TIBETAN spiritual leader the Dalai Lama says he's a Marxist, yet credits capitalism for bringing new freedoms to China, the communist country that exiled him.Marxism has more moral ethics, but Capitalism brings freedom."Still I am a Marxist," the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader said in New York, where he arrived today with an entourage of robed monks and a heavy security detail to give a series of paid public lectures.
Anti-war movements, huge international aid efforts after Haiti's earthquake this year, and the election of Barack Obama as the first black president in a once deeply racist US are "clear signs of human beings being more mature", he said.
"(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits," the Dalai Lama, 74, said.
However, he credited China's embrace of market economics for breaking communism's grip over the world's most populous country and forcing the ruling Communist Party to "represent all sorts of classes".
"(Capitalism) brought a lot of positive to China. Millions of people's living standards improved," he said.
The Dalai Lama, giving a series of lectures at the Radio City Music Hall in central Manhattan until Sunday, struck a strikingly optimistic note in general, saying that he believed the world is becoming a kinder, more unified place.
The Dalai Lama said he felt a "sense of the oneness of human beings," jokingly adding: "If those thoughts are wrong, please let me know!"
Although China, which forced him to escape for his life in 1959, is loosening up, he had harsh words for a Communist leadership that he said still seeks to rule by fear.
As Chinese become richer, "they want more freedoms, they want an independent judiciary, they want to have a free sort of press", he said.
The Chinese Government, he said, seeks harmony, "but harmony must come out of the heart, not out of fear. So far, methods to bring harmony mostly rely on use of force."
Marxism has more moral ethics, yet Capitalism has liberated the people of China from a Marxist government.
Marxism has more moral ethics, but Capitalism is responsible for raising the living standards of millions.
Marxism has more moral ethics, but "China's embrace of market economics for breaking communism's grip over the world's most populous country and forcing the ruling Communist Party to "represent all sorts of classes"."
Is it just me, or is this all just a bunch of contradictory gobbly-gook?
What an incredible hold Marxism exercises on the mind of those who embrace its superstitions.
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3 comments:
A couple days ago you likened socialists to Pharisees. That gets to the heart of the matter. Marxism is self-righteous despite its consistently negative and murderous record. The neo-marxists of our times are the most holier-than-thou crowd that I've ever seen.
Gobbly-gook for sure. That's typical of the Dali Lama. I have an historical question: Have communist or socialist ideas ever emerged from a society that did not have the freedoms that come from democracy? It seems to me that such ideas could only arise out of a free and privileged society. I also think the same thing of atheism.
Gregarious,
Hmmm... I guess it depends on how strictly and closely you want to define Communism. Obviously Marxism begins with Marx, but the ancient Spartans had a lot of communist-like ideas and the whole idea of totalitarianism goes back to Babel and successive empires including the Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek etc.
To take a different tack, I think a good argument can be made for understanding Marxism as a Christian heresy. The view of man is Pelagian, the view of eschatology is the Kingdom of God siezed by force and wedged into history, the view of Providence becomes the iron laws of history etc. The preaching of the Hebrew prophets against oppression of the poor may have influenced him. There is church membership (in the Party) and there is mysticism.
As for atheism, there were ancient Greeks and Romans who disbelieved in the pagan gods (eg. Lucretius), but you could certainly make an argument that modern atheism is specifically Christian.
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