Crime is not caused by the poor or the homeless, it is caused by welfare scroungers and the mafia criminals, say that to the Columbians who have suffered abuse by the mafia!

So for instance, insofar as religion makes concessions to the ‘Counter-Enlightenment’ (e.g. the need to ‘mystify’ people about the nature of the world, for the purposes of ‘social control’.) it is a regressive force.

(I also think Harris’ problem is that he is rooted on a Napoleonic conception of the Enlightenment. Just as Napoleon saw imperialism as a means to impose the ‘ideals’ of the French Revolution on recalcitrant populations, Harris has a similar rather ‘naive’ view regarding American imperialism as the imposition of Enlightenment values (e.g. his view of the need for a “benevolent” dictatorship to bring about secularization….which is empirically very odd because the one example I can think of (Shah of Iran) produced ‘fundamentalist resistance’ to the secular dictatorship of the Shah. Thus, a supposedly ‘benevolent dictatorship’ might actually produce fundamentalist resistance as a an unintended consequence).))

Let’s begin our critique from the opening salvo about “non-violence” and “pacifism”-an obfuscating tangent from the principle concepts of the discussion-which should rightly be “pacifism” and its lack of “morality”-a term that is noticeably left undefined and up to the audience’s invention based on their bias. “Non-violence” in this diversion has apparently been misconstrued by the author to be synonymous with “civil disobedience”-a particular spectrum of non-violent political action. The definition given for “non-violence” is in fact only an example of political “non-violence” and does not represent the totality of “non-violence” as an ethical principle uniquely expressed in Indo-Asian culture. The main character of “pacifism” is likewise absent from the stage, leaving the audience to witness “Gandhi’s Evil Twin” the dastardly, pro-fascist (avec la mustache d’Hitler) assume the role of “pacifism”-as the comedy of errors progresses unto its embarrassingly predictable and disappointing end-The author in the guise of a George Orwell puppet reigns baton blows to “Evil” Gandhi’s head in true British fashion-while boos and rotten produce erupt from the peasantry.

No cutting (ahimsa)-the revolutionary idea held from antiquity that human beings should not harm each other with sharp objects-was the fundamental principle upon which Gandhi built his radical political philosophy of “Truthfulness” (satyagraha)-a specific form of pacifism characterized by popular demonstrations of civil disobedience and personal demonstrations of wit, willpower, and bodily sacrifice. Gandhi’s philosophy cannot be equated with “pacifism” in general terms because such “pacifism” as his-includes adherence to the additional ethics of Vedic monasticism according to the preliminary vows of Patanjali’s Ashtanga System described in the Yoga Sutras-called yama (self-control): non-violence (ahimsa), truthfulness, (satyagraha), non-stealing (asteya), celibacy (brahmacharya), and renunciation of personal property (aparigraha).

Gandhi was promoting for society at large, the ethics of a monk’s life which he had adopted for himself despite being active in law, politics, and literature. Gandhi was the representative of an ideal but not only an ideal of pacifism- a total vision of the karma yogi who becomes jivanmuktan/mahatma through the process described by Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita-but the author has clearly failed to examine the actual ideology of which Gandhi was exemplary-considering these ideas to be trivial, tribal superstitions and then further compounds ignorance with falsehood by positing that since Gandhi was a pacifist then all pacifists are Gandhis and if Gandhi was a pro-Hitler fascist-them by way of circular reasoning-all pacifists are too…and scene.

That should be the final curtain for this ramshackle side-show but let’s pretend for a moment that the whole argument wasn’t completely specious and we could construct a coherent moral determination about pacifism vis-a-vis the life of Gandhi here in the Land of Make Believe with all our cartoon friends-why not kick back, relax, and enjoy the dulcet tones of the Oompa-Loompa Band inside your head-while examining the source material that informed Gandhi’s particular form of pacifism?

Violence (rajas) is one of the three natural tendencies according to Yoga Philosophy and is recognized as an essential cog in the engine of Material Nature (triguna prakriti). All types of eating, drinking, and even breathing are considered violent actions that condition the body/mind to take animal births and thereby exist cyclically consuming other beings. Violence is motivated by the emotions of lust (kama), anger (krodha), and greed (lobha).

Inertia (tamas) is another of the natural tendencies-the inexplicable powerlessness that conditions beings to sleep, age, stagnate, decay, remain ignorant, and fear change. Inertia is motivated by the emotions of possessiveness (moha), pride (madha), envy (matsara), and egoism (ahamkara).

Equilibrium (sattva) is the ultimate natural tendency-the desire to create and maintain balance. Equilibrium is motivated by feelings of contentment (shama), self-control (dama), trust (shraddha), fearlessness (uparati), determination (titiksha), and harmony with one’s environment (samadhana).

The morality of a given action in the context of this theory is independent of the deed and wholly dependent upon the emotional motivation of the doer. This is an important point that frees a pacifist-such as Gandhi-to be non-violent in his approach to life and death while still contending daily with all the violence and ignorance inherent in the other tendencies of Nature. It does not matter what you do-it will be violent if lust, anger, and greed are at the basis of your activity. Likewise any action motivated by possessiveness, pride, envy, and self-aggrandizement will eventually lead to more violence and death-looping in a vicious cycle.

The way out of the moral dilemma of violence is through supreme self-awareness about the emotional motivation of one’s actions not adherence to an impractical dogma unto destruction. Death is certain-the time and manner of death are uncertain-but certainly death will come. Violence and combat though they are used interchangeably are not the same thing-neither are pacifism and capitulation-this is where fools confuse the issues at hand. A pacifist should only seek to remove the violence within their own heart-at the level of emotional motivation-to decrease their tendency for destructive behavior and increase their tendency for harmony and emotional equilibrium. If forced into combat by those intent on violence, a pacifist has the utmost responsibility to incapacitate or psychologically demoralize dangerous people as quickly and methodically as possible, without injuring or killing them if at all possible. Only one who respects life can be trusted to protect it.

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