Aaron Ross Powell's Blog, page 5

The Buddhist Insight that Explains Our Broken Politics

Buddhism’s parable of the two arrows of suffering helps us understand why politics seems so broken and harmful and how we can fix it.

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The GOP is screwed

They can’t escape Trumpism, but they can’t win with it, either.

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The Pragmatic Buddhist Approach to Politics and Economics

The Buddha told us to interrogate our beliefs and discard those that aren’t helpful. This advice could radically change our politics.

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Should Buddhists Worry about Consumerism?

Critiquing the case against consumerism, exploring the dangers of political consumerism, and showing how market innovation enables the cultivation of Buddhist values and practices.

Welcome to another issue of The Free Market Buddhist newsletter. This week looks at consumerism, a common worry Buddhists have about free markets. I discuss the Buddhist case against consumerism, argue that it’s less persuasive than it might seem, and point out the problems of political consumerism, which is both more pervasive and dangerous. The issue closes with an argument that unleashing markets and innovation from political control could in fact lead to less consumerism and more opportunity to cultivate Buddhist values.

The Dangers of Consumerism

Many contemporary Buddhists worry that capitalism promotes values that interfere with our ability to live the way Buddhism says we ought to. One of the biggest concerns is that capitalism leads to consumerism, and that consumerism makes it much more difficult for us to escape from greed and clinging. For instance, here’s how Sallie B. King describes the Buddhist case against consumerism in her book, Socially Engaged Buddhism.

Thai Engaged Buddhist layman Sulak Sivaraksa and American Engaged Buddhists Stephanie Kaza and David Loy are representative of the Engaged Buddhist concern with consumerism. Their thinking on this subject, though developed in distinct ways by each, is based upon the same principles. Consumerism in their view is closely tied to capitalist economics — specifically the tenet of the latter that holds that economies must continually grow in order to be healthy. In order for an economy to grow, people must continually buy the goods that the economy produces. Consumerism is the ideology that supports continual economic growth by promoting consumption. Consumption is promoted of course by the incessant advertising to which people in the developed world are subjected, but according to these thinkers, it is also promoted more subtly by the ideology of consumerism, which teaches us to identify ourselves as “consumers,” to understand our lives as good if we have many possessions, and to conceive the purpose of our lives as the acquisition of more and more things. We commodify more and more of the things around us, thinking, for example, that a wedding or a burial needs to cost thousands of dollars or that (if we are Buddhist) we should fill our homes with Zen alarm clocks and Tibetan rugs. Our economic theory, in turn, supports this view by persuading us that the value of an object is the same as its cost. It leaves out of the equation what it can neither commodify nor quantify, such as clean air or harmonious neighborhood relations. These things literally do not count as economists make their calculations.

The Politics of Taste

I’m skeptical of this critique. For one, I think it dramatically overstates its case. Yes, some people in market economies are overwhelmed by a need to buy things as a source of happiness, are slaves to advertising, and see the price of something as the only measure of its value. But people like that, in my experience, are almost always other people. We rarely identify such problems in ourselves. Your purchases are nothing but mindless consumerism. My purchases, on the other hand, are all reasonable. This is a version of what I call “the politics of taste.” Tastes differ, wildly. The music I adore is, to your tastes, irredeemably bad. The clothes I love, you think are ugly. The knick knacks you purchase are frivolities, but the ones I buy are important symbols of my spiritual practice.

Disagreeing about tastes would be no big deal if it stopped there. The trouble is, we tend to take it a step further, arguing that opposing tastes aren’t just bad, but dangerous and inauthentic. In other words, your tastes, to the extent they don’t line up with mine, are a form of false consciousness you’ve been manipulated into by nefarious actors who stand to gain from them, and so the actions you take and the purchase you make aren’t what you really want or need, and are actually harmful to yourself and others. Given that you’re suffering from causes outside of your control, the rest of us need to help free you, and the tempting way to do that is via political action and control.

A better way to approach differing tastes is to simply accept them out of a sense of toleration and an embrace of pluralism. If someone wants to fill their home with Zen alarm clocks or Tibetan rugs, our default belief ought to be that they’re doing so because they generally get pleasure and value out of it, rather than to see them as duped victims of a social conspiracy. To do otherwise is to arrogantly disrespect the dignity of our fellows. We should not be so convinced of the rightness (and righteousness) of our own sense of self that we deny others the ability to live out their preferences, too. We can, and should, have conversations with our peers about tastes, especially if we see them as destructive, but that’s a very different, and more compassionate, way to interact than simply assuming the inauthenticity of their preferences and using the state to forcibly prevent them from acting upon them.

Still, even if we grant the anti-capitalist argument from consumerism in a form similar to what King lays out, it only creates a further worry. Consumerism isn’t limited to markets. There’s a political kind, too. It’s more dangerous and anything we would do to limit the reach of capitalist markets would only make it worse. Political consumerism is the topic of an essay I published this week called “Think Capitalist Consumerism is Bad? Wait Until You See Political Consumerism,” which shows how each of the problems identified by Sallie King above are present in the political sphere as well, where they are much stronger, and more dangerous.

Markets as a Solution

It’s perhaps counter-intuitive, but there’s reason to believe the very markets that depend on us buying stuff will, in fact, provide the solution to consumerist worries about buying too much stuff. The political theorist and futurist Max Borders, in his book The Social Singularity, argues that rapid technological advancement, particularly in the fields of automation and artificial intelligence, along with the greater decentralization new technologies enable, will create a world of super abundance, a shift in buying habits from goods to experiences, and greater incentives to save instead of take on debt. He sets out strong arguments for why this is likely to happen. (The book is a delight and you should definitely pick it up if you want just those arguments’ persuasiveness for yourself.)

The world Borders describes is one where many of the concerns Buddhists have about capitalist consumerism are largely stripped away. We’re producing more efficiently, so doing less damage to the environment. We’re better able to live well without spending nearly as much of our time laboring. And we’re spending less time chasing happiness through buying stuff. Instead, we’re using our greater resources to purchase memorable and fun experiences, which we have more time for if we decide that’s how we’d like to use it. Yes, of course, experiences are impermanent, too, and the happiness they bring only temporary, but they are also experienced in the moment, enjoyed in the moment, and are made better by approaching them with the present moment awareness of mindfulness.

Such a world also gives more time for practice. The Pure Land schools of Buddhism emerged in part out of a worry that ordinary people didn’t have time to seek enlightenment in this life because they were too busy just getting by. If innovation and market competition can mean any one of us can achieve a sufficient livelihood in less time, and in less dangerous ways, then we can begin to undo that Pure Land worry and make more time to set ourselves on the Eightfold Path.

The way we get there isn’t through greater government control, however, because greater government control has always stood in the way of the innovation, competition, and rapid technological change that create this better world. States fall under the sway of entrenched interests, and entrenched interest benefit from the status quo. We can see this in those areas of our economy where prices continue to rise, such as health care, education, and housing. All three are among the most government controlled and regulated sectors of the economy, and so the forces of innovation and competition are unable to work their magic. If we want to get to the world Borders tells us is possible, a world better able to support and encourage the practices and values we embrace as Buddhists, the way to do it is through freeing markets, entrepreneurs, and innovators.

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Think Capitalist Consumerism is Bad? Wait Until You See Political Consumerism

The parallels are strong—and troubling.

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A Buddhist Perspective on Violence, the Intent to Harm, and State Action

Laws depend on enforcement, which depends on violence. Does this violate Buddhist ethics regarding harm, even if we don’t intend the violence?

One of the arguments I make against Buddhist calls for expanded state action is that new laws and regulations are ultimately calls for violence and the threat of violence be used against others. When you say, “We ought to ban the sale of large sodas in order to prevent obesity,” what you’re actually doing is asking the state to use coercive violence against people who might sell large sodas. This is just definitionally what laws are. They’re authorizations of force. Otherwise there’d be no enforcement mechanism, and they wouldn’t really be laws at all.

Right Action, the First Precept, and many other principles of Buddhist ethics prohibit Buddhists from harming another being. As Khenpo Samdup, the monk at the temple I attend, writes, “This core of non-violence and non-harm is, in effect, another way of stating the whole of Buddhism.” It’s why so many Buddhists are vegetarians, for instance. And just like it would run counter to the dharma’s teachings for a Buddhist to kill a deer for his dinner, it would also be wrong for him to command another to do it for him. (Buddhist disagreement about meat consumption by monks tends to focus more on whether you can eat meat that’s offered to you and was killed by someone else, not at your request.) Likewise, if it is wrong for me to beat you up or kill you because I don’t want you to sell a large soda to another person, it seems clearly wrong for me to command or request a police officer to beat you up on my behalf. To think otherwise, categorically, would lead to absurd conclusions such as murder violating Buddhist ethics, but hiring a hitman being perfectly permissible.

A possible solution to this tension appears in the role intent plays in Buddhist ethics. In short, while it’s never good to kill, it’s far worse to kill intentionally than unintentionally and knowingly than unknowingly. Constructing a new forest monastery means killing a lot of insects, worms, and other creatures as you dig and lay the foundations. But killing them isn’t the intent. If there were a way to build without destroying these small creatures, that would be the right path. Likewise, if while laying the foundation, you see a creature about to be killed, as a good Buddhist, you should take a moment to move it to safety.

We might, then, apply this approach to state action. The intent of the soda ban isn’t to use violence against dealers of large sodas. Rather it’s to help prevent obesity. If there’s a way to accomplish that without calling for violence or the threat of violence, we ought to take it. But that obesity continues to occur speaks to the need to turn to law.

There’s obviously something to this. But I worry it doesn’t ultimately address the concern and instead only obfuscates it and so makes us more likely to use even more violence to advance our political interests. To see why, let’s think about what it means to say we didn’t intend the state to use violence on our behalf.

Arguing that there ought to be a law preventing X, but that you don’t intend to harm people who do X in violation of that law is, I’d argue, incoherent. A law just is an intent to use force against people who behave, or fail to behave, in a certain way. This is true even of laws that carry only a fine. Making offenders pay cash for their offense doesn’t immediately look like using violence against them, but you only need to ask yourself “What happens when they refuse?” to discover the violence present in every government command.

Thus, except in the rather unlikely scenario where you pass a law that no one violates, calling for a law is indistinguishable from calling for coercive force, and coercive force will inevitably follow. No one ever says, “We should create a new law we won’t enforce.” Similarly, going back to the example of laying a foundation for a temple, we can’t use the escape of moving beings out of harm’s way if we notice they will be harmed, because harming people who disobey is, again, the very foundation of law. It just wouldn’t make any sense to say, “Let’s pass a law that we’ll enforce with violence or threats of violence, but the moment we notice someone might be harmed during that enforcement, we should stop the enforcement.”

Nor does the “unknowingly” hedge help. First, even if you didn’t know that laws are commands to use violence, you do now — or at least have had the concern they might be placed in your mind. But even if you haven’t read this newsletter, or are unfamiliar with social science understandings of government, there probably exists an obligation to have some knowledge of the outcome of our actions. To take an extreme example, I’ve clearly done something wrong, and have violated Buddhist non-harm principles, if I fire a handgun into a crowd, even if I somehow am unaware of the effect of bullets. Knowing that bullets kill is the kind of knowledge an adult is expected to have. (And I certainly should stop firing the moment I’m made aware of the damage I’m doing.)

Does this mean, then, that Buddhist monks shouldn’t build forest monasteries? They know it will harm woodland creatures, and they of course have the option of not causing that harm by instead sitting outside in the grass or on rocks. Probably not, because Buddhism ethics regarding violence scales the wrongness (e.g., the amount of negative karma generated) by the level of the beings killed. The death of insects is still killing, but it’s nowhere near as bad as killing humans. Therefore, while it’s permissible to build the monastery if it means killing insects, the monks would certainly have to refrain if it meant killing or harming humans.

My argument isn’t that Buddhist must reject all laws. The consequences of our actions matter, but so do the consequences of non-action. Instead, we should be aware of what it means to enforce a law and only use that violence when it appears absolutely necessary. It’s not controversial to point out that quite a lot of laws on the books aren’t worth killing over.

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06.04.20: Quarantine Days

It’s been a while, as is too often the case with this newsletter. (Unless, I suppose, very occasional is just the right amount. I’ll leave that judgement up to you all.) This has been in part a lack of good habits, but also I’m finding that quarantine and all the related and unrelated stresses we’re experiencing right now have made it difficult for me to muster the sustained focused for writing.

My family is all healthy and safe, and we’ve been managing the three kids’ education while my wife and I work full time, and doing an okay job of it. And, while deep writing has been hard, I’ve been otherwise quite productive, both with Libertarianism.org stuff and personal projects.

Behind the scenes at Libertarianism.org

The big thing is we’ve been working on a total redesign of the website, tentatively scheduled to launch near the end of the month. It’s a pretty radical rethinking of the way the site is organized, and one that I hope will make it far more helpful both for people new to libertarianism and those who want to plunge into heavier research on specific topics within libertarian theory, history, and policy.

The major upgrade is that the site will now be focused on topics, built around the related article in the Encyclopedia of Libertarianism (which is also gearing up to expand dramatically over the next year), and with all the content we have on that topic easily accessible in one place. In addition, for many of the topics, we’ll be highlighting a list of what we think are the best and most helpful content we have for people who want to get up to speed on it. Our goal is to make topic pages the best place to start to learn about any subject within libertarianism.

I can’t wait to show it to you.

Relaunching my podcast

A few years back, I started a personal podcast, mundanely named the Aaron Ross Powell Show, as a way for me to have interesting conversation with interest people while mostly staying away from the politics I talk about so much for my day job and my work podcasts. I got a few episodes in and then, for various reasons, it kind of stalled.

Fortunately, being stuck at home, as well as having to build a bedroom podcasting setup to continue Free Thoughts remote, has lead me to bringing it back. So far I’ve released six new episodes, with a seventh coming in the next couple of days. I’m really happy with how it’s going and hope I can keep it coming on semi-regular basis.

Here’s what you can find if you head on over and listen and subscribe.

Buddhism with Jason KuznickiPostmodernism with Akiva MalametAncient Literature with Brian Wilson and Paul MeanyNarrating Audiobooks with Scott Feighner (and this one includes a bonus at the end of Scott reading one of my favorite stories I’ve written, a twisted little crime tale called “Snowed In”)Tabletop Games with PJ HambrickBatman with Cory Massiminoand coming soon, Star Wars with Paul Crider



What I’m Reading

I’ve also managed to get in more non-work related reading than typical lately. My Buddhism reading continues, most recently with Karma: What It Is, What It Isn’t, Why It Matters by Traleg Kyabgon. Kyabgon is a Tibetan monk, but one who is quite familiar with Western philosophy. His book is an attempt to set out for Westerners what Buddhist mean by karma, and how it factors into practice and ethics. I found the book quite rewarding for teasing out answers to questions I’ve had about rebirth, karmic effects, and the structure of Buddhist moral philosophy. There are still aspects of it I don’t accept, and ones I still feel like there are contradictions within, but this book helped a lot.

Next, I was delighted to discover that Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels are part of Kindle Unlimited, which means they’re free with the three month trial membership Amazon launched as the pandemic hit, and that they include not just the Kindle edition, but the audiobook, too. I’ve been tearing through the early ones, and they’re not only probably the best series of police procedurals ever written (and also the books that invented the genre), but, in an America rightfully enraged by police misconduct, a window back to a time when fiction portrayed cops as relatively upstanding, instead of rogue agents busting heads to pursue justice in the face of pencil-necked bureaucrats whose insistence on following procedure is played up as the height of villainy.

Finally, I went back to Ken MacLeod, the Scottish science fiction author whose novels are about characters deeply committed to various fringe political ideologies arguing with each other. There’s something comforting in listening to conversations between people so deeply committed to their ideas, and so well read in them. And while MacLeod began as a Trotskyist and is now more of a left-, syndicalist anarchist, his presentation of libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism is well-informed, sympathetic, and fair. Plus, his novel The Stone Canal presents a sophisticated take on an anarcho-capitalist society.

Politics and Exhibition Games

One of the reasons politics is often so bad in practice is because what people care about within the political arena isn’t what a rational outside observer would say they ought to care about. For example, very few Americans have strong policy preferences, or at least strong policy preferences outside of the context of political parties. Which policies they support at any given time aren’t a matter of careful examination of those policy’s costs and benefits or their permissibility within existing legal frameworks, but rather whether they’re the preferred policies of one’s political tribe. That’s how you get Republicans flipping on free trade, for example, or Democrats abandoning their anti-war principles when a Democrat’s in the White House. Most Americans don’t care (much) about public policy. They care about political affiliation.

The result of this tribal definition isn’t just irrational policy views. It’s also part of what makes politics look more like team sports than the rational discourse of public minded interlocutors imagined by civic republicans. It’s us against them, and what makes them them is that they’re not us. When they win, it means we didn’t win, which means by definition we lost. So it’s important that we win, no matter the content of the political question at issue, so we that aren’t losers.

I thought about all this while watching preseason football.

Political tribalism frequently gets compared to team sports. We have a largely irrational connection to a particular team, resulting from the accident of birth or college attendance or, in my case, where my uncle had his honeymoon. (Really.) Then we stick with that team through the successes and the lean times (because nothing’s worse than a fair weather fan), and we’ve got at least one rival team we love to hate. (For me, it’s the Jets.) In fact, the analogy to team sports works so well that it’s tempting to think we could solve many of our problems with politics if we could just get people to shift their platform for tribalism from politicians or political parties to baseball or football or, if you really must, hockey.

But watching the tedium of preseason football, with players competing in games that don’t matter except insofar as they decide some roster spots, I realized why, once the political tribalism demon is fully out of the bottle and fed on a non-stop media environment, there’s so much difficulty redirecting it to less dangerous pursuits, like sports. Preseason games suck because, unless you’re one of those bubble players hoping to keep your job, there aren’t any stakes. The games don’t mean anything. So even though it’s football, and by August the long off-season has us starved for football, it’s almost always a mistake to watch. Games get exciting when they count.

And nothing–unfortunately–counts more than politics. These are the rules and policies and programs that will impact our lives every day, which determine the options on the table for us, and the actions we’re prohibited from undertaking. Politics is what decides who we lock up, who we reward, and who we kill. It’s got stakes, and thus excitement. And those stakes go way beyond even whether your long-suffering franchise makes the playoffs.

Which, as someone who would love to get people less interested in politics–among our most destructive human endeavors–is pretty depressing.

My Stuff, Elsewhere



Last week saw one of the best episodes of Free Thoughts we’ve ever done. Trevor and I sat down with Steve Horwitz, Economics Editor of Libertarianism.org, to talk about his cancer. When Steve suggested the topic, I knew it would be a good and inspiring conversation, because I know the kind of man Steve is. But I came away in awe of his optimism and thoughtfulness and grace.The last time Trevor and I did a Q&A on Twitter, someone asked what I thought was the most exciting avenue for promoting liberty. I said it was alternative institution building. On today’s Free Thoughts, we talked about one of those: social media. The state exists in part to solve coordination problems, but I can see a world where that role gets shifted much more to online networks. But for that to work, we have to think about them the right way, and that’s what today’s episode is about. We risk responding to online problems in either the wrong way or too much, and, in our haste to fix the internet, breaking and crippling technology that has the power to reshape our world in significant and beneficial ways.



Miscellanea



“On top of which, I said, ‘I’m going to get off philosophy,’ because I became like a kite with a string but no anchor. No one could understand what I was talking about.” That’s Nicholas Cage in an interview with the New York Times, and I think it’s a pretty good line.The greatest board game ever made is the old Avalon Hill Dune. It’s the perfect blend of mechanics and theme, so you end up with a game that’s both a blast to play and makes you feel like you’re actually great houses competing for control of Arrakis. I’ve been obsessed with the game since a friend first introduced me to it in college. Problem is, it’s long been out of print. There was a non-Dune re-skin released a while back called Rex, which is good, because the original Dune is good, and Rex is the original Dune but not set in the Dune universe. But that last point is always a drag when playing because I’m constantly remapping everything back to the rightful setting. Which is why I was thrilled to learn that Gale Force 9 got the rights to all of it and has a new edition coming out at the end of the month. If you like board games at all, I can’t recommend this one strongly enough.

Until next time,
Aaron

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A Social Media Conundrum

Back in March, I think it was, I quit social media for a while. It wasn’t planned, but instead the result of getting pulled away from Twitter for a week, and then realizing I didn’t much miss it and seemed to be a good deal happier besides. But eventually my resolve slipped and I got pulled back in. Though maybe “pulled” isn’t the right way to think about it, because it’s not like I was compelled to read tweets and write tweets again. Rather, the low effort reading and the instant gratification Twitter offers proved more addictively powerful than the mental health benefits of avoiding both.

That said, I want to quit again. Twitter has its value, which I don’t want to dismiss. If I leave it, there are parts I’ll miss. (Facebook is another matter. I haven’t used it regularly in quite some time, and don’t particularly feel any draw to change that.) But I recognize how unhappy it often makes me. How it presents a version of the world that’s agitating and enraging, or at least kind of disappointing. This is made worse by the fact that, given what I write about and the people I follow, so much of my Twitter experience is political. And political Twitter is a godawful place.

So quitting seems obvious. Not being there makes me happier, and gives me more time to do productive stuff, too. But… My job is to be a communicator of ideas. Twitter is a great way to do that, and to reach a lot of people. It’s also a way to do it that plays well to a writer’s laziness. I can make a point in 280 characters and have it out to the world in a fraction of the time, and with a fraction of the effort, it takes to make that same point in 500 or a 1,000 words and post it on a blog or submit it to a publication.

That in part why I’ve hung around for as long as I have after the last time I quit. Except I’m less convinced that the trade-off is worth it. I’m less convinced the value I create for people on Twitter is greater than the value I could create by putting that communication energy elsewhere. And that of course doesn’t even factor in whatever productive boost I might get from not being agitated or angry at the world as much.

So, yeah, I’m going to try this quitting thing again. I’ll keep my Twitter account active, but I’ll use it mainly to share links to my stuff elsewhere, whether new blog posts, essays, podcasts, or issues of this email newsletter. Speaking of the newsletter, I want to try, if I can maintain the discipline needed, to make it both more regular (something I’ve committed myself to times before without, I admit, consistent success) and turn it into a home for the kind of running commentary and pointers to interesting things I’ve been using social media for.

At least that’s the plan. My will’s failed before. Fingers crossed I can do better this time.

What I’m Reading

As usual, I’m reading multiple things at once and bouncing between them. On the fiction side, that means, first, The Fire Engine That Disappeared by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. This is another in the Martin Beck police procedurals series from the 1960s. I adore these books. They epitomize a kind of melancholy crime fiction that just works so well. Written by a husband and wife team of a journalist and a poet, they read exactly like the best version of that combination. The books feel realistic, and the characters are convincing, while the prose is spare in really evocative way. They’re pretty good mysteries, too.

Next is another crime novel, One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson. This is the second in the Jackson Brodie series. Atkinson is a stunningly good prose stylist, and she consistently creates some of the most compelling characters I’ve found in literature. These books aren’t tight in the way most of the crime novels I read are. They’re full of tangential stuff, but that stuff is wonderful. The first in the series, Case Histories, was the best mystery novel I’d read in years. The second book isn’t letting me down.

Finally, James Ellroy. I’m going slow with This Storm, his new book, and the second in the second L.A. Quartet. The first L.A. Quartet (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz) are easily the greatest crime novels ever written, and Ellroy is the best living writer in America. These new books are everything that makes Ellroy wonderful dialed to 11. Which means they’re something of an acquired taste, and not at all where I’d recommend you start if you’ve never read him before. Pick up the first L.A. Quartet for that.

I’m reading some non-fiction, too, both on Buddhism. Karma: What It Is, What It Isn’t, Why It Matters by Traleg Kyabgon, is proving a helpful and philosophically astute overview of what’s always been one of the most difficult Buddhist concepts. “Karma” isn’t predetermination or some kind of celestial balancing. It doesn’t mean what pop culture takes it to mean. Rather, it’s a sophisticated theory of action and causation. This book is clarifying quite a lot of my confusions. Second, All Is Change: The Two-Thousand Year Journey of Buddhism to the West by Lawrence Sutin. This is a history of Buddhism’s interactions with the Europe and the United States, beginning with the Ancient Greeks and continuing to the modern mindfulness boom. I’m learning a ton from it.

What I’m Watching

Amazon’s The Boys is very good. After decades of Marvel movies and everything superhero, I’m kind of burned out on the genre, and this was a palate cleanser for super heroics. It’s also maybe the most realistic depiction of what super heroes would really be like and the impact they’d have on the world that I’ve seen. It’s grim and cynical and nasty and a hell of a lot of fun.

What I’m Writing

I’ve finally written about Buddhist for Libertarianism.org, with two essays about Buddhist ethics and political liberty. The first defends the claim that taking core Buddhist ethical principles seriously means rejecting much, if not all, of what government does. The second address some counter-arguments made to the firston Buddhist message boards and on Twitter.

I also spent a fair amount of time researching the underlying ideology of “National Conservatism,” a new movement that seeks to add philosophical heft to Trumpism and thus keep Trumpism going after Trump leaves the scene. While I think the National Conservatives are fundamentally mistaken about quite a lot, I’ve found them considerably more interesting to read than I expected. In other words, they’re wrong for intriguing reasons. I blogged about this over at Cato in the context of Senator Josh Hawley’s speech at the inaugural National Conservatism conference, setting out what he gets wrong about American identity. And this weekend I expended on my critique in an episode of the Cato Daily Podcast.

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If Buddhism Requires Anarchism, Why Didn’t the Buddha Say So?

A couple of months ago I wrote an article about how Buddhist ethical first principles commit Buddhists to probably political anarchism. The basic argument was simple: According to Buddhism, to even begin to practice, one must accept the Five Precepts. The first two are “to abstain from taking life” and “to abstain from taking what is not given.” But by definition, the state must violate these two in order to exist, because laws require force, and ultimately deadly force, for their enforcement, and any taxation that isn’t voluntarily simply is taking what is not given. Thus Buddhists, when they use the state to advance their political goals, are violating the very core of their professed ethics.

One objection people have made to my argument is that the Buddha, while speaking to various rulers during is life, didn’t tell them to abandon rule, and didn’t tell them that the very nature of government violates Buddhist ethics. Given that the Buddha understood Buddhism as well as anyone, this disconnect means I must be mistaken in my interpretation of his teachings.

I’m skeptical. I can think of at least three plausible reasons why the Buddha wouldn’t have publicly spoken to the disconnect between political action and personal ethics.

1. The Buddha taught to his audience.

First, in the vast body of writings known as the Pali Canon, which is accepted by Buddhists as the earliest extant record of the words of their philosophy’s founder, we see the Buddha teaching conflicting doctrines. The traditional explanation for this is that the Buddha was supremely practically minded. His goal was to help others achieve an end to their suffering, and so he taught to the individuals he happened to be speaking to at the particular time. He told each person what they needed to hear in order to progress toward enlightenment, and given that different people have different needs and are in different situations, his teachings varied.

Generally, kings don’t take well to being told their rule is illegitimate. If, upon sitting down with a king, the Buddha said, “If you want to follow the Dharma, you must cease enforcing your will through laws and you must cease taxing your subjects,” it’s rather unlikely the conversation would’ve gone any further, any opportunity to help this person achieve release from samsara precluded.

It is possible, then, that the Buddha decided to focus, in his talks with rulers, on matters he knew they’d be more receptive to, in keeping with his general pedagogical strategy.

2. The Buddha was dependent on rulers.

Mendicants in the Sangha begged for everything. A monk owned only his robe and his alms bowl. The Buddha had no lands, no source of income, no army for his defense. If a ruler grew angry and decided to snuff out his nascent movement, there was little the Buddha could’ve done to stop it. Thus keeping his mouth shut about the incompatibility of ethics and state rule was simply prudence. He could do more good in the world teaching the Dharma, even if it meant staying quiet about politics, than he could dying at the hands of an irritated monarch.

3. The Buddha never fully analyzed the nature of state power.

We know the Buddha was at least somewhat aware of the concerns I raised in my essay. In the sutta SN 4.20, while sitting in private retreat, he asked himself,

I wonder if it’s possible to rule legitimately, without killing or having someone kill for you; without conquering or having someone conquer for you; without sorrowing or causing sorrow?

Of course, the answer to his question, at least as it regards all governments then existing and all governments that have existed since, is “No.” It is impossible to have a state that makes and enforces laws without at least the threat of violence, including killing, of those who disobey the law. Otherwise laws are nothing more than suggestions.

But the Buddha lived far before philosophers had adequately mapped out the nature of state power or questioned its moral legitimacy. Then, and even now, the assumption was that state power is legitimate, and the only question worthy of analysis was how to properly use it. Attempts to offer an origin of this power existed, but it was only recently that philosophers began to seriously question its very legitimacy or to poke holes in the standard justifications.

I find it quite plausible that the reason the Buddha didn’t tell rulers that their very rule itself violated the first two precepts is simply because he hadn’t adequately examined the nature of that rule. Like everyone else of his time, he assumed its existence, and couldn’t imagine an alternative. (Except possibly in the mythical form of the Chakravarti, or Wheel Turning Monarch.)

That the earliest philosophers, of which the Buddha was one of the most important, didn’t have the benefit of the 2,500 years of philosophical development and progress we do shouldn’t be held against them. But we also shouldn’t fail to recognize that such progress exists. We simply have thought more deeply about these concepts over the last two thousand years, and so know more. Just as the Buddha held to primitive medical beliefs, he also held to primitive political ones, and part of that takes the form of not thinking through the political implications of his underlying ethics.

Fortunately, the rest of us can now do that for him.

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