Fuzzy Signals

The Dilemma of Doing Good

"While he sat under the tree meditating, Mara, the Hindu Devil, appeared in his visions and tempted him to leave his introspective search and start upon a new life of doing good among the poor and distressed.

But Gautama (Buddha) rejected this temptation, replying that not good
deed is, but faith and heroism, and wisdom - were what were demanded
of him.

This resistance by Gautama to a temptation to "do good" is perhaps
the principal barrier that stands between his views and the Western
mind; for , as Conze has pointed out , "a show of benevolence is so
much more welcome to the contemporary mind than a profound insight
into reality."

- "Communication & Culture in Ancient India & China" by Robert T. Oliver

[Robert T. Oliver, a former professor of speech at Pennsylvania State University and who wrote extensively on the subject of Asian rhetoric and A. S. Cua of Catholic University who written on argumentation and Confucian rhetoric.]

Gets you thinking, eh? This quote came into my in box this morning through fellow Worldchanger, Rohit Gupta, a Mumbai writer and driving force behind one of the relief portals for the Tsunami. Thanks Rohit!

This passage obviously resonates within the context of the massive empathetic reaction of the West to the Tsunami disaster last Boxing Day. The passage raises some difficult moral dilemmas on both sides of the cultural boundary.

For the Indian and Chinese worldview, perhaps the problem is not enough action and too much passivity, preferring to let a shift in understanding -- which often takes many karmic cycles -- to do the changing. Whereas for the Western worldview, the problem is too much unreflective action and action for mixed reasons. While this heresy for many, sometimes no action is better than some half-baked, questionably-motivated action.

Indeed, like some critics, I've had an uneasy feeling over the impulsive, guilt-driven response of Westerners to victims in the Tsunami, mainly because I know how these freak flows of money and attention distort the delivery of relief aid and perceptions, thus creating untoward unintended consequences. This is not the best example but rather just an aside: one of the recurrently disturbing requests Worldchanging was receiving were requests for adopting Tsunami orphans, something well out of our remit to say the least. For entities with some power, like the French Government, they went even so far as to reduce the bureaucratic barriers to adoption, a huge feat if you know "le systeme" here in France. The sad reality is that more children died than parents. Flooding and severe tidal action tends to favour those who can fend for themselves and swim. So an excess of orphans wasn't the problem; it was more like an excess of now childless families. Of course, with all of this money flowing into the system, this was an opportunity baby traffickers couldn't resist. I won't get into any more detail; I'm sure you can extrapolate what's been going on from there.

Having said this, I'm loathe to criticize any outpouring of empathy. This is critical if we're to overcome the parochiality of our current mindsets and see the local in the global and vice verse. But it's also useful to remind ourselves that this isn't enough. As the Gautama sagely councils, we need equal amounts of awareness into what we're doing and why. It's too easy in our interdependent world to do the wrong thing very well -- and with haunting consequences.

Untapped Human Potential

From a "big picture" pattern recognition perspective, there is something interesting to observe, and an hypothesis I've been wanting to test. Whether it be the tremendous influx of people to New York after September 11th desperate to help, or the huge emotional outpouring during Diana's funeral (remember that bizarre scene?), or this latest event in South Asia: they are all indicators of a tremendous amount trapped, latent human potential in modern life. They are indicators of just how hungry people are to make meaning of their lives through visible and tangible acts. And they are indicators of just howour current institutions -- whether they be the places where we work or channels for civic life -- are not coming close to meeting and tapping into these fundamental human needs.

So the question is: what if we could unlock some of this potential in a mindful, measured, mutually enriching, and (dare I say it) wise way? Of course, this is already happening from many directions. The vacuum is being filled by a proliferation of social entrepreneurship around the world, the communicators in the blogsphere, and organizing efforts like World Social Forum, just to name three examples.

But such logjams in the collective psyche of any society can turn ugly. Emotions tapped in the wrong way can breed disruptions and revolutions. Given all of the disparities on the planet -- both in wealth and worldview -- this is a plausible outcome within the next ten years. Like any incumbent system, this scenario is well beyond the cognitive radar screens of most of the power brokers in the West. As history is our witness, this myopia will prove ruinous for many established sectors.

Then again, all of this focus on reducing poverty by world leaders is code for avoiding this worst case scenario. This is in part why Royal Dutch Shell cosponsored the AIDS in Africa project. But my question is will these folks get down from their Versailles (if you've been to Davos, you'll see what I mean) and talk to the fish wives in the street? Only then will their perception of "doing good" match the reality of what the real needs are; only then will top-down actions become the kind of wise, reflective action cautioned by the Gautama. I can only hope.

Posted by nicole at February 6, 2005 10:27 AM