My father is a kind, generous, and helpful man. He has a good sense of humor and seems always to be happy. He’s also very conservative.
I’d always known from the way he lived he that he was religiously conservative. “Devout Catholic” is an apt description. But I was well into my adult life before I got a sense of where he was politically. He usually kept his political opinions to himself while I lived within his household – at least he didn’t discuss them much with his children. It surprised me to learn that his political views were so different from my own.
Perhaps my mother had something to do with this. Even though she also was steadfastly Catholic, there was never any doubt about her open-minded slant – however quietly she presented it. Maybe it was she who – in order to keep the peace – was responsible for the dearth of political discussion in the home.
Anyway, I’ve recently had a few conversations with my father about the political state of things. He’s as conservative in his political views as he is in his religious views. From our last talk I came away shaking my head in wonder: How can it be that he cannot see how wrong he is?
But wouldn’t he have similar thoughts of me? How is it, he must surely wonder, that my first-born son can be so wrong? How can he not see the danger in this liberal nonsense?
And then there are our divergent religious views. After he read my book, Mapping the Dharma, he said to me, “That Buddha was a pretty good psychologist.” Then he added, “I don’t agree with him, though.” Now there’s an understatement.
But this isn’t about me or my father, nor is it about politics or religion. It’s about being attached to views – any views. “A thicket of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views,” is what the Buddha called this ocean of opinions we so enthusiastically – and often angrily – navigate every day.
It’s so easy to get caught up in what we believe to be right. And it’s easy to let everyone around us know, not just how right we are, but how wrong they are if they don’t agree with us. We want the world to be a certain way and it’s difficult to accept that others see things differently. It churns and churns in the mind. If we’re not careful, agitation and anger are the results. Even the most superficial disagreement is stressful.
The Internet with its World Wide Web is an unimaginably vast Thicket of Views. It can be a very good – and even reliable – source of news and information as well as a means of personal communication and honest discourse. It’s also the prevailing medium of disinformation, propaganda, and a channel for outright hatred. Through the Internet I can find people who will agree and sympathize with me. And I can find people who despise me and my views.
My father gets his news and information much the same way most of us who use the Internet do. He reads from websites that suit his tastes. So do I. Each of us has our ideas, our points of view, reinforced daily. That’s a problem. Not just for my father and me, but for anyone who has a view to cling to.
One of the websites I looked at daily (that is, several times every day) was TruthOut. It’s a compendium of liberal news stories grabbed from diverse but mainstream sources. Many of the articles would stimulate mental debates with a stereotypical conservative. With these debates I would sharpen my views, refine my logic, and undermine the views of my imaginary opponent. A the the same time I would tighten the grip on my own political or spiritual views and on the view that I am so smart and so clever.
But that cleverness is all in my imagination. And my views have no more substance than the bits and bytes that form the letters on this screen. A few taps on the delete key and they disappear into nothingness. After that discussion with my father, I deleted the link to TruthOut. Not because I’m not interested or don’t want to be informed. But because I do not need that kind of mental agitation. The politicians will do what they do regardless of what I think about it, regardless of how irritated I get with one side or inspired by the other. This has helped me gradually loosen my grip on a particular political viewpoint.
There is no value in being enmeshed in a thicket of views. But there is lots of value in being free of its entanglements.
2 Comments
I appreciate your post, Paul…as usual. The internet is not too dissmilar from the advent of several dozen and often hundreds of television channels. We “tune in” to what we are drawn to, and this is no different than our relational lives in that “birds of a feather flock together”. Nevertheless it is this “Ying/Yang” of opinions and views that allows us to progress both collectively and individually. I used to be, verily, a bleeding-heart liberal.
Nowadays in my mid-30s I like to describe myself as more of a political and social pragmatist, and not just in that quasi-condescendlingly “moderate” or “middle-of-the-road” way. I now realize that I need not take a partisan stance on every single societal issue, but instead should possess the discrimination to have a stand on each issue on its own merits, regardless of my core political sensibilities. I used to pray when I was a fundamentalist Christian that gay folks would be destroyed as per God’s true purpose. Now I recoil that this thought, but yet it was me who thought that, and I will not blame religion or any other form of indoctrination for it. I am happier now being more accepting of all folks, but I cannot change the fact that once I was an unenlightened, self-righteous bigot.
One of my favorite Buddhist guiding lights, Pema Chodron, said it best: “If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.”
James, I like your use of the word “discrimination.” It’s a useful word that has fallen into disfavor because it’s politically incorrect to discriminate – although we make discriminating choices all day long.
One of the Buddha’s Ten Perfections is “discernment.” I like that word – that idea – a lot. It’s up to each of us to discern what’s right and what’s not, what’s skillful and what’s not. And – where Buddhism is concerned – being attached to any view is not skillful.
There is one exception, however, in the attachment to Right View. But even then, at the proper time, that attachment is let go.
You state: “…but yet it was me who thought that, and I will not blame religion or any other form of indoctrination for it.” It’s an impressive statement. The only thing any of us truly own is our karma (actions). Given that there is no higher authority, it’s up to each us to be our own authority and be accountable for our actions. One of the great things about this path is that the past really doesn’t matter so much – it’s what you do from this moment on that counts.
And, yes, I have to constantly remind myself of the value of those I find difficult to deal with. Of course, patience and equanimity are also among the Ten Perfections.
paulg