Real life is tough. As we get older, we realize the “Star Wars” truth; as Obi-Wan says to a young Luke, “Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” As I read about the United States bombing airfields in Syria this week, I felt a whole range of emotions. Shock that it had happened. Frustration that the situation in Syria is so awful. Sadness for the people that might have gotten hurt. Pride in my country for taking decisive action. Disgust at myself for feeling proud of violence. Vague annoyance at the voice that was disgusted with myself, because I’m often critical of myself. Et cetera.
Perhaps a quick paragraph of context would be good, in case I (or anyone else) ends up reading this in the future. It’s 2017, and there’s a really shitty civil war of sorts going on in Syria. It’s totally one of the 1984-style “we have always been at war with Eurasia” kind of wars, where nobody can figure out what the hell is happening, who the good guys are, who’s winning, what we’re even fighting *about*, and yet somehow, in the meantime, children and civilians keep dying. The whole thing is like a vortex of awfulness and sadness that would suck in any rational or caring person who tries to engage with it, until it seems like the only sane course of action is to ignore it entirely. But then, this week, there was once again, right in our face, pictures of children, being gassed by their own government (or what passes for government). So President Trump - a man I admire not at all - did what many are saying was “the right thing”, a “measured” response that involved sending 59 cruise missiles in to the airbase that ostensibly held the airplanes that carried out the attack.
There are so many ways to look at this, which makes it really a great “test case” for life. Really, there are always many ways to look at *everything*, but in this case it’s so obvious how confusing and complex it is.
To be clear, I’m probably still against it. I'm not a fan of situational ethics. But...it does make you think.
The first response that many of you - and myself - would give to the question in the title is “of course not; a real Buddhist is a pacifist and would never condone violence of any kind.” And I get that. That make sense. One of the fundamental tenets of Buddhism is the idea of self-determination, and the surest way to remove somebody’s sense of self-determination is to punch them in the face or hit them with a cruise missile. Life cherishes life. Hate cannot defeat hate. All of this is true, and yet, in the moment, this simplistic “do no harm” philosophy didn’t seem to quite capture my feelings or nourish my soul. It feels a bit like one of those easy ways out that seems so appealing when thinking philosophically about life, a sort of “one size fits all” solution. I mean, what about the self-determination of those children? Or of Syrians in general?
Then there’s also the “make yourself happy first; you’re not responsible for the lives of others” argument. Again, that makes sense. But does that mean that we just don’t care about the world, about other places, other people? It doesn’t make me happy to see those people suffering. I don’t like to watch kids getting gassed. I’m not a monk, and I don’t want to just retreat from the world.
Then there are the cynics: we’re not really helping. The whole situation was manufactured. We didn’t even hit the right airplanes. Now Russia might get mad. Etc., etc. Any of those things might be true, of course - or all of them - but philosophically I feel like they all miss the point. Whether or not we did a bad job of our intended action, the question is: is the intent a good idea?
There’s the Ad Hominem attacks, too: Trump is a bad man, Trump did this, ergo it’s not the right thing to do. But is it? Was it the right thing to do? Did we mean well? What does it mean, to mean well?
To be sure, it usually feels like war, and violence, are the wrong answer. Personally, I’ve only been in two fights in my life, and that seems like just about the right number. I will say, though, that in those two, very rare, instances, I have no regrets about throwing that punch. It felt right at the time, and it still does, years later. I would even say that I feel proud of what I did. I wouldn’t be more proud if I turned tail; I’d feel like a coward.
The Baghvad Gita has been enormously important in my life, and it has an interesting perspective about this. In the book, Arjun - the everyman hero - is given a really undesirable task by his god; he is supposed to kill all of his best friends. He - understandably - recoils at this, and refuses to do it for a long time, and as a result, his god makes him suffer. Finally he capitulates, and proceeds on towards his destiny. Modern scholars interpret this in many ways, most typically as saying that we all have “sacred cows” in our hearts that we have to metaphorically “kill” in order to move past them. But I wonder sometimes if that doesn’t whitewash the text. The fact is, sometimes we have to do unpleasant things, because if we don’t, even more unpleasant things might happen. We can pull away from that responsibility, but that doesn’t absolve us of our feelings.
Certainly war, and violence, is almost always wrong, and the venue of last resort. Many poor decisions were made years ago - by us and by others - that led to this point. But we are where we are, and it seems to me that engaging with what happened feels more true than pretending it didn’t happen.
What do you think?