Truth, or the lack of it
Date: October 11, 2003 05:24AM
the reason why problematic LGATs like it teach people to stop speaking of truth and instead refer to opinions is that it provides an automatic escape hatch.
As long as we speak in terms of ethical absolutes, its harder to change the rules when things dont go our way.
You cant play a game of baseball or football (or any other sport) unless there are goal posts, a playing field of a standard size and RULES that all the players agree are absolute. Without these absolutes to mark the boundaries and the rules, you cant tell which side is winning or losing.
But in probematic LGATs, the people dont want absolutes, because they want to avoid being pinned down and held accountable. Without absolutes, you can make reality be a matter of personal opinion, and you can go around screwing the world and your conscience stays asleep.
A lot of us just dont want to answer to rules regulations or guidelines and secretly long for lawlessness. Stuff like problematic LGATs and various corruptions of Eastern philosophy which claim that right and wrong are meaningless--certain people LOVE that.
Alan Watts peddled this philosophy--that Zen means you can ditch ethics. Watts screwed around, was married 3 times, left a litter of 6 or 7 children whom he neglected, fled England rather than be drafted and fight the Nazis, and after emigrating to the US, became an Episcopalian priest, even though he was a Zen Buddhist, because he knew that as a clergyman he could avoid being drafted.
He welcomed the freedom offered by the US, but was unwilling to put himself on the line to help defend his adopted country when it was fighting the Axis powers.
A man like this was only too willing to convince himself that right adn wrong are meaningless dualistic catagories. And because he was a good writer, his arguments unfortunately influenced quite a few people who were gullible. And spiritual crooks still quote him to this day.