This is an email to an old friend that doesn’t fit the definition of a typical satsang but which applies Vedanta to the current world situation, known in Vedanta as Isvara or the macrocosmic mind.
Hi Sid,
It was lovely to see you! Too bad you had to go; I was enjoying the conversation and about to put the icing on the cake of my argument about the threat of Chinese authoritarianism to liberal democracy and the world order when you left. I’m not sure that you didn’t assume that I was not making a political argument since you humorously addressed me as Comrade Jim, so just for the record I will just state that I don’t identify as a liberal or a conservative or an independent. I don’t identify as an American, European, capitalist, socialist or any other identity. As you know, I identify as the Self and in so far as it has anything to do with the world, I support the idea of non-injury in thought, word and deed. So my argument about authoritarianism verses liberal democracy ultimately hinges on the success or failure of the human race’s relationship to the value of non-injury in so far as non-injury is life’s ultimate value.
The argument picked up some emotion around the issue of Chinese hegemony as I recall, Taiwan in particular. In any case, political entities need to stay prepared for war, not necessarily for world domination but to secure their immediate spheres of influence and to control the aggressive instincts of young men. Anything is possible in this world, so it may be that China will take over Taiwan and the other economic “Tigers” on their borders, Korea and Vietnam, for instance, maybe even Japan, with force. But I doubt it in so far as Colonialism as we know it today is about cultural influence rather than physical occupation of foreign soil. In this regard America has been particularly successful without invading, pacifying and administrating foreign governments.
I think your argument would benefit by questioning the assumption that the world situation today is comparable to what it was in the last century. Without going into detail, the economic situation is very different. There is more wealth globally, poverty worldwide is declining and transportation and communication systems are highly integrated. And this prosperity has been achieved by cooperation in the absence of world war. Yes, America has engaged in minor didactic wars with nothing to show for it and, and, as I mentioned military thinking in the West is no longer fixated on the idea of symmetric war. It is now primarily intelligence oriented. Ideas rule the roost.
During this period of postwar prosperity, Western societies have become more liberal and less ideological, think the “isms” of last century. China since Deng, who was just offering a restive population a reasonable way forward, is no exception. China is now an advanced consumer oriented society and subject to all the upsides and downsides of such entities, which, having found a solution to security issues are now basically driven by service/entertainment sectors.
As the materialist impulse pushes blindly forward…as it does…societies will only become more entertainment oriented as global wealth increases. Tourism, for instance, accounts for about 6% of global GNP, not to mention sports, arts, pornography, etc. Probably 25% of American GNP is entertainment generated, maybe a bit more. And as America, so the world. This seems to be a golden era on one side, in so far as common people live better lives than the kings and noblemen of old, but the dark underbelly of this kind of system is that the steely resolve required for world domination is sapped by hedonistic, not hegemonistic tendencies. Think of the recent pathetic attempt of Trump’s merry band of Shaman-led “patriots,” cell phones at the ready gawking at the paintings of august lawmakers in the capitol rotunda. Think of their hero himself, hardly a Lenin or Trotsky, but a petulant, pampered, corpulent, diapered third-rate entertainer, totally devoid of moral heft. Madame Dufarge and other serious revolutionaries must be laughing in their graves.
Yes, the institutions of the nation state, which is a relatively recent player on the world scene, have been much transformed in the last four centuries but human psychology is no different today than it was yesterday, nor is it reasonable to expect it to be different tomorrow. People are people irrespective of the color of their skin, religion or bank balances. And as the Bard says, “nothing is new under the sun.” Civilization, such as it is, has somehow managed to thrive in spite of many opportunities…nuclear war comes to mind…that would mitigate otherwise. So my contention is that the instinct for self-preservation, which is based on the zero-sum nature of human thought, is more than enough to dominate our thinking for many years to come.
And the fact that unimaginative wealthy societies gravitate toward entertainment rather than more ethereal preoccupations…although certain spiritual forces tend to ascend in prosperous times as well… suggests that the primary purpose for accumulating wealth is purely for self-satisfaction, which does not always bode well for the commonweal.
Hedonistic self-indulgent societies tend to lose sight of the value of discipline required to maintain healthy inspiring institutions, not to mention a disinterest in higher values, so individuals start questioning their identities and institutions lose their focus and begin to disintegrate. Warfare becomes “cultural,” which is silly, but considerably better than sitting in foxholes thinking about mortars raining down, which does concentrate mind.
People, east and west, prefer eating, drinking, drugging, fornicating and baking in the sun on foreign beaches to the disciplined privations of physical conflict. They seem to be quite content to work out their petty aggressions by proxy through beloved sports gladiators.
And it so happens that politicians are socialized before they are politicized so it is rather difficult to generate the steely cadre of apparatchiks required to keep the society’s mind keen on world domination or to produce sages capable of inspiring societies to ascend to the lofty spheres of spiritual apotheosis.
Materialism is messy, inefficient and stultifyingly boring, hence the value of entertainment, whether it is administered by authoritarians or liberal democrats. At the same time, there is a certain reassuringly dull logic to the materialist mindset, Chinese or otherwise, that begs for the sleepy banality of everyday life. So my view is that it is reasonable to assume that China, in so far as it is just a bunch of more or less ordinary human beings, needs other human beings to keep its population focused and will somehow figure out how to get what it wants with a minimum of sabre-rattling and a maximum of clever manipulation of human desire for stuff. Seems they outflanked the West in the battle for control of cobalt in the Congo, which is one of the key ingredients required to produce automobiles in the not so distant future. Likewise, liberal democracies, such as they are, will do the same, more or less ad infinitum.
People think fear is smart but fear is only evidence of itself and is not necessarily a prognosticator of dire outcomes. I can’t see what China has to gain by taking over Taiwan or any other economy. The evidence suggests that they are only interested in extracting resources, in so far as poor countries will readily trade their financial independence to feed and clothe their populations. Keep in mind that many of the liberal democracies of today were all rapacious colonialists. Yes, everyone wants freedom, and while political freedom is appealing to many, economic security is equally appealing, perhaps more so. What China gains by invading Taiwan, they can easily gain with money, in so far as the Taiwanese too are materialists to the core.
And as you pointed out, China is suffering from the same problems as everyone else: sissy boys, horrendous pollution, property bubbles, declining growth, aging populations, etc. Perhaps authoritarian systems can respond more quickly to problems caused by greed and fear but those problems keep coming because they are built into the unexamined materialist mantra: more is more. More is more, but more is also less. There is a lovely verse in the Bhagavad Gita that says that a wise man, like a tortoise, can withdraw his senses at will and enjoy the security of his own company. The idea being that while it is natural for our senses to be connected to the objects that give us pleasure, pleasure itself is dangerous because, pursued injudiciously, it quickly turns to pain. It took me many years to learn this lesson.
Materialist societies, including liberal democracies, need to discover the upside of liberty, which is sacrifice, not license. Everything in nature survives and prospers by sacrifice. If we didn’t have free will we would not be human, but we would be fine. Being human means free will, which always pits us against the zero-sum nature of reality. For every loss there is a gain. For every gain a loss. There is no satisfactory political, religious or economic solution to the fundamental human problem, only appreciation of the upside of this zero-sum life. I had a friend, one of the famous North Beach Beat Poets of yesteryear who wrote me a poem entitled, “It is not here on earth that I am seeking.” Having discovered it by the grace of God I am amused and more or less indifferent to the endlessly dissatisfying world of politics.
Much love,
Jim