On Philosophy and Pricker-bushes

source: Wikimedia Commons

I started this blog a while ago in order to reflect upon and inspire others on moral action. However, focus shifts, life changes and this blog lay dormant before it got anywhere. Now I wish to revive it, with a broader purpose of examining philosophy overall, but I think ethics will still be at it’s core.

Many people today never stop to think about philosophy at all. Outside of existentialism or spirituality, it’s usually treated as something dry and bookish. It’s considered the realm of intellectuals and university types. Something to be debated and labeled and categorized, and more than anything made abstract.

But what Socrates and his colleagues were really trying to establish was a process of active introspection. Philosophy isn’t supposed to be simply thought about and discussed but applied and lived. People must actively analyze and question their views and actions in order to live a better life. And it really must be recognized as a personal responsibility of everybody to tend to their philosophies.

I think there is an important contrast to be made between formal philosophies and personal philosophy. The formal philosophies could be seen as the methods with which we categorize and process the ideas that various philosophers have put forth through history. These are the academic aspects of philosophy that most of us avoid and leave to the academic professionals. On the other hand, we all have a personal philosophy, regardless of whether we tend to it or not. And most of us, in brushing off the formal philosophy, wind up neglecting the personal philosophy.

Most people’s philosophies are like a tangle of pricker-bushes on an estate. There’s just this thorny mess of untended ideas. We don’t entirely know where any given view comes from unless there is some explicit event that it grew out of. If someone were to ask us to sort through it all, we’re afraid to walk in. It’s too tangled. We just know that somewhere over here there’s really tasty blackberries to pick, while over there there’s really really big scary thorns waiting to tear cloth and draw blood.

But if we take the time to cultivate our philosophies by reading and thinking about the formal philosophies — the ones published and debated and formalized over the last few centuries — we can trim our own philosophies into something much more manageable and less scary. And this is really what philosophy should be about. Socrates encourages us to constantly reassess our views in order to live our lives progressively better. Building off of past thinkers, we need to encourage the growth of ideals that lead to a healthier and more successful life, while pruning what views no longer seem valid.

So this is what I now aim to accomplish with this blog. I wish to study and analyze the great thinkers of the past and present in order to find the best way to live a peaceful, ethical and rational life. Throughout this process, I will share my reflections in hopes that others may benefit from these ideas and become inspired to apply the Socratic Method to their own mental tangles.

After all, as Socrates famously stated, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”

Zen, the Samurai and Learning To Be Truly Moral

16th century samurai general Hara Masatane
source: Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Recently, I was re-perusing a Japanese classic on Samurai philosophy, Yagyu Munenori’s The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War, my copy being Thomas Cleary’s translation of that and Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings. In this re-reading, I was struck by a few passages, which I here reproduce to fully convey my reflections:

Learning is the gate to attainment of the Way. Therefore learning is the gate, not the house. You have to go through the gate to get to the house, which is inside, behind it.

A few paragraphs later:

When what you have studied leaves your mind entirely, and practice also disappears, then, when you perform whatever art you are engaged in, you accomplish the techniques easily without being inhibited by concern over what you have learned. This is spontaneously conforming to learning without being consciously aware of doing so.

Toward the end of this section, Munenori goes on to say:

[…] Once you have learned this successfully, learning disappears.

This is the ultimate sense and the progressive transcendentalism of all the Zen arts. Forgetting learning, relinquishing mind, harmonizing without any self-conscious knowledge thereof, is the ultimate consummation of the Way.

The point he’s trying to make is that when you have truly mastered an action, you no longer have to consciously think to do it, it just happens.

The example that western writers on Buddhism commonly use is that of driving a car. When you first start learning, you have to consciously shift, steer and control how much force you apply to the gas and break pedals. You need to consciously check your mirrors and look out the windows to observe what’s going on within the proximity of the car to avoid colliding with obstacles. But an experienced driver no longer needs constant conscious control of their motor vehicle. Within reason, they can listen to the radio, think about things, or carry on conversation with a passenger, because all the functions of driving and obstacle detection become automatic.

In the context of his writing, Munenori is applying this principal to the samurai martial arts. The whole point of all the fighting routines is so when confronted with an actual opponent, you react not just reflexively, but with an ideal counter-action, what in the west is commonly referred to as “muscle memory.” Furthermore, combat strategy would be studied until it also became automatic.

But I feel these passages may also be applied to moral action. A subtle distinction could be drawn between one who behaves morally and one who is a fully moral being.

It is, of course, noble to want to be moral. Right thought must precede right action. But for most people of moral action, there is still a thought process; we judge possible actions for morality or, more often, we act based on expected consequences. We act on what might happen and also how our actions might change people’s perception of us.

On the other hand, if we cultivate morality until it becomes our very essence, there is no longer any internal discourse on a course of action; the moral action just happens. A fully moral being acts on a moral instinct, almost a “muscle memory” of morality. This may be an ideal that is nearly impossible to achieve, but if we aim this high we may at least achieve a higher level of honor and help make the world a more comfortable place for all beings.

The Buddhists have an entire practice dedicated to achieving this. Called mettā, the practitioner sits in meditation and generates strongly directed thoughts of good-will and compassion. The beginner starts by directing this good-will towards themselves. Over time, they expand out to directing towards their teachers and family, followed by fellow monks, then friends, then people they are neutral towards, eventually building up to a sentient beings, with special attention spent on achieving compassion towards one’s enemies. In this way, Buddhists have found the most direct way to achieve a state where compassion and good-will become their very essence and dictate every action.

On the distinction between one who acts morally and one who is a fully moral being, I also wish draw a parallel to Plato’s distinction between the sage and the philosopher. A philosopher is a seeker of wisdom because he is a lover of wisdom (literal translation of philósophos), while Plato’s Symposium defines a sage as one who no longer loves or seeks wisdom, because he already has achieved all the wisdom he needs. This may not be quite how Plato intended it, but I think it fits.

Please share so my humble reflections can help the world become a better place. I’m also always up for philosophical discourse; please share your thoughts on this topic below.

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Passages from:
Miyamoto, Musashi. The Book of Five Rings. Trans. Thomas Cleary, Massachusetts: Shambhala Classics, 1993. 68-69. Print.

Welcome

In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.

H. H. Dalai Lama XIV

Welcome to my new blog on ethics & social responsibility in the 21st century. The above quote is intended to establish the tone.

The “here” in question doesn’t truly refer to this blog; I have never had the honor of meeting H. H. in person and, of course, he doesn’t even know that I exist. However, I hope for this blog to become such a place where a positive vision can be developed and, in doing so, inspire people into positive action.

It is my belief that morality is a deep-seated instinct of our social drive. We wish to be accepted and loved, while immoral action causes one to be resented and pushed away by one’s peers. However, the mental cruft that makes up the ego causes us to stray from this path and causes our social groups to accept or even glorify negative actions against people on the outside.

It is my intention is to inspire discourse and reflection on what morality is and why ethics and social responsibility are essential, especially in our increasingly connected modern age. We now live in a world in which the effects of a person’s actions can ripple out, through unfathomable chains of events, at levels that traditionally only the most powerful and influential people have been able to cause.

The internet gives the average citizen the ability to publish anything, allowing them to praise the good and vent about the bad. The morality of little people can be held high, while even the most secretive of hurtful actions by business execs or government officials may be brought out in hopes of causing moral consequence. Conversely, a hurtful citizen can easily be publicly disgraced, while the businesses and governments that do good and just can be given a glowing reputation.

I hope that from my own digital soapbox, I can inspire people to do better, no matter where they already stand on the moral scale. I no longer judge success based on money, influence or “things”, but instead based on the impact you have on the world around you.

When the inevitable comes, will you be leaving the world in a better or worst state than when you entered it? It’s not too late.