Eastern Philosophical Foundations of Defeatism

| by Agi | 9:31 PM |

Well, the defeatists! still looks like crap on Typepad. But we don't really care, because after all, we are defeatists! I wrote the following piece at our place on Typepad but I'm also cross-posting it here to give you all a short primer on defeatism. Enjoy.

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Although Eastern Philosophy is Holier Than Mao's area of expertise, I'd like to take a brief look at the philosophical underpinnings of the defeatist ethos. There are definite Taoist and well as Buddhist parallels to the defeatist way of life.

The following excerpt comes from Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh and is titled "Hope as an Obstacle":

Hope is important, because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. But that is the most that hope can do for us—to make some hardship lighter. When I think deeply about the nature of hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment. We use hope to believe something better will happen in the future, that we will arrive at peace, or the Kingdom of God. Hope becomes a kind of obstacle. If you can refrain from hoping, you can bring yourself entirely into the present moment and discover the joy that is already here.

In other words, only by losing all hope is one able to experience true freedom. Hope is an illusion, even a prison, that prevents us from experiencing real freedom today.

Then there's the concept of delayed gratification which keeps us waiting and waiting for our "savior" which never arrives. The thought of achieving pleasure in the future may keep us moving forward, but we never actually reach that destination.

Enjoy life today, not tomorrow.