BB
More appropriately, I should have said "dead to ego
and all its earthly desires." The task before Arjuna is not an
earthly task, although it occurs on earth. As Krishna makes plain,
this battle has nothing to do with Arjuna as a personality, but with
Arjuna in his incarnated role as a general. Krishna has already
ordained the battle deaths and outcome; that will not change.
Only Arjuna's social face is at stake in his actions; he may act
according to his dharma and win glory, or he may not, and spend a few
lifetimes as an Untouchable for his penance and edification. The
utimate enlightenment in Hinduism is the full identification of
the eternal self with the Absolute--Aman is Brahman. In that
identification, there is no room for ego, the perishing self, nor its
willful assertion in "conscience." There's no contradiction between
a mind fixed on the absolute and one's dharma. Here's I'm using
"dharma" duty arising from the structures of social role into which Arjuna has
been incarnated. As the Caste system indicates, those roles and duties
are an intrinsic part of the divine order.
JR: But then in real life that is frequently the way it is. Wriggle
around any way you like, at times; there is no getting around what your
task appears to you to be, unless you are in the business of rejecting all
obligations in principle.
Now, Arjuna might well be faulted for
never having asked himself before that moment, when
all the troops are lined up, whether he really thinks he ought to be try to be
a general, instead of raising that question at the last minute.
But then he might have said, well, but is there no legitimate occasion ever to
be a general, the task of whom is precisely to slaughter the enemy at certain
times, no matter who the enemy is? And then we would have a wholly
different kind of moral reflection going on. But do you think the point
the Gita makes is simply wrong, regardless of context, or isn't it right in
saying, in effect, "Hey, the world contains many unspeakably vile things,
never to be justified by any reasoning based on practical worldly
consequences. There is no solution at the level of this-worldly
understanding, and no conclusion to be drawn about this world except that it
is constructed in an unspeakably vile and unjust way, if you try to assess it
in calculative terms of good and bad produced. But in fact these armies
are drawn up and are going to be slaughtering one another regardless of what
you decide now. But don't confuse yourself with the being that decided
that the world would be like this, if it makes sense to say that there is any
such being."
There is something that simply passes the possibility of a mere stance of
moral self-righteousness about such situations. And sometimes there is
nothing to do but what is wrong, any way you want to look at it. (He is not,
after all, being urged to slaughter needlessly -- any more than, say, he is
being urged to torture people by proxy, as generals and commanders-in-chief
frequently are, Western and Eastern alike. Would that the products of
Western civilization and the Christian religion could be expected to rise
routinely to the level of a sincere and intelligent devotee of the Gita and
just do their job instead of exploiting its power! ) So the only way
out, when you are in such a situation of moral impossibility is just to do
your job, assuming you know what your job really is."
BB: Well, assumedly, the general can order his troops out of
battle--declare retreat or whatever, and let another commander come in--and
have the virtue of following his conscience's dictates, even if disgraced and
drummd out of the military. The eastern case is different because there
is not supposed to be any individual conscience to salve. He is not to
do "what is wrong, anyway you look at it." He is to do the only
right thing, and without regard for his or any mortal moral
premise. It is his holy duty. It is not even with "God on his
side." He has no side. He is merely a untensil. Krishna is
not justifying the death and destruction about to take place; that is of no
significance, and he is dismissing its consequence; it is but a nanosecond in
an eternal cosmos.
I don't think the real teachings of the Gita can be integrated so
smoothly into the West. Nor easy equivalencies made between
social roles in traditional East and West. You're looking at a
single part (the Gita) out of is context. Don't forget
that this is an admonition not to an autonomous westerner,
but to an incarnated royal, a god calling a royal, possibly of the
Brahmin caste to play out his determined social role without regard
for anything else. He didn't choose this role, as we assume western
style warriors do: he was born to it. And many millions more in
the Untouchable caste were not born into royalty, and had only they
been in the field, Arjuna would probably have blown them away like chaff in
the wind. When nothing is ever lost, and every life form is a brief
flickering, to cease and come again in endless eons, individual life is
looked at quite differently than in the West. Life and death
are two aspects of the same thing in the great wheel of life and death,
and of little consequence in their particularity.
JR: In my opinion, the next stage of development after Hinduism
is Socratic Platonism -- Plato is acually a Reform Hindu in my opinion --
where you take as your job the task of, say, trying to get clear on what it
means to be a general. Not that that gets you off the hook of these
morally imponderable situtations, but at least you've got a better job!
And if you ever find yourself in position to be the executive ruler of a great
country you might be able to avoid disgracing your office and your political
and religious tradition when such questions as, What is the job of a
President? and What is the job of a torturer? arises!
BB: Well, I've seen some arguments when I was
reading in the area that Plato's Socratic method was a dirct result of his
knowledge of the Hindu priests' "netti-netti" ("not that, something
higher" method of teaching the novices, and that there was a
considerable amount of intellectual and commercial transaction between Greece
and India. I've read contrary arguments as to whether Plato was
ever in India. For my part, I'm unable to see Socratic Platonism as
any linear stage of development of Hinduism. They strike me as
having different and antagonistic cosmologies. But I don't know
enough to argue that issue.
As for the job of torture, the Orient, especially the
Far East, is replete with exotic tortures we have yet to import, so I suspect
those over there know their job. I'm don't believe there is a
moral high-ground anywhere as regards torture.
JR:
I am reminded just now, by the way, of that passage in the l898 lectures
on "vitally important topics" where Peirce says that the vivisectionist
becomes immoral precisely at the moment when he tries to justify his actions
in slicing up the dog on the grounds that it will have beneficial
results.
Joe
BB: I have trouble squaring Peirce above with your earlier
comment of "be a general," just slice and dice--not that you owe
any consistency toPeirce's statements. Still, on the basis of this
statement, would Peirce agree with your statement above? Althought
I personally would agree with his premise, it seems to me to require the
assumption that vivisection is morally wrong, perioid, and the perpetrator
evidences knowedge of that as soon as he tries to frame a
justification. If vivisection is his job, shouldn't he be a
good vivsectionist and just slice and dice without regard for
justification? I would assume generals do far more vivisecting for
"beneficial results" in one immense battle than a vivisectionist can do in a
life time. In any case, that moral judgment--or even compassion--
should not be an issue for Arjuna, as Krishna makes clear to
him.
Best,
Bill