Laws and Order?

Law and Order?

In 1970 Alvin Toffler wrote and published Future Shock, a book many considered to have caused a paradigm shift in how we think about and react to an unfolding future, particularly a future that speeds up and disrupts fixed societal standards. He followed with The Third Wave and Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century in which he further delineated the plight of those who resist inevitable change. 

His solution? People who learned to ride the waves of change would be most likely to survive and do well. And those who didn’t adapt would be drowned by those waves of change.

Toffler was unusually prescient and precisely defined the turbulence of the present day. The short takeaway of Toffler’s thesis is this: We humans resist effervescent conditions that disrupt the status quo and thus cling to fixed standards, even when such measures may have never existed. Or if they did exist, we tend to imbue them with inflated and idealized values. In short, we don’t embrace change and end up trying to bulwark thin air. Furthermore, when such changes wash away set standards, we yearn for the “good old days” when law and order prevailed and seemed to ensure stability.

Another ancient sage by the name of Lao Tzu said this in chapter 57 of the Tao Te Ching:
Therefore the holy man says: I practice non-assertion and the people reform themselves. I love quietude, and the people of themselves become righteous. I use no diplomacy, and the people of themselves become rich. I have no desire, and the people of themselves remain simple.”

Some years earlier, Alan Watts came to mainstream attention with his book The Wisdom of Insecurity. He therein observed that our lust for stability was grossly out of kilter since nothing in the phenomenal, mortal world is stable⎯all is changing each and every moment, and to cling to the idea of stability was a sure-fire prescription for suffering and failure. I offer these two summations for a reason that is particularly germane today, and what it should tell us about the value of fixed standards, otherwise known as “laws.”

We, humans, are creatures of habit, and once we have made decisions, we are reluctant to admit the error of our ways. That peculiar habit has a name and a well-founded pedigreed in psychological terms. It is known as a “confirmation bias,” which means we are much more inclined to seek confirmation of our preconceived ideas than to seek the truth. While it may be understandable and even desirable to live with laws, it is likewise a problem when we try to box in change. It can’t be done, since no measures, or set of laws, can ever counter continuous change. So what to do?

The Buddha offered the perfect solution, which he called “upaya,” a Sanskrit word that translates as “expedient means,” where justice is built into the premise of change. Instead of inflexible laws, upaya is flexible guidelines that allow for the nature of change. Upaya is rooted in the inherent wisdom of all of mankind, whereas the desire for inflexible standards is rooted in the opposite incorrect thought⎯Because we are by nature immoral, the lack of laws will result in anarchy, thus we must have a crutch to compensate for our lack. Ultimately this issue boils down to what we think of one another: An extremely critical issue when wrestling with matters such as racism or xenophobia. Are we naturally moral? Or naturally immoral?

“The more restrictions and prohibitions are in the empire, the poorer grow the people. The more weapons the people have, the more troubled is the state. The more mandates and laws are enacted, the more there will be thieves and robbers.

Given the vector in the world today it is high time we reconsider how we understand one another, and rethink how we relate. This may seem like a risky venture but how much greater is the risk of the direction in which we are now heading?