"Deussen - a disciple of Schopenhauer, who loved Buddhism so much - tells how in India he met a blind beggar and became friends with him. The beggar told him: 'If I have been born blind, it is because of the sins committed in my previous life; it is just if I am blind.' The people accept suffering. Gandhi opposed the building of hospitals. He said that hospitals and charitable works simply delay the paying of a debt. One being cannot help another: if the others suffer, then they must suffer, to pay for a sin. If I help them, then I am putting off their payment of this debt."
--Jorge Luis Borges, in his essay "Buddhism," in Seven Nights.
When I read this I was reminded of recent public controversy regarding the impending canonization of Mother Teresa. In this Penn and Teller video, she is roundly criticized for her "cruelty," as she is in this Christopher Hitchens presentation. Wikipedia devotes a page to these controversies. The countervailing opinion is that criticism to Mother Teresa comes from opposition to her views opposing abortion, rather than to her insistence that the sick accept suffering.
So it's interesting to me to see Borges express a similar viewpoint re Mahatma Gandhi's approach to sickness and suffering.
Christopher Hitchens sez: "Saints should always be presumed guilty before proven innocent."
ReplyDelete"The countervailing opinion is that criticism to Mother Teresa comes from opposition to her views opposing abortion, rather than to her insistence that the sick accept suffering."
ReplyDeleteI think proponents of choice are more than capable of stating clearly what they are arguing against. For Robert J. Hutchinson at The Blaze to state that detractors of Mother Teresa aren't really upset about her callous treatment of the sick and dying is condescending and disingenuous.
The catholic church needs heroes,(saints). They bolster the churches coffers and help to bring people into their fold. No rational person believes the miracles ascribed to this charlatan. I'm with Hitchens.
ReplyDeleteWhat a depressing philosophy, that if you suffer it must be because you have transgressed, and nobody should raise a finger to help relieve your suffering, heal your wounds, cure your illness.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do find enlightening about these stories is the reminder that people are people, and the most passionate and altruistic among us still have flaws, sometimes deep and enduring ones. As a society we want to believe in perfect heroes and irredeemable villains...but the world is more complicated, more nuanced, than we'd wish.
Yes, religions do seem to be fond of the Just-World Fallacy don't they.
ReplyDelete