Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Buddhism & the military
I'm not sure if this issue's been discussed, but, how do Buddhists (both the religion and who ever decides to read this) feel about military service, combat, warfare, etc, so on and so forth?
0
Comments
:-/
However, the act of war itself can cause great harm where the justification for that war is weak.
In my opinion, that you are unemployed is another war you need to fight. But that is an internal war, a challenge within you rather than outside of you in a foreign land.
I suppose what I am saying is I find your signature quote unnerving & disturbing.
You appear to have not fulfilled an ideal within you (that is, finding employment) but are creating an ideal outside of you ( that is, fighting some external tyranny in a far off land).
I recommend you try to find a balance and avoid extremes.
My best wishes for vocation. Please keep a level head & the necesssary ethical discipline.
This will serve you well in the infantry.
Kind regards
DDhatu
I can understand that viewpoint. I do have an issue with killing. But, I think that in some circumstances warfare is the only viable means of helping someone. For instance, take some oppressive leader who commits mass atrocities; we'll say torture of political opposition, allowing his soldiers to ravage some poor souls, the rape of women, and so on. Of course, reasonable measures should be taken first, i.e. sanctions, diplomacy, etc. But, if all else fails, war is sometimes the only answer to protect someone, in my opinion.
But, all the same, that tyranny still exists. And, that tyranny has to be combated. Sure, I wish that people could talk things over. That injustice didn't exist. Unfortunately, it does, and someone has to go against the grain to fight it. To you "tyrannical injustice" may be simply rhetoric. To me, though, it is a real thing that has to be fought against. If no one ever steps up and says, "all of this wrong ends now" what are you left with? A series of nations where people are afraid to speak out, to criticize, and to act. That's a fate worse than death to me.
I've been employed, but that's just not it for me. I suppose that the military just provides me with a sense of doing something for the greater good. It's not so much that it's a creation of an ideal that needs to be fought, it's acknowledgement that an ideal needs to be fought. As I've said, sometimes you have to do an atrocious fact.
Think about it, though. That's not warfare in and of itself. That's shame in what you've done. Men ashamed of their actions do this. If a man is not ashamed, these things don't happen. I know men who have been in combat. They don't suffer from suicidal thoughts. Because they're not ashamed. This is only one side of the story. This is, I believe, more a societal influence to lead men to believe that what they've done is atrocious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euD_ywxWam0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MST7_gvXiM&feature=channel
For example, naturally, my mind is psychologcially programmed to cherish my life. As such when I take another life for a reason other than self-defense there is an internal contradiction. Shame arises from this internal contradiction just in the same way one feels shame if caught lying.
However, for some men, their conscience is not clear or sensitive. They may return from war and spend their life in bravado, drinking, boasting & so forth.
But if the war had cause, such as WWII, then the effects will be minimised (even though many of these men still suffered life long trauma).
For others with no shame, they get locked in prison. Then their time alone in prison, in that solitary confinement, makes their conscience rise to the surface.
From the view of Buddhism, that you regard killing will not affect your mind is called nihilism.
Now your are attempting to develop a righteous intention within you to justify your actions. Buddhism teaches if your intention is righteous then killing will not affect your mind greatly. For example, if a woman is pregnant and carrying a baby will harm her life, it is correct to abort the foetus because the killing here has a compassionate intention. Even if the woman feels saddness afterwards, she can always reflect her action was to save her life and she had no choice.
The same. Whether you can dupe the psychological laws of action and result is your game.
Good luck.
Buddha taught:
I have to disagree on this one. Shame is, partially, from the self. However, you can't deny that it's also societal. Take the Norse, for example. In their belief, warfare was glorious and honorable. Therefore, the shame in the act is gone. And, not every american is interested in oil, money, etc etc. You have to admit, that's a very prejudiced generalization. Some American's believe in what they fight for. For instance, I thoroughly believe that Saddam was an atrocious human being. The whole Chemical warfare against the Kurds, pretty jacked in my book. And, Afghanistan isn't about oil. That's fighting terrorism and protecting your country and your fellow man. And, Vietnam instead descended into totalitarianism where genocide was a-okay.
And, I fully acknowledge that I could be killed. For some weird reason, I'm not afraid of death. Nor are others in the world.
Your view is self-centred.
I personally may not like certain people or agree with their actions.
It does not mean I have the right to kill them.
:skeptical
Therefore followers of the Way never use them.
The wise man prefers the left.
The man of war prefers the right.
Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools.
He uses them only when he has no choice.
Peace and quiet are dear to his heart,
And victory no cause for rejoicing.
If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing;
If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfill yourself.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]On happy occasions precedence is given to the left,
On sad occasions to the right.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
In the army the general stands on the left,
The commander-in-chief on the right. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
This means that war is conducted like a funeral.
When many people are being killed,
They should be mourned in heartfelt sorrow.
That is why a victory must be observed like a funeral. [/FONT]
[/FONT]
If you join the military to find a fight, that isn't good practice. If you join the military to feed your family and help yourself (and/or request non-combat duty) I see nothing wrong with that.
If you sit some 10-day silent meditation retreats, you can learn about what shame really is.
This is the best way to learn rather than debating the matter.
Others live in a violent sub-culture within our culture. Some believe that the act of taking vengeance releases the heart. I'm not one of the latter, but certainly one of the former.
So, if a man kills others because of their ethnicity, we have no right to protect those left? I think it's self-centered not to stand up against that action. And, honestly, I don't sweat the UN. Good concept, but, doesn't work too well.
What sort of good practice we talking? I don't invite it, I acknowledge it and face up to it. Like it or not, someone's got to do the fighting in order for us to have this conversation. Pacifism's all well and good, but it aint me. I believe in fighting for what you believe to be right and good.
Gotta have time for 10 day silent meditation retreats. And, besides, that's assuming that we have the same interpretation of shame. I could sit and meditate for 10 years and never come up to your version of shame.
In a perfect world.
Hey, someone here who agrees with me on this one!
I agree with just about everything you've said.
I'm in the Army myself finishing up the last few years of school so I can get my commission as a 2LT. And in the mean time, I've been learning Arabic. I can't wait. It's my dream to be a 19-D Cavalry Scout.
So I think it's great that you're going a different route than 99% of your peers. Talk about a road less traveled, to quote that over-used poem.
Guy I know in now's 19-D. Personally, I'm all about 11-B. Good to know there's a like minded individual in here.
Yeah, International politics is definitely not something I worry about. And, the first two I know nothing about, that being the reason I'm here.
So, violence is never acceptable from a Buddhist standpoint, even if said violence is... righteous? I guess that would be the right word?
Violence is only acceptable when it is employed in defense and without hate. "Righteous" is a bad term and been used by men throughout history to justify all kinds of atrocity. The Germans felt they were acting righteously when they loading the Jews into gas chambers. The Christians felt they were righteous when they instigated the Crusades. The Khmer Rouge believed they were acting righteously when they were torturing and executing anyone who wasn't an uneducated farmer.
So who is being defended with our current invasion of Iraq? Who is being defended with our actions in Afghanistan?
Generally the people who are supposedly being "protected" by this kind of thing are the ones the protection is hurting the worst. It's worth noting that most mass atrocities are the <i>result</i> of war.
But, that's the thing. To them, it was righteous. Righteousness is objective. Although, if you look back, Nazism is a bad example. Many Nazi's were following orders, not acting on their feelings. And, you can use the justification that they didn't have to, they could've refused, but, that's not the mindset. A soldier gets an order, he follows it. That simple.
The American populace. Can you honestly say that people being able to CHOOSE a leader, without fear, is a bad thing, that fighting for democracy, for the people is horrific? And, hey, I aint all about Iraq, but Afghanistan? Tell me there aint terrorists there. Tell me that that sumbitch Bin Laden and/or his cronies aint there. That aint propaganda. That's pure fact. Something countless fighting men can vouch for.
The Holocaust wasn't the result of war. The executions in Cambodia weren't a result of war. The attempted genocide of the Kurds wasn't a result of war. Violence is the only viable answer sometimes. It's easy to say it solves nothing when we're not the ones threatened by genocide, and death because of ethnicity, sexual orientation, political views, etc.
:smilec:
Actually, the Holocaust wouldn't have happened, if it weren't for WWII. You need to be careful about the chronology.
I don't know so much about this one, but wasn't Cambodia destabilized by the US occupation of Vietnam? All the refugees, or something like that?
No, because the nations in the region were too weak to resist the imperialism which installed Saddam Hussein in the first place.
This is a non-sequitur. I'm not speaking against violence in general. But it's ironic that US military adventures played an essential role in the development of the three examples you cite as demanding military intervention: sometimes violence is the only ethical answer, but much more rarely than we're generally led to believe.
It seems pretty clear that the Holocaust would not have happened without WWs I and II. There were obviously other contributing causes (centuries of anti-Semitism, for example), but if the two wars were causes, then the Holocaust was a result.
I disagree with Fivebell's theory that the Holocaust was caused by the British navel blockade, but he's right about this.
The Khmer Rouge developed their ideology and their military power during years of ongoing warfare in which they were incidental players. The history of the Khmer Rouge is rather complex, but this is another case in which the result wouldn't have been possible without war.
Iraq wouldn't have been possible without war. It was formed by war. In fact, it was to some extent formed by genocides. The question is whether the genocide in question would have occurred without war (both declared and undeclared) as its prelude, and again the answer is no. If war was a cause, then the genocide was a result.
Genocide is undeclared war. To say that it is not the result of war is a bit odd.
The Holocaust was not a result of WWII. The holocaust was the result of a dude a bit jacked in his brain housing group.
The Khmer Rouge were led by a guy with, if you want to look at it from a psychological standpoint, a personality similar to Hitler. a.k.a. Holy crap jacked.
The Kurds comprise a small portion of Northern Iraq. How could they keep him from gaining power?
But, see, that's what I was getting at. I was talking violence in general and the military in general.
No no no. righteousness is entirely subjective. What is righteous is entirely dependent one's personal views.
It most certainly is not that simple. Let me ask you something. Would you dutifully follow an order that you knew to be illegal or in violation of the rules of war? Would you willingly follow an order that went against your morals? If ordered to slaughter a group of innocent people would you do so?
This has exactly what to do with the topic at hand?
Oh I'm all for Bin Laden being apprehended and the American people (as well as any other nations that may have charges against him) having their day in court. But there are far better ways of going about such things than military invasions. So far we've spent more than $230 billion and lost nearly 7,000 U.S. and allied lives and untold numbers of innocent casualties in Afghanistan and for what? To get one man. Is one man really worth thousands of lives?
That I did. On the same token, Hitler was invading neighboring countries and conquering them. Didn't Churchill have a responsibility to stop him?
That one was my bad. Wrote the wrong -tive. Sorry!
You have to look at it from the mindset of a soldier. You follow your orders. That's it. You don't know the big picture. And, more often than not, if you are ordered to slaughter civvies, then chances are your regime's screwed. Not something a just government would condone.
Everything. The topic's just about the military.
That one man has costed thousands of lives. And bringing up serviceman deaths is a moot point. If you can find one servicemember that did not join of his or her own free will, then that'll become a valid point. But, you can't, becasue you are specifically asked before you sign your final contract before boot camp "are you here of your own doing? Were you coerced or otherwise forced into this?" There aren't better ways when the country he's in is controlled by a terrorist organization.
Wow. I suppose if you want to really over-simplify it, then yeah, but...
What would have happened if Churchill hadn't? As Human Smoke demonstrates, British aggression towards Germany only fomented stronger German nationalism. If Hitler had been allowed to sink into the same quagmire of occupation that the US experienced in Vietnam and Iraq, how long do you think he would have lasted, and how many people do you think would have died? More, or less, than died in WWII as it was prosecuted?
That doesn't really answer the question.
And? Is he really worth the cost of the lives of thousands of servicemen, untold numbers of civilians and billions of dollars.
Yes, I understand all that. These men and women voluntarily put their lives at risk on the behalf of others. At least we could extend them the courtesy of not wasting them in pointless and unjustified conflicts.
Sure there are.
Because I believe that if a man witnesses unjust acts, he has a responsibility to stop it, or try to stop it at the very least. I honestly believe that more would've died. Of course, that's just my opinion.