Revisiting Death Boat Ethics

At times, doesn’t much of religion and politics seem like a lot of crock? Yes, and so it did through most of history, though few humans realized it. And, even now, not much has changed. Billions still rush pell-mell into religious and political debacles and horrors. Abyss after abyss.

The current slaughter, such as the one in an Egyptian mosque 2 days ago, usually involves devout Muslims killing devout Muslims, a very delusionary, destructive life-stance Speaking historically, however, most worldviews have engaged in destruction, including the killing of children.

And then there are the modern views which also justify killing for the good.
A prominent one is Integral Theory, a secular version of Hindu philosophy.
Consider the books of its religious thinker Ken Wilber. At first, Wilbur's
modern synthesis sounds positive. His writing is lucid, and he makes plenty
of insightful points in the Vision and his other books.

Wilbur shows the fusion of a vast amount of learning and much creativity, and has a light-hearted sense of humor as well.
His Integral Theory seeks to combine modern psychology, spirituality, and science into an integrated whole. No small undertaking!

BUT Integral Theory is a modern re-envisioning of "death boat ethics."

What of stopping massacres? According to Wilber, killing is necessary that the nations of the world stop tyrants if they are killing unarmed civilians. Yet at the same time, Wilbur claims that it is really God, in the Hindu sense, who is using the tyrants to do the slaughtering. Furthermore, Wilbur emphasizes that war is necessary.

According to Integral Theory, it is God who brought about 9/11, slaughtering the helpless civilians in the Twin Towers.
See, God, is playing both sides of the fence. See, God is both good guy and bad guy.
From Wilbur: "Totally insignificant, infinitely significant--no difference, truly. Atoms and Gods are all the same, here in the world of One Taste; the smallest insult is equal to the greatest; I am happy beyond description with every act of torture, I am sad beyond compare with every act of goodness."
No, I don’t get it. I don’t see that at all.

But, of course, this is only another horrific version of the hard determinism of Augustinianism, Reformed Christianity, Islamic theology, and modern Atheistic determinism.

The only difference is Wilbur promotes his philosophy with vivid secular prose and throws a few sacred bones to spiritually inclined humans.

Then Wilbur begins to argue for his “Life Boat ethics.” According to him, NOT all humans can live on this earth; so we higher ones must decide which lesser humans—people of less value--
to cast over the sides to their deaths.

This is according to his “depth and span” ethical system. We should/must throw out lesser people from the Life Boat to their deaths! (from Wilber’s Kosmic Consciousness Interview tapes)

Here we have the fallacious view that the “end justifies the means.” It is from such ethical systems that so much of the horrific tragedies and mass slaughters of the 19th and 20th centuries came about.

Haven’t you noticed that when the “end justifies the means," it is always to the advantage of the killing nation or ideology, never for the enemies?

If other countries torture, that is horribly wrong, but if we do it, well, it’s not really torture, and, besides, the end justifies the means for us.

If someone else lies, how wrong, but, of course, if we lie, it is necessary. Yes, Wilber defends some forms of lying! As do most religious and nontheistic humans.

And then, his views get really weird, definitely not of the puritanical Gandhi sort: For Wilber says that it’s okay for husbands and wives to have sex with individual outside of their marriage in an "open marriage”!
(Ken Wilber website)

Furthermore, he seems to agree with another author that Jesus may have had sex with Mary Magdalene.
(“The Meaning of Mary Magdalene” by Cynthia Bourgeault and Ken Wiber, kenwilber.com)

These “Life Boat” ethics are really anti-life. They go against the moral views of Jesus and Gandhi and Thich Nhat Hanh and Abdul Ghaffar Khan and many other ethical leaders.

It’s time to realize that all such “Life Boat” ethical systems are really moral death boats.

Of course, according to Wilber most of the humans who oppose his system are lowly “oranges” on his rating scale of human development. What is an “orange”? Don’t ask; it’s not good; a large number of stages down below Wilber’s own advanced spiritual trans-human stage.

Well, at least it’s better for us to be “orange” rather than being “red.” Reds are even worse.

Later, Wilber points out that we do need to include the lesser valued humans, up to a point, (unless we have already bombed/executed them, of course).

And besides, according to him, they will be reincarnated.

Doesn’t this sound a bit like the designations of humans in the highly satiric novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley? Or George Orwell's very bitter fable, Animal Farm?

What about Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, Thich Nhat Hanh, Kurt Vonnegut, and others who emphasize that humans ought to learn to show benevolence their enemies?

No, Wilber emphasizes. On the contrary, he thinks that even in a thousand years humankind probably won't overcome the need to war.

In his novel, he has one character say “turning the other cheek is exactly what you don’t want to do with pre-orange memes.”

But Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, in contrast, reached out to the marginalized “less integral” humans, to their political enemies, even to terrorists.

But as mentioned above, Wilber emphasizes that it is all humans’ duty to kill.
Like in the Hindu religious classic, the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna doesn’t want to kill his relatives in war, but the God Krishna tells him it is his duty to go into battle and kill his relatives.

So the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria are justified and so are other wars which our particular nation thinks we ought to fight out of duty.

Again, the end justifies the means.

Are we to forget about the nonviolent ethics of Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, and Palestinian Eli Chacour?

Jesus dealt with the powerful immoral Roman Empire, with ruthless Roman soldiers who crucified thousands of Jewish individuals, yet Jesus didn't become a zealot and slit Roman throats saying they hadn’t reached his level of spiritual development.

So have many other spiritual leaders down through history, going against the dominant human way of slaughter.

In contrast, Ken Wilber’s view (as expressed by his characters at wilber.shambhala.com and in an extended interview in Kosmic Consciousness by Sounds True) is that nonviolence only works when your nation’s enemies are, basically, nice people.

Also, Wilber emphasizes that humans shouldn’t live by nonviolence because, not only does peace-living not work, but “your death doesn’t even buy you good karma, but the karma of the coward”!!! (wilber.shambhala.com).

Wilber claims if we don’t kill in war, then we are responsible for what the enemy does! So were the Jewish people of Europe responsible for what the Nazis did? Etc.?

And what makes this all the more confusing is that Wilber has one of his characters later say that God is actually ‘behind’ all such human evil:

"Precisely because I am not this, not that, I am fully this, fully that. Beyond nature, I am nature; beyond God, I am God; beyond the Kosmos altogether, I am the Kosmos in its every gesture. Where there is pain, I am there; where there is love, I am present; where there is death, I breathe easily; where there is suffering, I move unconstrained."

"On September 11, 2001, I attacked me in a distant part of the galaxy on an unremarkable planet in a speck of dust in the corner of manifestation, all of which are wrinkles in the fold of what I am. And none of which affects me in the slightest, and therefore I am totally undone, I cry endlessly, the sadness is infinite, the despair dwarfs galaxies, my heart weeps monsoons, I can't breathe in this torture."

"Totally insignificant, infinitely significant--no difference, truly. Atoms and Gods are all the same, here in the world of One Taste; the smallest insult is equal to the greatest; I am happy beyond description with every act of torture, I am sad beyond compare with every act of goodness."

"I delight in seeing pain, I despise seeing love. Do those words confuse you? Are you still caught in those opposites? Must I believe the dualistic nonsense that the world takes as real? Victims and murderers, good and evil, innocence and guilt, love and hatred? What dream walkers we all are!”
(Ken Wilber Website)

Wilber’s God is the One behind all the evil (as well as the good)!

Yet Ken Wilber thinks the “God” of Christian Fundamentalism is a “nightmare”!
(Page 155)

Whew!

Think about it: Somehow in Wilber’s philosophy humans need to be executed and bombed, but
behind all those horrendous evil actions is really Ultimate Reality playing:-(!

“until I decided to play this round of hide and seek, and get lost in the objects of my own creation.” (Page 204)

Finally, Wilber states, "Well, it does if you use the W-C Lattice...
Begin using IOS and suddenly it all starts to make sense, at least enough to climb out of the nightmare of fundamentalism…”
from The Integral Vision by philosopher Ken Wilber (pages 147 and 155)

The devil in the “Integral Vision” is hidden in the ethical details. Wilber’s worldview turns out to be much worse than the fundamentalist Christianity he thinks is a “nightmare.” His own philosophical dream makes even less compassionate sense.

How can such a brilliant, knowledgeable, insightful individual be so deceived?

Some ethical issues are so difficult, so ambiguous that morally concerned individuals may disagree.
For example, I could agree to disagree with Wilber’s strong support for execution.

His adamant support for capital punishment doesn’t seem to square with his own spiritual philosophy, but every ethical system has its conundrums. And, besides, capital punishment is a tough, ambiguous issue.

However, Wilber’s attitude is very troubling. When asked if he thought that criminals guilty of murder should be helped to turn from their actions, to change ethically, he said that he didn’t think it was worth society’s effort to help them.

And besides, with reincarnation, the criminals would be reincarnated anyway, so it’s time to “recycle” them. (Ken Wilber’s answer in Kosmic Consciousness tapes)

Again, here is displayed a tragic, uncaring attitude that has often clung like dung to the belief of reincarnation in the past, where the doctrine contributes to the problem of human evil rather than encourages humans to try and solve unjust systems and to help those who do wrong.

Wilbur's view is, Why help the low class, low caste? Why help criminals? Why help the poor? They are all paying for bad karma!

Those humans did something wrong in their past lives. Or since ‘they’ do evil now; why help them? They’ll be back soon with another life.

That’s definitely not the way of the Light. Jesus showed compassion for all the lost, even for criminals and terrorists. While no one should be excused for murder, (like often happens in U.S. courts today, where intentional murderers sometimes get off with only serving as little as 4 years in prison), mercy to help is vital.

All of us need to keep in mind that something like 80% of criminals in prison were abused as children. As Thich Nhat Hanh so wisely pointed out, how do we know that we wouldn't be like the individuals we condemn if we had grown up in their abusive environment?

Though their evil actions as adults are inexcusable, and they do need to be separated from society to prevent harm to others, surely these morally deformed individuals (some of whom had their arms burned by their mother’s cigarettes or were bashed in the face, or sexually abused, etc.)--surely, they do deserve to be rescued.

Hopefully, they will choose to change. At least that is the philosophy of psychologist Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis and other forms of human hope and creative change.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

What Is the Essential Nature of Reality? Many Leaders Claim to “Know.”

How do so many human leaders "know" the essential nature of reality?

Exactly how and why such human hubris exists among most Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Atheists is uncertain.

I’m not going to try and unravel that conundrum in one blog post.

Rather I am going to describe the most common alleged claims for us seekers to take a careful look, study, and then make a tentative, educated guess about.
Here goes; hold on to your virtual hats;-):

Living in a universe about 27 billion light-years across, and about 13 billion years old and, according to cosmologists, a cosmos that will last more billions of years, that is the huge existence which we humans in cosmic time 'blipped into'. And there is a real possibility that this cosmos is only one of an infinite number in an alleged multiverse--
that is educated speculation by many prominent human thinkers, scientists, and philosophers.

What is "essential or inherent reality"?

#1 All reality came about by cosmic chance. Seemingly the view of the French biologist Jacques Monod in Chance and Necessity, a powerful book I read a few years back, and the view of the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould.
The human species came about by “luck.”

My take on this as an average person: I think this view is possible. I guess given cosmic time even the "laws" of nature, math, reason, life, ethics, consciousness could all blip into existence eventually.

#2 All reality came about by a cosmic determinism of meaningless matter and energy which is eternal. Everything is lock step. There are no choices, not even about what to have for lunch or whether or not to commit murder or what to choose for my career.

Indeed, every molecule, everything, every event, every human action was petrified to happen at the moment of the Big Bang. Consciousness, reason, etc. are all illusions. According to the scientist Sam Harris, even our sense of “I” is an illusion. And even if existence happened again a “trillion” times, everything would happen exactly the same.

So the Germans will gas millions in the Holocaust eternally, never able to choose a different action:-(
Despite my studying this determinism at university, and for many years since, and so many times trying to imagine my "I" as an illusion who is only 'done to' by the cosmos, I still think this is one of the least likely views of reality.

But the view is very popular these days--sort of an atheistic version of Calvinism.

#3 All reality came about somehow by a temporary, finite, imperfect, even distorted, expression of the perfect eternal Ideal Forms of Platonism.
But why did this happen? Where did evil come from?

#4 All reality came about by emergent possibilities in a quantum singularity vacuum or some unknown ultimate reality. But how did the quantum singularity vacuum originate? Here goes "turtles all the way down."

This view seems to posit an eternal matter and energy reality with no meaning 'transcending' it.
Like in #1, life, consciousness, humankind, reason, ethics are all "flukes," "accidents," "lucky" breaks.

#5 All reality came about by an impersonal ultimate reality of cosmic beauty. Scientists such as Albert Einstein stated this was his view, that he thought the cosmos was meaningful, but impersonal. This view seems similar to a combination of #3 and #4.

However, unlike #2 and #4, the emergent-possibility cosmos isn't meaningless and purposeless, but is filled with intellectual meaning.
Interesting, but I doubt it.

#6 All reality is coming about by the everlasting but limited cosmic reality that is becoming. This is the view of thinkers including philosopher and mathematician Alfred Lord Whitehead, process philosopher Charles Hartshorne, etc.

This cosmic but limited God who is far beyond human understanding works toward changing matter and energy and conscious life such as homo sapiens into increasing patterns and forms of beauty, meaning, and purpose. This is also the view of some Reform Jews.

But where is the evidence for this?

Process thinkers explain that consciousness, reason, ethics, mathematics, natural law, creativity, aesthetics, life itself, etc. are evidence, the hints that this isn’t a “meaningless” cosmos.

This view is appealing, but most of the technical philosophical explanations are BEYOND me. I'm still trying to understand the science tome, The Elegant Universe by the cosmologist Brian Greene.

I'm a relatively average literature teacher (who got born with a "why" in his throat;-)

#7 All reality came about as just one of an infinite number of universes of an infinite multi-verse, the view of some modern cosmologists. What is the ultimate of the multi-verse is unknown or maybe the multiverse itself is ultimate. And, besides, while finite humans can seek to understand, the actual nature of reality is probably forever beyond finite mental abilities.

Intriguing, but seems too speculative for me. However, I'm not as skeptical as Martin Gardner, one of the co-founders of the modern skeptical movement who wrote a scathing dismissal of this view.

#8 All reality came about by the impersonal Brahma God of Hinduism and modern New Age
(such as Ken Wilber with his Integral Theory, and Deepak Chopra, etc. ).

The impersonal God Brahma is conducting a cosmic dance in which IT forgets its self and dreams into billions of separated forms including in one minor edge of the universes, illusionary thinking humans.

But all is illusion. And all events both good and evil are produced by Brahman. That is why Ken Wilber and other such leaders claim that Brahman caused 9//11, causes all murders, all rapes, etc.

Not significantly different from Christian, Muslim, and Atheist determinists who use very different terms but come to, basically, the same results.

Given that I am a human rights worker, ethicist, and educator from way back, for about 55 years, obviously this isn't my cup of philosophical tea.

Also, I still vividly remember as a Gandhi devotee in the 60’s being shocked when a Hindu priest in L.A. tried to persuade me to go to Vietnam to kill (when I was drafted), saying insects are killed all the time in reality.:-( Or as I learned later that Gandhi claimed, that all humans are “playthings” of the gods.

#9 All reality came about by unknowable factors. Everything beyond and before the Big Bang is such a complete unfathomable mystery that it will probably not ever be solved by finite humans at least not for a very long time.

Allegedly, this is the view of the Mysterians such as the modern skeptic Martin Gardner and Roger Penrose, the English physicist, mathematician, and philosopher, etc.

#10 All reality continually comes about by infinite impersonal reality which never had a beginning. No creator god exists. Some forms of Buddhism hold this view (though other forms of Buddhism are theistic).
--

At this point in my life, I lean toward some view of #3 and #6, though I am open to #1 as a real possibility.

And furthermore realize, as I already said, that maybe we finite humans don't have enough knowledge to even decide this question.
But we need to operate from some worldview, engage in life as it happens, hold to some form of ethics.
So.

In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox