Anti-Value: The 11 of September Attacks - Essay Example

?Running Head: ANTI-VALUE Topic: Anti-Value Lecturer: Presentation: Introduction In the world we live in, various events occur which prompt people to begin asking themselves questions about what constitutes good and evil or value and anti-value and if such occurrences are a result of evil. Such occurrences may be human caused and social caused evils, while others like earthquakes are natural occurrences. Some people based on their teachings, be it Christianity, Islam or Buddhism believe that some events happen for a reason such as punishment for evil deeds or to enlighten them in case of such events in future. Others like the Muslims believe it is a way of redeeming their souls hence risk their lives for a course they think is just. Whatever the case, these events leave scores of people dead and others injured while on the bright side, some people show their goodness and compassion by helping others at the time of need. The paper is going to discuss the logic of Tiantai approach to understanding good and evil, or value and anti-value and apply this logic to analyzing one anti-value problem; the 9/11 attacks which occurred in the United States in the year 2001 as a result of terrorist activities. In applying the Tiantai logic to an anti-value issue, the paper will first present the issue, then explain the concepts of the Three Truths, inter-subjectivity, and ganying. The paper will then apply these concepts to evaluating the anti-value issue; its goodness and evil. Finally, the paper will make conclusions on how these concepts apply to 9/11 attacks. September 11, 2001 was the darkest day in American history. It is the day that saw manifestation of terrorism at its greatest height as four airplanes with passengers aboard hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon while one fell into a field. The act of terrorism was carried out by 19 militant Islamic extremists group Al-Qaeda under the leadership of Osama Bin Laden. Osama had very radical pan-islamist ideas whose aim was to have a single Islamic state and outdo America as a super power. He therefore, called upon all Muslims to engage in Jihad which is a holy war where individuals sacrifice themselves for future reward by Allah. Besides the strong doctrines held by the Al-Qaeda group, it wanted to retaliate for Americas support of Israel, involvement in Persian Gulf war and for its continued military presence in the Middle East (History.com, 2012). On this fateful day, the terrorist group hijacked four planes: flight 11, Boeing 767 carrying 92 passengers; flight 175, Boeing 767 with 65 people on board; flight 77, Boeing 757 with 64 people, and flight 93, Boeing 757 with 44 passengers headed for San Francisco. The terrorists on suicide mission crashed flight 11 on the north tower of the World Trade Center (WTC), flight 175 hit the south tower, while flight 77 crashed on the Pentagon. Passengers aboard flight 93 tried to rescue the plane but crashed on a field in Pennsylvania. In the incident, over 3000 people were killed together with more than 400 police officers and firefighters (History.com). As a result of the crash and use of huge amount of jet fuel, the WTC burned heavily and collapsed killing those inside together with the rescuers. The US reacted by declaring war on terrorists especially the Al-Qaeda by waging war on Afghanistan and destabilizing the group. However, the group continued its activities. Its leader (Osama) who was at large was later killed in 2011. According to Tiantai teachings, “all beliefs about the nature of reality are false as nothing exists, and even if it exists, we would not know it, and even if we knew it, we would not express it and even if we express it, we would not prove it” (Ziporyn, 167). The existence of good and evil, or value and non-value is therefore, difficult to prove and depends on the environment of the object. What is considered evil in one society may not be so in another society, or in another setting. Hijacking a plane and killing innocent people would be considered evil but as Tiantai indicates, evil is considered evil only in comparison with its opposite hence good must exist in order to determine if an action is evil. For the Hijackers, their action was good as they intended for certain consequences (Revenge and holiness), but for the passengers in the plane, the action was evil in relation to the goodness of humans and god. The act was also a deliberate attempt by individuals to cause harm to others and therefore the act of hijacker hitting the tower and causing death is evil. Goodness is supposed to bring greatest happiness to all but terrorism causes pain and suffering hence it would be regarded as evil although suffering is part of the ordinary universe of non-Buddhists which consists of first six realms of the world (Ziporyn, 138). The society also tries to explain the events by considering the individuals who do those destructive acts. The mere fact that the event was caused by terrorists who are considered evil in society, makes the attack evil no matter what their intensions were; they may have been on a revenge mission but killing innocent people is not a good or moral act. The act of destroying the WTC building and the Pentagon which are resources to society as well as destroying the jets makes the act evil. In Tiantai’s approach to understanding good and evil, there are key concepts that emerge and form the basis of the readings. These include: the Three Truths, Inter-subjectivity, and stimulus and response (ganying). These concepts are crucial to understanding value and non-value and being able to analyze an event such as the 9/11 attacks. The Three Truths include: emptiness, provisional positing, and the mean. These truths are understood differently in four teachings by Zhiyi and form the basics for the Tiantai’s theory of omnicentric holism. According to the truth of emptiness, a person or entity is not unified as it disintegrates into various elements such as form, sensation, perception, and consciousness in Tripitaka teachings (Zaporyn, 115). These elements are not permanent and have no nature of their own. In common teachings, the heterogeneous elements are further broken into smaller elements hence become universal to all possible elements. For example, sensations can be broken into actual gestures such as muscle tensions due to pain. Emptiness is seen as the truth about all things since an entity is viewed in comparison to some other opposite leading to realization and liberation. For example, suffering is viewed in relation to happiness. In separate teaching, there is emptiness or the truth and non-emptiness or falsehood on the other end which is the provisional posit. These posit are given by the context in which they occur. For example, the society interprets what muscle tensions mean; it could be interpreted as pain or anything else. The two extremes of truth and falsehood are separated by the mean which is the principle or universal law that is basis of determining truths and falsehoods. In the integrated teaching, all things are reducible to the mean since each extreme is seen as identical to the mean; emptiness=mean=provisional posits (Zaporyn, 117). The two value poles of truth and falsehood are same hence in this case, good is equal to evil, and value is same as non-value. All dharma are reducible to any given dharma and since the world of experience consist of three thousand quiddities, one dharma includes all the quiddities. A quiddity may be a thought, object, or idea and each contains all three thousand quiddities. Each quiddity (x) is relative to the other (non-x) and is brought into existence by otherness. Emptiness x=non-x but x is provisionally posited hence non-x=x meaning truth and falsehood are same and one fact (118). In separate teaching, a thing is consequence of all other things while in integrated teachings, a thing is the center of all things; it is the cause and effect of other things. According to Tiantai, terms are ambiguous unless connected to “ultimate value” using the principle of non-exclusive mean. For example, terrorism and non-terrorism are same unless interpreted in a context. The mean is seen as the absolute truth which opens up provisional posits to reveal the real. For example, one may be suffering but does not know he/she is suffering because the world is full of suffering, but once enlightened, the individual discovers there is happiness or bliss which is the opposite of reality. Provisional positing is the appearance of a thing, nature is emptiness while entity is the mean (Zaporyn, 137). Value entails revealing the anti-value which is the basis of its definition since to define value; it has to be contrasted with non-value. This leads to unlocking the whole of creation to reveal everything else. Intersubjectivity involves the relation between the object and the environment. Upaya which refers to skillful means is an intersubjective category (Zaporyn, 146). The principle of mean indicates that all dharma are the ultimate truth and since the three truths are equal, the ultimate truth consists of provisional truth. All the society considers as true and norms contains some falsehoods. As a result, whatever one is doing to pursue a certain goal may lead a person to achieving something else which is not intended but which is better than what one was pursuing (148). This is because the ultimate truth has not yet been revealed. In Tiantai’s words, one pursues a false goal in order to move to the true goal. All activities by human beings such as teaching, practices, ideals, and goals which are the provisional positing thus lead to an unintended consequence which is the reality. However, the activities cannot be abandoned as they have to be undertaken to lead to the reality. Truth of all things depends on contrast between true and false and lotus sutra acts as the punch line of the universe by revealing truth without alteration of evil or falsehood (154). Intersubjectivity involves non-duality between provisional and ultimate truth. One’s teachings to others reflect one’s own practice hence provisional teachings are identical to ultimate truth of one’s practice. That is, provisional and ultimate wisdom involved in one’s own practice are identical to wisdom employed in transforming others (201). It rejects the notion of comparison of ourselves in relation to others since we include others inherently from the beginning and they include us from the beginning. The self and provisional positings are therefore intersubjective. Teaching others involves stimulus and response which is the principle of ganying. It involves the principles of non-duality, mode of action of the deity, and relations of non-duality between objects and subjects or beings and environment (Zaporyn, 201). The enlightened Buddha teach the deluded beings as a response to stimuli from them. The actions of Buddha are infallible and non-intentional while those of deluded beings are deliberate. The perfect response also pervades all times, places, and activities. Responses are corrective and remedial measures to particular stimulus. For example, an earthquake may occur to teach people to avoid evil. The three thousand quiddities are inherently included in each moment of experience since the world is intersubjective. By use of the three concepts, we can argue that the 9/11 attacks were not evil since evil is explained in relation to something else and in Tiantai teachings, emptiness=provisional positings=mean (Ziporyn, 116). Emptiness refers to truth while positings refer to falsehoods with mean being the ultimate truth. When the plane hit the building, the only emptiness or real feeling is pain while other thoughts are provisional posits which are similar to the real pain. Provisional positings are mere names given by society to explain phenomena. For example, the terror attack can be regarded as evil since the society regards such acts as evil. But good and evil are the same thing according to teachings since one is considered in relation to the other and good contains evil but goodness is the ultimate truth. Positings is an appearance hence evil is an appearance while good is the reality and the only reality that exists. The crashing of planes on WTC was an appearance of evil while good manifested itself with people helping each other and some firefighters putting their lives on line to save others. The world also consists of ten realms and the ordinary universe consisting of six levels is filled with greed, hate, and delusion (138). Buddha represents the mean and enlightens the others towards this level. The terrorist attack could therefore have been a way of enlightening the deluded beings; people can become bodhisattvas without knowing since their actions lead to consequences which are better than intended and lead people towards Buddha. The intentions of terrorists may have been to destroy but it led to people doing good actions hence approaching Buddha. People also realized their good side which had been hidden inside themselves by delusions as the reality was opened up by the event. To the suicide terrorist, his act was good as it would lead to his liberation or happiness but to the world, crashing the building was evil. Ganying involves subjects responding to their environment hence all the experiences in the world is ganying; stimulus and response. The world experiences also involve usage of the three thousand oddities (Ziporyn, 204) The attack could be seen as the punch-line to realization of ultimate reality that the world is good and evil and that such acts are evil or anti-value. The stimulus is caused by deluded beings while perfect response is by the deity; in this case the attack could be seen as response which is punishment from Buddha for past evil (stimulus) to teach the deluded beings to avoid evil deeds in future. Another stimulus as the building was hit by airplanes is the feeling of fear and pain whose response is to consider the act as evil. Conclusion Good and evil, or value and non-value are controversial concepts in society since even good things may sometimes be evil and sometimes evil deeds are for the good of society. Social evils result from acting against the norms of the society hence society sets rules or principles to judge people with. Deviation from the norm is considered social evil but the society has learnt to accept such evils as they are inherent in society. Such include behavior disorders such as lesbianism. Though acquiring wealth is good, materialism is evil as it leads to massive wealth accumulation which may lead people to do evil things. Some evil deeds like murder are evil but if perpetrated by people who are not in their right mind, the evil may be reduced in accordance with society’s provisional positings. These positings give meaning to situations hence deciding the degree of evil or good. For example, the society may view some gestures as anger or hatred while these may mean a different thing in another society. For example, jihads are good to the Muslims but to the Christians, they are considered as murder or terrorism hence evil. The 9/11 attacks can be analyzed in regards to Tiantai’s Buddhist teachings which entails concepts of intersubjectivity, ganying, and the three truths. The determinations of the universe exist because of intersubjectivity which involves conversations between the subject and others. People teach and are taught by others in society and what we teach others is what we practice. Both subject and object are the whole and for dharma realm each part is equal to entire whole. Good is the totality of being, and evil is lack of totality and a step towards Buddha (Ziporyn, 139). The attack could therefore be seen as deluded beings on their path to enlightenment hence evil is the process of reaching Buddha state. The attack could also be seen as ganying whereby stimulus is met with a response. The world experience involves this kind of scenario and thus when the attack on the towers happened, the stimulus from victims was a feeling of pain which they responded by regarding the event as evil. It could also have been a response from the deity stimulated by previous evil deeds besides provisional teachings lead people to believe suffering is necessary for attainment of the highest level which is the Buddha. Viewed in relation to the three truths, emptiness is the truth while falsehood is provisional posits and mean equalizes the two extremes. The only true feeling at the time was pain, other thoughts being posit and the ultimate truth being the mean is good and evil. Some goodness occurred as well as evil in terms of death and goodness in terms of the sacrifice by individuals. Reference History.com (2012) “9/11 Attacks” Retrieved from www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks accessed 7 June 2012 Ziporyn, B (2000) The good Omnicentrism, Intersubjectivity, and Value Paradox in Tiantai, Buddhist Thought. London: Cambridge Read More