Politics & The Middle Way
If you haven't read it already, Arianna Huffington's The Next DNC Chair: Why You Should Care: Feb. 12 showdown will shape the party's future, is a neat piece with considerable food for thought not only about politics, but about Budddhism's Middle Way .
Against his counselors' advise to ignore the world of death, disease, and poverty that awaited outside his family's house, Siddhartha Gautama set out to explore what lay beyond his family's wealth (Siddhartha's father, Suddhodana, was a minor king, the head ofthe Sakya clan). Wanting to understand the reasons for the suffering that until then had been kept from him, Siddhartha left his family and embarked upon a bitter pilgrimage of ascetic practices, as he sought the serenity and peace he had seen in a Jain renunciant. After years of ascetic practice that left him almost dead, Siddhartha sat under the Bodhi tree in mindfulness meditation and after seven days and seven nights achieved enlightenment, becoming a Buddha (awakened). It is then, fitting, that the Buddha's first and foremost teaching is about the nature of suffering, and about the way to end such suffering. In that teaching the Buddha rightly decried such extremes (passivity or ignoring, and asceticism, best understood as wordliness and world-renunciation) as ways to achieve enlightenment. Instead, he advocated for a "middle way." Hence, the teachings of the Buddha center around a middle way to the morally upright life, a noble path toward enlightenment that avoids the extremes of life.
Of course, much more remains to be said about Buddhism's emergence, but the concept of the Middle Way is central to the Dharma. Unfortunately, as Buddhism became associated with shaved head renunciates in saffron robes, this middle way was seen as detachment from the material world.
The middle way in fact, is a healthy balance between extremes. But that should not be taken to mean a sappy, passive kind of middle of the road atittude toward everything. There are stands to take in this world.Unfortunately, in the world of politics, it seems as if some Democrats (read Democratic Leadership Council, DLC) keep thinking that they have to shed all attachments to the left and occupy a strange middle ground that saps them of all conviction. This is, of course, the same as moving to the right, albeit without the moral conviction, but they don't see it that way. It is as if in order to enhance their appeal they figured they must not stand too firmly for anything. Such a situation in argument is known as the golden mean fallacy. Faced with two options, the arguer decides that the best alternative must be the middle one, the best compromise that can be mustered between the two. Here's an excerpt from Huffington's essay that shows this fallacy in action:
"Things are accomplished in the middle. We have to work toward the middle. And I think that that's clear." That was new Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on "Meet the Press" this weekend.
This is unfortunate. The fact that compromise is a give and take and involves sacrificing some positionality does not mean that it takes place in some "middle." In this kind of politics parties don't come to the table at the same level. Moreover, the decision reached, as good as it might be: 1) does not mean that other such encounters will generate good decisions, 2) that the outcome ends up in a political middle ground; or that, 3) most people are to be found somewhere in the mythical "middle." Compromise is necessary. Specific situations will dictate which strategy might be best, and that might include coming toward a more moderate position. But a wholesale move to the "middle" as a party is not helpful for Democrats. One needs to be careful that such middle ground is not the place where stands are not taken, taken too weakly, or triangulated too much for fear of offending an imaginary voter. A middle ground where we linger too much afraid to take action for what is right. Such middles also do not work at accomplishing something that is vastly needed for Democrats: differentiation from the right.
The question that ought to be discussed is how do we engage in a mindful politics while remaining firmly committed to social justice goals, to building a government and society truly responsive to an increasingly arrogant and harmful government and global system. To be sure, a middle-way, in the spirit of the Dharma, would be helpful in that pursuit. But such a middle-way, a recognition that worldliness and world renunciation are not the paths to follow, does not mean that we stand in some illusory middle ground when it comes to doing what is right. It means recognizing the suffering that exists, the roots of such suffering and ill-being, the best path to take in order to bring an end to that suffering, and the importance of following an ethical path when taking any action. It definitely means awareness of the fact that the common good is the good we seek in common, but that such good is not necessarily to be found by avoiding tough choices or suffering, or by avoiding taking the necessary stands.
I agree wholeheartedly with George Lakoff's comments in Huffington's essay when he notes that the old left-right dualism is just plain inane and unhelpful. It facilitates this silly thinking of the political middle. The Buddha's middle way, in my understanding, is a path of reducing suffering, of eliminating ill-being, of safeguarding ourselves from the tyranny of approaches that purport to ease our suffering by avoiding it altogether (either by diving fully into the roots of it, or by refusing to dive). Most definitely, by attempting to live in both.
So, the question, which does not have only one anwer, and for which answers must be somewhat contingent, remains: how do we live an authentic middle way in politics? The Democratic Party moving to that imaginary political center is not the answer.
(The general biography of the Buddha is culled from various sources. The account is generally agreed upon as the basic origin of the Buddha's teaching, although this is a popular account, not necessarily a scripturally authentic one.)
January 1, 2005 in Mindful Politics | Permalink
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