In the March 8 issue of The Nation, Katha Pollitt concludes an excellent article with: “What is the point of Obama being conciliatory and careful if his opponents are reckless and don’t want to conciliate.” (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100308/pollitt).
I’m sure many of us resonate with what Pollitt is urging: Get tough, Mr. Obama! All your reconciliation stuff and your efforts to build consensus have hit the brick wall of Republican obstinacy and downright meanness. So hit back! Respond to their recklessness and refusal to cooperate with your own.
But my “better angels” — who include Jesus and Buddha — come fluttering in to hold me back from joining in Pollitt’s calls for responding to recklessness with recklessness. The same principle that warns against violence applies here: meanness, nastiness, refusal to cooperate, putting your enemies in their place — it will all only bred more of the same. The law of karma: hate begets hate.
And yet, yes, Obama has to change course. He has to get tough. But how?
Buddha’s “Middle Way” might apply here. After a life of luxury, he decided to seek enlightenment through six years of rigorous self-denial and asceticism. That didn’t work either. So he set off on the Middle Way between luxury and self-denial — and that led him to the experience of awakening under the Wisdom Tree.
There is, there has to be, a middle way between Pollitt’s being “careful” and being “reckless” — between being conciliatory and being mean. Again, Jesus and Buddha offer some examples. Jesus could get tough with the powers that be and endorse language like “brood of vipers,” but at the same time he could forgive them “for they know not what they do.”
To be firm but at the same time open to other ideas. To resist one’s opponents but never write them off. To try to get around their filibusters but to assure them that you still seek for cooperation.
I think it all boils down to getting tough without hating. To resist and insist without hating and demeaning. That’s the Middle Way.
As Paul Tillich said, “God and love are not two realities; they are one. God’s Being is the being of love and God’s infinite power of Being is the infinite power of love. Therefore, one who professes devotion to God may abide in God if one abides in love, or one may not abide in God if one does not abide in love.”
For me, the way of love is not a middle way between two paths, it is the one path of God. And, as Tillich points out, it makes no difference whether we use the name of God in describing that path.
Jesus: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27)
Buddha: “… even if bandits were to sever you savagely limb by limb with a two-handled saw, he who gave rise to a mind of hate towards them would not be carrying out my teaching. Herein, monks, you should train thus: “Our minds will remain unaffected, and we shall utter no bitter words; we shall abide compassionate for their welfare with a mind of loving -kindness, never in a mood of hate.” (Kakacupama Sutta)
Is there such a thing as “tough” loving-kindness? Can you bless those who curse you and still be tough? I don’t know how.
We can certainly be a country that is tough on our opponents. Or we can be a country that responds to aggression with loving kindness; that blesses those who curse us. But I don’t see a middle way between those two paths. So which path do we choose?
We have tried the path of toughness. It didn’t seem to work to well. Maybe now we need to try God’s path. As you say, “hate begets hate.” Maybe it’s time to see what love begets!
Pax Christi,
Roger
Roger, thanks for your stirring, sobering comments. But the middle way I was talking about is the one that Jesus and Gandhi were walking when they resisted those who were harming others but at the same time loving those who were doing harm. Don’t you think that Jesus got tough with the scribes and pharisees? Love can be tough. In the light of the suffering caused by injustice that exists in the world, love has to be tough. But it will never hate. And it will avoid violence.
Thank for your thought provoking blog!
I’m still not sure what a tough middle-ground might look like, or how one can be tough without begetting more toughness.
Let’s consider a specific situation, say the Health Care Overhaul. What would a practical example of a tough middle ground look like? I can’t think of any tough approach that would move the issue forward.
Here is another possibility… approach the problem through the path of love.
The “moral majority” that is the bedrock of the Republican opposition likes to think of itself as staunchly Christian. The “Progressive” approach has been to remind them that this is not a Christian nation. But perhaps a better approach would be to engage in a dialogue as to what it would mean to be a “Christian Nation.”
For example, when the Republicans argue that Health Care Reform is too X, Y, or Z, we could just respond, “Christ says, heal the sick.” If they respond, “But big government is blah blah blah,”, just respond respectfully, “Christ says heal the sick. We are Christians. That’s what we’re doing.”
I understand the need to be careful about church/state separation. But this doesn’t need to be an official state explanation of the issue, it can be an individual response.
Will this work? I don’t know, but It has more potential, I think, than getting tough. We are saying, “You are Christians. Then work with us to find a Christian solution.” How can they argue with that?
I also wish for President Obama to find a way to be effective while still staying the middle course/way and respecting and acting in a loving manner with those who have different points of view.
It does appear that most Republican senators and representatives hold a view that they must be shown as “against” Obama in order to get the votes of their constituents. Does that mean that all Republicans are against health reform?
Perhaps Obama could try to connect with Republican constituents and voters to show the Republican senators and representatives that the people that are voting for them actually want health care reform. This seems possible. It seems far-fetched to me that only a majority of Democrats want health care reform. Who doesn’t want to be able to better afford their health care premiums? Who wants more affordable prescriptions? Who wants small businesses to be able to give their employees health insurance?
Perhaps change is brought about by exposing to the senators and representatives from every party that the American people actually want these changes. Senators and representatives need to really evaluate what their constituents want and follow their own consciences as well.
I hope that the perception that Republican senators and representatives’ constituents only want their elected officials to put up roadblocks to any bill that Obama supports is simplistic and inaccurate.
Thank you,
-John