Sure! But I think theism is irrelevant in this case. And this isn’t mine, just the standard folksy Hinduism, the sort of wisdom you might get from a religious old lady. (And non-Abrahamic religions often do not map well to “atheism/theism” dichotomies. You won’t really capture the way Indians think about differences in beliefs by using those terms, it’s often not an important distinction to them.)
Now, keep in mind that a lot of what I’m saying is modern hindu exegenesis of the Gita. As in, this is what the Gita means to many Hindus—I can’t speak to whether this interpretation actually reflects what people in ~5 BC would have read in it.
In the story Arjun doesn’t want to kill his cousins (they’re at war over who will rule) because he loves them and violence is wrong. We have to assume for the sake of argument that Arjun should kill his cousins.
Post-Upanishads and spread of Buddhism, a recurring theme in Vedic religion is duty vs. detachment..
Arjun first argues that he’s emotionally attached to his cousins and therefore can’t fight, and Krishna shoots it down with all the usual arguments against attachment that you’re likely quite familiar with.
Then Arjun argues that it’s his duty not to kill, that it would be a sin. Krishna replies with some arguments which could fairly be called consequentialist.
Finally Arjun argues that he’s detached from the world and therefore he has no need to do bloody things, because he doesn’t care about the outcome of the stupid war in the first place. To that, Krishna says “You do your duty without being attached to the consequences.”
That bolded phrase is taken as the central, abstract principle of the Gita...it’s the part people cherry pick, and we like to ignore or minimize the fact that it was originally spoken in support of violence. If you are feeling sad about a failure, an elderly person might come and try to console you with this aphorism. That idea has a life bigger than the Gita itself, growing up I heard it from people who’ve never read the Gita. (Just like many Christians don’t actually read the bible, but have various notions about what it says).
Which is how it relates to our discussion—You can be very driven and truth+outcome oriented without actually tying your ego to the outcome. Loss of ego need not imply loss of drive.
That is interesting, because disregarding consequences to oneself is pretty heroic, but disregarding consequences to others… can be pretty dangerous. I can see how a dictator could abuse it Rwanda style “your duty to your nation is to kill all the Others, regardless of the consequences to them”… and yet, India is largely a democratic place today not known for unusually many atrocities e.g. not massacring civilians in the Kargil War or stuff like that, so it seems like that bullet was kind of dodged and this kind of very dangerous interpretation not used.
Right, but you’re not literally disregarding the consequences—Krishna was very much in favor of consequentialism over deontological constraints (In this scenario, the deontological constraint was “thou shalt not murder” and Krishna said “except for the greater good”) … at least within that particular dialogue. The consequences are all that matter.
What you’re doing is not being attached to the consequences. To put it in effective altruist terms, disregarding the ego makes you favor utility over warm fuzzies: Warm fuzzies appeal to your ego, which is tied to the visceral sensation that helping has on you, rather than the actual external objective measures of helping.
(Ultimately, of course, squeezing philosophy out of thousand year old texts is a little like reading tea leaves, and the chosen interpretation generally says more about the reader than the writer. It’s not a coincidence that my interpretation happens to line up with what I think anyway.)
The cultural meme for non-violence for vedics is pretty strong. As far as I know, it’s the only culture for which vegetarianism is a traditional moral value (though I suppose the availability of lentils might have contributed to making that a more feasible option.)
The cultural meme for non-violence for vedics is pretty strong.
I think that’s a necessary safeguard, because otherwise “doing what must be done without being attached to the consequences” can lead to pretty ugly places.
Sure! But I think theism is irrelevant in this case. And this isn’t mine, just the standard folksy Hinduism, the sort of wisdom you might get from a religious old lady. (And non-Abrahamic religions often do not map well to “atheism/theism” dichotomies. You won’t really capture the way Indians think about differences in beliefs by using those terms, it’s often not an important distinction to them.)
Now, keep in mind that a lot of what I’m saying is modern hindu exegenesis of the Gita. As in, this is what the Gita means to many Hindus—I can’t speak to whether this interpretation actually reflects what people in ~5 BC would have read in it.
In the story Arjun doesn’t want to kill his cousins (they’re at war over who will rule) because he loves them and violence is wrong. We have to assume for the sake of argument that Arjun should kill his cousins.
Post-Upanishads and spread of Buddhism, a recurring theme in Vedic religion is duty vs. detachment..
Arjun first argues that he’s emotionally attached to his cousins and therefore can’t fight, and Krishna shoots it down with all the usual arguments against attachment that you’re likely quite familiar with.
Then Arjun argues that it’s his duty not to kill, that it would be a sin. Krishna replies with some arguments which could fairly be called consequentialist.
Finally Arjun argues that he’s detached from the world and therefore he has no need to do bloody things, because he doesn’t care about the outcome of the stupid war in the first place. To that, Krishna says “You do your duty without being attached to the consequences.”
That bolded phrase is taken as the central, abstract principle of the Gita...it’s the part people cherry pick, and we like to ignore or minimize the fact that it was originally spoken in support of violence. If you are feeling sad about a failure, an elderly person might come and try to console you with this aphorism. That idea has a life bigger than the Gita itself, growing up I heard it from people who’ve never read the Gita. (Just like many Christians don’t actually read the bible, but have various notions about what it says).
Which is how it relates to our discussion—You can be very driven and truth+outcome oriented without actually tying your ego to the outcome. Loss of ego need not imply loss of drive.
That is interesting, because disregarding consequences to oneself is pretty heroic, but disregarding consequences to others… can be pretty dangerous. I can see how a dictator could abuse it Rwanda style “your duty to your nation is to kill all the Others, regardless of the consequences to them”… and yet, India is largely a democratic place today not known for unusually many atrocities e.g. not massacring civilians in the Kargil War or stuff like that, so it seems like that bullet was kind of dodged and this kind of very dangerous interpretation not used.
Right, but you’re not literally disregarding the consequences—Krishna was very much in favor of consequentialism over deontological constraints (In this scenario, the deontological constraint was “thou shalt not murder” and Krishna said “except for the greater good”) … at least within that particular dialogue. The consequences are all that matter.
What you’re doing is not being attached to the consequences. To put it in effective altruist terms, disregarding the ego makes you favor utility over warm fuzzies: Warm fuzzies appeal to your ego, which is tied to the visceral sensation that helping has on you, rather than the actual external objective measures of helping.
(Ultimately, of course, squeezing philosophy out of thousand year old texts is a little like reading tea leaves, and the chosen interpretation generally says more about the reader than the writer. It’s not a coincidence that my interpretation happens to line up with what I think anyway.)
The cultural meme for non-violence for vedics is pretty strong. As far as I know, it’s the only culture for which vegetarianism is a traditional moral value (though I suppose the availability of lentils might have contributed to making that a more feasible option.)
I think that’s a necessary safeguard, because otherwise “doing what must be done without being attached to the consequences” can lead to pretty ugly places.
Interesting—before your post I associated the idea of ego-less duty with bushido, the samurai way of life / honour code.