Quote
From: Gabrielle Gueron (gabrielle.gueron gmail.com)
Subject: Moral certainty
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on 'I am not too sure.' -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (12 Sep 1880-1956)
Your Thought for Today brought to mind two very different people who shared the mistrust of certainty. The first one is Tzvetan Todorov, (1939-2017) and here are two of his most memorable quotations:
'We should not be simply fighting evil in the name of good, but struggling against the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found.'
'People who believe themselves to be the incarnation of good have a distorted view of the world.'
The second one is the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, (b. 1926) who wants his students to be aware and mindful of the dangers of being certain.
The First Mindfulness Training: Openness
'Aware of the suffering created by fanaticism and intolerance, we are determined not to be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. We are committed to seeing the Buddhist teachings as guiding means that help us develop our understanding and compassion. They are not doctrines to fight, kill, or die for. We understand that fanaticism in its many forms is the result of perceiving things in a dualistic and discriminative manner. We will train ourselves to look at everything with openness and the insight of interbeing in order to transform dogmatism and violence in ourselves and in the world.'
The Second Mindfulness Training: Non-attachment to Views
'Aware of the suffering created by attachment to views and wrong perceptions, we are determined to avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. We are committed to learning and practicing non-attachment to views and being open to others' experiences and insights in order to benefit from the collective wisdom. We are aware that the knowledge we presently possess is not changeless, absolute truth. (...)'.
There is a saying in Venezuela, 'tener a Dios agarrado por la chiva', which roughly translates as 'grabbing God by his beard', and implies the mistaken belief that you, and only you, are right about things. Needless to say, that mindset has been the fertile ground for the proliferation of countless sufferings inflicted on ourselves and our fellow human beings.
Gabrielle Gueron, Caracas, VenezuelaShare
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