - that makes the sky the limit of human greed." Powerful words that resonate with me!
Some in the West have argued, "Capitalism is value-neutral." But it is not!
In one sense it "fits" in each culture into which it is introduced because it promises to bring more "things" (beginning with the essentials) to people long without them.
On the surface, this seems a good thing. However, because its engine is both constant and expanding consumption, and its fuel greed and seeming self-empowerment, in a very short time it undermines any alternative long-standing values, consciousness, and relationships which stand in its way.
Half truths
Advocates of capitalism (and, perhaps, those of every other economic system) mask this by cloaking capitalism in words that are often native to each new land. So, in America, capitalism helps "your children achieve more than you every dreamed of," while in China it is a vital mechanism to help China "achieve her proper place among nations." These are half-truths. (Many - perhaps most - of the people mouthing them believe they are speaking the truth.)
The underlying problem is, however, that once a society's roots to its traditional spiritual depths have been broken - including a true consciousness of others, especially those abused or in need - then the false religion of excessive individualism and greed grabs a powerful foothold.
There are no limits to how much you should have! To how much you have the right to want! And for those who fall behind, or who are unable to keep up, well - that is their fault.
Human beings seem to have always held in awe those with money and power. Capitalism enshrines this tendency in the proffered model of the "successful entrepreneur" who, by amassing great sums of money, has both performed community service (by providing vital goods, or building homes, etc) and exemplifies what is possible for the rest of us if we only work hard enough.
Moral chaos
Thus in the West traditional liberal arts educations are increasingly difficult to obtain (what is their "use"?), those who do not fit into this obsessive economic model (small farmers, artists, philosophers, teachers) are marginalized, and the "common good" is seen as an argument from the "left" as various ways to deprive the wealthy of their justly earned deserts.
Moral chaos!
I wish I had proposed answers to this mess. I still believe that most human beings would rather do good than harm; that most of us wish to live in peace and true harmony with each other than to quarrel; and that overwhelmingly we desire peace for our children and sustenance for our planet.
But to attain this kind of orientation we have to rediscover our spiritual principles. The great wisdom teachers of both East and West knew that it is vital that we devote time and discipline to our spiritual life.
Do not athletes and musicians spend hours each day in training, both learning and disciplining their bodies and habits? Why should our interior life deserve less?
A great basketball star takes years to attain success; how can we believe that a person can be truly wise, just, and good without study and discipline?
In the long run, societies can exist without basketball players but not without wise and just men and women.
There was a great comic strip when I was young called "Pogo." (Its characters were all humanized swamp creatures.) One of the lines I have never forgotten from that strip was, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
As the West and the East look in their respective mirrors, whom do we see looking back?
(The author was a member of the Iowa state House of Representatives. He also served in the Iowan executive branch. He retired in 2004.)
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