Re: I guess this is where I end up............

brian mitchell wrote:

Advaita Bob wrote:

brian mitchell wrote:

Advaita Bob wrote:

want2believe wrote:
I would be interested if you could explain this one more.. ie: how does
it fit with why bad things happen to good people, etc.
Because they *happen*.
Etymology: Middle English, from hap
1 : to occur by chance -- often used with it <it so happens I'm going your way>

This loads the argument somewhat by insisting on chance rather than
agency, causation, intention, etc. If you dump those in a wholesale way
you're left with a mechanical determinism, which probably won't satisfy
want2believe's thirst for justice. The same applies to the
excrement-flinging monkey.

There are different ways to satisfy thirst for justice. One is to feed one's thirst (so to speak) and the other would be to let it drop, to let go of the idea of justice. Nothing is right and fair in life, not because of life but because of our expectations of it.

There's a dubious reductionism in saying that all the qualities and
ideals of mind are nothing but erroneous projection.

Prove me wrong. :-)
That being said, I also think it is impossible (note the reductionism) to live a satisfying human life without indulging in projections. Satisfaction being itself erroneous, it needs some erroneous ingredients.

Human culture is
based on the sense that we have capabilities and aspirations beyond the
instinctive necessities of nature. Notions of justice and fairness seem
to be so basic to our minds that children latch onto them very early.

Jonathan explained why. Children copy and learn what they see.

Expecting the whole universe to be organised on the principle of justice
may be a magical displacement for something in our own mind, but that
doesn't mean justice is a worthless concept that should be thrown away,
surely?

It can't be thrown away so the question about should it be thrown away doesn't even apply. Justice is ultimately about keeping the peace in a society. Justice doesn't care for individuals as individuals. Fairness only interests it in sofar the peace in a society claims it.

I also find that this issue in general suffers from a conflation between
natural and human events, and your monkey analogy does this. Natural
disasters are truly accidental, without motive or intent, but the great
proportion of "bad" things that happen to people can be traced back to
other people, which complicates things.

Yes but those who sow don't reap. That's wishful thinking. That's where the common notion of karma goes terribly wrong in my opinion.

And even the effects of natural
disasters are often exacerbated by human corruption, indifference, etc.
We don't live in a random world, but in a human one.

Agreed.

I don't like having excrement-flinging monkeys around, but they are around and I can't change that...

If these monkeys have minds, which they share with you, or come from
minds, perhaps you can. Then there's the question of whether one is
oneself an excrement-flinging monkey to any degree.

Undeniably. Every step I make, every breath I take can be and probably is the cause of flinging excrement onto someone. I can't stop it and I can't help it.

Is there a reason for excrement-flinging monkeys to be around and does their presence and my being hit have anything to do with me being a good or a bad boy? Perhaps there is a good reason, but excrement-flinging monkeys are there as well. That reason and the excrement-flinging monkeys make two.

To be fair, Buddhism has a list with things that are connected to karma and others that aren't, but I am not into List Buddhism.

Another possibility to view this "problem" is to think about what constitutes good things, bad things, good people and bad people and whether anything would *happen* (whether any apparent "interaction" or "exchange" would take place) at all weren't it for these qualifiers.

Can you apply this formula to a Darforian refugee being raped by an Arab
militiaman when she leaves the camp to get water and firewood? Does it
ever actually *work*?

I can't apply this formula, because it isn't mine. I don't find thinking about good and bad people helpful at all. All it does is to give me an instantaneous exposure, on which I can apply one of my moral blueprints to see who is good and bad. But people are not instantaneous exposures. For clarity's sake if needed, for me rape is a bad action.

Not needed. I just looked for the most extreme current instance I could
think of to see whether the idea of removing the qualifying judgements
about an action could make the action not be an action. I sometimes
think that philosophical Buddhism loses all touch with human reality.

Any generalisation about life does. It's not more than a corrective instrument.

I experience dissatisfaction with all my objections to what's put
forward on this subject, which should (and does) tell me something. But
I experience equal dissatisfaction at everything that's put forward.

:-) It's put forward, that's all. It isn't mine, it isn't yours (i.e. I don't you lock up in what you put forward) and it is dissatisfying. We fling excrements in response to excrements that are flung onto us. Most dissatisfying.

At
the moment it seems to me that you (one) can't drop concepts of good and
evil, justice, righteousness and calumny, etc, until something else
which answers for all those things and more has grown in their stead and
they just fall away.

When I say "drop them", of course I don't believe that you can. But by saying drop them, perhaps some awareness or detachment can be produced. Same thing as when I "denigrate" the Buddha, Buddhist theories and practices. It doesn't make them go away, but it can help prevent the formation of mythwebs around them. It's corrective.

To try to do so beforehand, to get somewhere,
strikes me as false. So in the meantime I think it's quite 'proper' to
look for principles of action and understanding and live by them when
you find them --if one even can. Do you not think we sometimes try to
"drop" things because we have failed to measure up to them?

Perhaps part of the answer is in my answer just above. How can one measure up to perfection, if all is imperfect?
.

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