I like your distinction towards the end of the essay between “mundane” Dharma and the “supramundane” Dharma so to speak. Some versions of Engaged Buddhism, as John Makransky observes in his excellent critique, have traded the wisdom dimension of awakening for the rhetoric of identity and anger. In the name of social justice, these political forms of Western dharma (mundane dharma) re-center the self under new guises that often legitimize righteous anger, preach of a moral purity, and engage in the politics of grievance. The fire of indignation may feel purifying, but it still depends on the logic of separation: self versus other, victim versus oppressor, pure versus impure. (See Makransky: John Makransky, “Positive and Problematic Aspects of Modernistic Engaged Buddhism in Light of the History of Buddhist Adaptation to Cultures,” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 32 (2025): 131–157).
I get the feeling you did not pay very close attention what I actually wrote. I wrote. ‘“As a result, there is serious tension between Buddhism and liberal ethics..” you seem to,think I was communicating the opposite.
A couple of points for the purpose of clarification: Socialism (especially of the Marxist variety) is not a form of liberalism. Marx taught that social reality arises from material conditions. There is no concept of inherent rights in Marx, "rights" are seized (realised) by overthrowing current material conditions. The idea that liberalism is "left" is an Amerikan idea. The positions of actual leftists tend to be at odds with liberals, as liberals do not critique capitalist economic relations as a whole, just aspects of capitalism. Social democrats are liberals, but democratic socialists are not. One last point: I don't know if there were NO liberal ideas in Asia. What seems to have happened is that there was no opportunity for a bourgeois class to develop and attempt to demand their rights, as the development of social-economic systems in these nations were disrupted by the sudden presence of European colonialism.
Perhaps I didn’t articulate my point clearly—the reference to Marx, Engles, and so on, was not meant to reference Liberalism, per se. it was meant to,illustrate the continued impact of the European encounter with Indigenous people in the Americas on European thinkers, as shown by Engle’s book, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, etc. Also, my audience here isn’t anarchists, like yourself, and Marxists, but rather liberals, specifically, Anglophone Buddhist liberals who tend to assume Buddhism reflects their biases.
Also, left and right, in politics has nothing to do with being for or against capitalism. Originally, the term comes from the French Revolution, which had to do with aristocrats being seated on the right and the popular factions being seated on the left in French National Assembly of 1789 (see Dawn of Everything, pg. 68). In America, left means supporting Social Security, universal care, and so, that is, the Keynesian consensus that dominated American political and economic policy until Reagan. But the term here is a broad tent, covering left-wing Democrats, as well as moderate anticapitalist parties like the Greens, DSA, and all the way left the Trots, etc.
This is a very interesting post. Isn’t there another book that you have mentioned before about the influence of indigenous systems of governance on the founding fathers?
It is the Graeber book above. Also, there is Zinn;s People's History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Indigenous People's History of the United States, and so on.
You may be interested in the podcast by the American Indian sociologist "Twin Rabbit" on this particular issue. Especially the idea that Anarchism stole most of it's principles from American Indians. https://youtu.be/qBFvxkvpi2w?si=Xz6OFldrDBUGgSmK
This would be consistent with Graeber’s point, “For European audiences, the indigenous critique would come as a shock to the system, revealing possibilities for human emancipation that, once disclosed, could hardly be ignored. Indeed, the ideas expressed in that critique came to be perceived as such a menace to the fabric of European society that an entire body of theory was called into being, specifically to refute them. As we will shortly see, the whole story we summarized in the last chapter – our standard historical meta-narrative about the ambivalent progress of human civilization, where freedoms are lost as societies grow bigger and more complex – was invented largely for the purpose of neutralizing the threat of indigenous critique.” Dawn of Everything, pg. 31
I am currently taking a kind of survey course in Native American studies. This thread is drawing attention to the fact that our discussions have mostly been confined to the effects of Western systems on native peoples rather than some kind of bidirectional influence.
I heartily recommend the Graeber Wengrow book as it adds a necessary corrective to the story. Then one should also investigate the so-called Columbian Exchange. For example, food insecurity in Europe was largely eliminated by two things: potatoes and guano mining off the coast of Peru. Tomatoes, peppers, corn, chocolate, avacados, turkeys, squash, syphilis, etc. are all native to the Americas. The Spanish dumping cheap silver into world economy caused a currency crisis in China, etc. Here is one paper: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/files/nunn_qian_jep_2010.pdf
Your understanding of karma is not consistent with what the Buddha taught. The Buddha taught that Karma is simply volition, and its derived vocal and physical acts: “Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect."” These acts may later ripen as suffering , depending on the strength of volition driving them and satisfaction in accomplishing those volitions. My negative karma only ripens on my continuum, not that of others. The sufferings of others is solely a result of their past actions, directly or indirectly. Inflicting harm upon others indeed is negative karma for me; but the suffering they experience is a result of their own karma. Karma is not justice, karma is not just. It’s unerring. Many people have difficulties with Buddha’s teachings on karma. But they are what they are. “"'I am the owner of my actions (kamma), heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.” This points out the fundamental difference between liberal ethics, progressive ethics, socialist ethics, and so on, and Buddhist ethics, and shows the reason why Buddhist ethics are catechistic, especially for foolish, ordinary people for whom questions of skillfulness is out of the question until they develop some wisdom.
Karma shapes future actions, but is also reshaped by those actions. In some sense karma is the self, or the thing that makes us unique. Your ability to act, and choose actions, is shaped by your karma (which is fairly in line with a lot of modern cognitive psychology findings). But of course your karma is also made up of others perceptions of you, how society judges you (and also things such as the make up of your body, your health). It's the context in which you operate, for better or worse. It is malleable to some degree, but never fully. At least in this lifetime.
Given that my actions determine my suffering, then karma indirectly determines my suffering, by shaping how I act and interpret/experience the results of those actions (and how I respond to things that happen to me).
In the west Buddhist ethics are often (wrongly I think) presented as a form of virtue ethics (which is of course a thoroughly western tradition, just as it's also central to Confucianism - an Asian tradition that is very different to Buddhism), but I think that misses the point. Buddhism is not about becoming a better person in the way that maybe Thomas Aquinas would have understood it, but rather by reshaping karma so we can operate in way that minimizes our, and others, suffering. In other words by becoming more skillful.
In the Mahayana tradition at least, it is impossible to reduce your suffering, without reducing the suffering of others. And this is also obvious. My karma is in part how I am perceived/treated, so if I reduce the suffering of others where I can, this should also reduce my suffering. But, at least this is how I was taught this, without sufficient skill your actions, however well intentioned, will often increase the suffering of others. E.g. I may think that telling my neighbor that they need to lose weight will help them, and it comes from a helpful place, but actually it makes things worse. On the other hand this may be exactly the right thing to tell my coworker, because they are in a place to hear/respond to this. With discernment we can act effectively, but discernment is impossible without improving ourselves first. If you want to help others - first help yourself.
And that, for numerous reasons that I'm not a skilled enough philosopher to present adequately, that it is impossible to reduce our own suffering without reducing that of others (which gets into the whole self/non-self issue). But this is not a moral act - it's simply a pragmatic one.
The Buddhist precepts are not moral laws, but instead they are guidelines. Lying will always harm my karma. But sometimes it is better to lie, but (as my teacher explained it to me) with the full knowledge that this is harmful. Yes lie to the Nazis about where the Jewish family are - but do so in the full knowledge that this still worsens your karma (by making you more susceptible to white lies in future).
No, what shapes action is affliction, karma is not a cause of karma. Affliction causes affliction and karma, karma causes suffering, suffering conditions affliction. The ripening of karma is suffering.
Let’s take the four fundamental vows common to all Buddhists, not taking life, taking what has not been given, lying, and sexual misconduct. These cover four of the ten nonvirtuous deeds—the three physical no virtues, and one of speech. Engaging in these deeds plants seeds for future suffering, avoiding them avoids their results. These four vows are absolute prohibitions for the ordained, which if engaged in, break their ordination permanently.
In Mahayana, it’s all about aspiration. We are motivated by the Bodhisattva vow, but we also recognize that as ordinary people, it is not possible for us to do to benefit other sentient beings very much. When Shantideva poses the question, how did the Buddha perfect generosity since there were still poor people in the world, the answer was that even though Buddha couldn’t relieve all poverty, he wished it to be so. Our motivation in Mahayana for studying and practicing Dharma is certainly motivated to help sentient beings, but it is extremely grandiose to imagine that at present we can offer more than palliatives. We cannot reduce the suffering of others at all in any meaningful way, as the Buddha said, “suffering cannot be removed with the hand.” All we can do is give people the tools to recognize and then reduce their suffering. The gift of the Dharma, the most important of the four means of conversion, is the only one that can truly give people this advantage, granting protection, material support and so on, are important, but do not lead to the ultimate goal.
In Mahayana, engaging in any of the ten nonvirtues to benefit others is not necessarily negative karma. Even killing human beings is can be acceptable if one’s genuine motivation is to prevent harm. It is impossible for positive actions to bear negative results.
Thus, there is in classical,Buddhism no articulation of an ethical theory of the kind we find in Rawls, for example, or even Aristotle. And I pointed out why—India had its own version of secular ethical literature, such as the Manusmṛti or Kauṭilya’s, Arthashastra, just as China had Confucian and Taoist writings. There is only the avoidance of nonvirtuous deeds and the cultivation of virtuous ones. Thus, Buddhist ethics are catechistic as I pointed out. The reasons for Buddhist vows may be pragmatic, but that does not make Buddhist ethics any less catechistic.
Therefore, the conclusion is that we Buddhists must turn to secular ethics as articulated at present, just as HH Dalai Lama insists, because religious ethics are too narrow. Our turn to secular ethics may be informed by Dharma, but we won’t find nuanced answers to many ethical questions in the Dharma. This because the Dharma is about personal evolution , not social change, and so on, no matter how much “engaged” Buddhists scold others. My teacher taught us that the point is evolution, one person at a time, not revolution in society.
Karma shapes action. Our actions shape karma. It's a loop. Of course karma doesn't exist, anymore than the self or any of these other things exist. It's an abstraction we use. And what karma is is constantly changing and reforming (just like the self).
The purpose of these vows, at least in the Soto Zen school that I follow (though I've heard Tibetan Buddhists say similar things), is that they provide guidelines for practice. But they're not intended to principals that you reify (such as in Christianity), nor a path for practicing being a better human being (such as in Confucianism). They're just tools that train you (just like meditation and other practices) to be more skillful at living in a way that minimizes suffering and to make ethical decisions instinctively. It is, as Jay Garfield argues, a form of moral phenomenology - distinct from both virtue and consequentialist ethical traditions. Incidentally, Jay Garfield's book is really good, even if one doesn't agree with his conclusions and teasing out some of the subtleties.
> In Mahayana, engaging in any of the ten nonvirtues to benefit others is not necessarily negative karma. Even killing human beings is can be acceptable if one’s genuine motivation is to prevent harm.
I think this is a mistaken understanding. Killing will always have a 'negative' affect on your karma, not because it is bad or good (these concepts are dualistic, and unhelpful), but because it has a coarsening affect. You are now a killer, and people will judge you for that and that will have an effect on how people interact with you (karma). You are practicing killing, and this will mean that it is easier for you to kill in the future.. Maybe killing someone was the right thing to do, or at least of the choices available to you it was the least bad, but it's still going to cost you. And in a way, part of your karma is that you were in a situation where you were faced with these choices. Karma is simply the situation we find ourselves in right now, the resources we have and the habits that we have formed.
> Our turn to secular ethics may be informed by Dharma, but we won’t find nuanced answers to many ethical questions in the Dharma.
Well no, but why would you expect to. Morality, ethical living - these are lived and contingent practices. A text is never going to be able to tell you the right thing to do in certain circumstances. Every situation is different. This is why trolley problems are so silly. Life is not like that. These are artificial problems - but we don't face artificial problems. Instead we face problems such as do we lie to protect a co-worker, knowing full well that there may be things we do not know about that would change our decision if we did.
As for the larger social picture... Well who can say, but if you're engaging in social activism through abstractions, or dualism (the authoritarian Russians vs the progressive West, or whatever it might be), the results are unlikely to be good. If you're doing out of ego - ditto. But if you're doing it our of careful attention to the situation you're in, where you can see flawed people and their karma, rather than ideas and concepts - then maybe you can do help other people. But you can only achieve that if you work on yourself first.
I do as it happens think such a framework is incompatible with western social liberalism, but then it's also incompatible with conservatism, libertarianism and a whole bunch of other 'isms'. Any framework that says this is how the world ought to be, or tries to make the world conform to an ideal (however admirable that ideal might be) is always going to be incompatible with Buddhism. Because such frameworks are dualistic.
The point is that your assessment of Tibet could have been lifted wholesale from Parenti. And no, not 18th century Russia. Asserting that Tibet had a feudal system is a complete mischaracterization, not to mention the fact the whole notion of “feudalism” as an accurate characterization of a period in European history is fraught with difficulties.
> The point is that your assessment of Tibet could have been lifted wholesale from Parenti.
I actually 'lifted' my assessment from the work of Melvyn C. Goldstein and Donald Lopez. Don't know Parenti. Should I?
> not to mention the fact the whole notion of “feudalism” as an accurate characterization of a period in European history is fraught with difficulties.
Don't be silly. There are all kinds of criticisms that can be made of his work, as with any historian/anthropologist - but unless you have some kind of proof, this discredits you.
Who then would you say has published a 'modern' history of the pre-Chinese invasion Tibet?
I like your distinction towards the end of the essay between “mundane” Dharma and the “supramundane” Dharma so to speak. Some versions of Engaged Buddhism, as John Makransky observes in his excellent critique, have traded the wisdom dimension of awakening for the rhetoric of identity and anger. In the name of social justice, these political forms of Western dharma (mundane dharma) re-center the self under new guises that often legitimize righteous anger, preach of a moral purity, and engage in the politics of grievance. The fire of indignation may feel purifying, but it still depends on the logic of separation: self versus other, victim versus oppressor, pure versus impure. (See Makransky: John Makransky, “Positive and Problematic Aspects of Modernistic Engaged Buddhism in Light of the History of Buddhist Adaptation to Cultures,” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 32 (2025): 131–157).
I get the feeling you did not pay very close attention what I actually wrote. I wrote. ‘“As a result, there is serious tension between Buddhism and liberal ethics..” you seem to,think I was communicating the opposite.
A couple of points for the purpose of clarification: Socialism (especially of the Marxist variety) is not a form of liberalism. Marx taught that social reality arises from material conditions. There is no concept of inherent rights in Marx, "rights" are seized (realised) by overthrowing current material conditions. The idea that liberalism is "left" is an Amerikan idea. The positions of actual leftists tend to be at odds with liberals, as liberals do not critique capitalist economic relations as a whole, just aspects of capitalism. Social democrats are liberals, but democratic socialists are not. One last point: I don't know if there were NO liberal ideas in Asia. What seems to have happened is that there was no opportunity for a bourgeois class to develop and attempt to demand their rights, as the development of social-economic systems in these nations were disrupted by the sudden presence of European colonialism.
Perhaps I didn’t articulate my point clearly—the reference to Marx, Engles, and so on, was not meant to reference Liberalism, per se. it was meant to,illustrate the continued impact of the European encounter with Indigenous people in the Americas on European thinkers, as shown by Engle’s book, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, etc. Also, my audience here isn’t anarchists, like yourself, and Marxists, but rather liberals, specifically, Anglophone Buddhist liberals who tend to assume Buddhism reflects their biases.
Also, left and right, in politics has nothing to do with being for or against capitalism. Originally, the term comes from the French Revolution, which had to do with aristocrats being seated on the right and the popular factions being seated on the left in French National Assembly of 1789 (see Dawn of Everything, pg. 68). In America, left means supporting Social Security, universal care, and so, that is, the Keynesian consensus that dominated American political and economic policy until Reagan. But the term here is a broad tent, covering left-wing Democrats, as well as moderate anticapitalist parties like the Greens, DSA, and all the way left the Trots, etc.
One of the best things I’ve read this month.
This is a very interesting post. Isn’t there another book that you have mentioned before about the influence of indigenous systems of governance on the founding fathers?
It is the Graeber book above. Also, there is Zinn;s People's History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Indigenous People's History of the United States, and so on.
You may be interested in the podcast by the American Indian sociologist "Twin Rabbit" on this particular issue. Especially the idea that Anarchism stole most of it's principles from American Indians. https://youtu.be/qBFvxkvpi2w?si=Xz6OFldrDBUGgSmK
This would be consistent with Graeber’s point, “For European audiences, the indigenous critique would come as a shock to the system, revealing possibilities for human emancipation that, once disclosed, could hardly be ignored. Indeed, the ideas expressed in that critique came to be perceived as such a menace to the fabric of European society that an entire body of theory was called into being, specifically to refute them. As we will shortly see, the whole story we summarized in the last chapter – our standard historical meta-narrative about the ambivalent progress of human civilization, where freedoms are lost as societies grow bigger and more complex – was invented largely for the purpose of neutralizing the threat of indigenous critique.” Dawn of Everything, pg. 31
I am currently taking a kind of survey course in Native American studies. This thread is drawing attention to the fact that our discussions have mostly been confined to the effects of Western systems on native peoples rather than some kind of bidirectional influence.
I heartily recommend the Graeber Wengrow book as it adds a necessary corrective to the story. Then one should also investigate the so-called Columbian Exchange. For example, food insecurity in Europe was largely eliminated by two things: potatoes and guano mining off the coast of Peru. Tomatoes, peppers, corn, chocolate, avacados, turkeys, squash, syphilis, etc. are all native to the Americas. The Spanish dumping cheap silver into world economy caused a currency crisis in China, etc. Here is one paper: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/files/nunn_qian_jep_2010.pdf
Will do. I found Debt to be very thought-provoking, and I have enjoyed the essays I have read in the davidgraeber.org archive.
I am interested. Thanks Greg
Your understanding of karma is not consistent with what the Buddha taught. The Buddha taught that Karma is simply volition, and its derived vocal and physical acts: “Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect."” These acts may later ripen as suffering , depending on the strength of volition driving them and satisfaction in accomplishing those volitions. My negative karma only ripens on my continuum, not that of others. The sufferings of others is solely a result of their past actions, directly or indirectly. Inflicting harm upon others indeed is negative karma for me; but the suffering they experience is a result of their own karma. Karma is not justice, karma is not just. It’s unerring. Many people have difficulties with Buddha’s teachings on karma. But they are what they are. “"'I am the owner of my actions (kamma), heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.” This points out the fundamental difference between liberal ethics, progressive ethics, socialist ethics, and so on, and Buddhist ethics, and shows the reason why Buddhist ethics are catechistic, especially for foolish, ordinary people for whom questions of skillfulness is out of the question until they develop some wisdom.
Karma shapes future actions, but is also reshaped by those actions. In some sense karma is the self, or the thing that makes us unique. Your ability to act, and choose actions, is shaped by your karma (which is fairly in line with a lot of modern cognitive psychology findings). But of course your karma is also made up of others perceptions of you, how society judges you (and also things such as the make up of your body, your health). It's the context in which you operate, for better or worse. It is malleable to some degree, but never fully. At least in this lifetime.
Given that my actions determine my suffering, then karma indirectly determines my suffering, by shaping how I act and interpret/experience the results of those actions (and how I respond to things that happen to me).
In the west Buddhist ethics are often (wrongly I think) presented as a form of virtue ethics (which is of course a thoroughly western tradition, just as it's also central to Confucianism - an Asian tradition that is very different to Buddhism), but I think that misses the point. Buddhism is not about becoming a better person in the way that maybe Thomas Aquinas would have understood it, but rather by reshaping karma so we can operate in way that minimizes our, and others, suffering. In other words by becoming more skillful.
In the Mahayana tradition at least, it is impossible to reduce your suffering, without reducing the suffering of others. And this is also obvious. My karma is in part how I am perceived/treated, so if I reduce the suffering of others where I can, this should also reduce my suffering. But, at least this is how I was taught this, without sufficient skill your actions, however well intentioned, will often increase the suffering of others. E.g. I may think that telling my neighbor that they need to lose weight will help them, and it comes from a helpful place, but actually it makes things worse. On the other hand this may be exactly the right thing to tell my coworker, because they are in a place to hear/respond to this. With discernment we can act effectively, but discernment is impossible without improving ourselves first. If you want to help others - first help yourself.
And that, for numerous reasons that I'm not a skilled enough philosopher to present adequately, that it is impossible to reduce our own suffering without reducing that of others (which gets into the whole self/non-self issue). But this is not a moral act - it's simply a pragmatic one.
The Buddhist precepts are not moral laws, but instead they are guidelines. Lying will always harm my karma. But sometimes it is better to lie, but (as my teacher explained it to me) with the full knowledge that this is harmful. Yes lie to the Nazis about where the Jewish family are - but do so in the full knowledge that this still worsens your karma (by making you more susceptible to white lies in future).
No, what shapes action is affliction, karma is not a cause of karma. Affliction causes affliction and karma, karma causes suffering, suffering conditions affliction. The ripening of karma is suffering.
Let’s take the four fundamental vows common to all Buddhists, not taking life, taking what has not been given, lying, and sexual misconduct. These cover four of the ten nonvirtuous deeds—the three physical no virtues, and one of speech. Engaging in these deeds plants seeds for future suffering, avoiding them avoids their results. These four vows are absolute prohibitions for the ordained, which if engaged in, break their ordination permanently.
In Mahayana, it’s all about aspiration. We are motivated by the Bodhisattva vow, but we also recognize that as ordinary people, it is not possible for us to do to benefit other sentient beings very much. When Shantideva poses the question, how did the Buddha perfect generosity since there were still poor people in the world, the answer was that even though Buddha couldn’t relieve all poverty, he wished it to be so. Our motivation in Mahayana for studying and practicing Dharma is certainly motivated to help sentient beings, but it is extremely grandiose to imagine that at present we can offer more than palliatives. We cannot reduce the suffering of others at all in any meaningful way, as the Buddha said, “suffering cannot be removed with the hand.” All we can do is give people the tools to recognize and then reduce their suffering. The gift of the Dharma, the most important of the four means of conversion, is the only one that can truly give people this advantage, granting protection, material support and so on, are important, but do not lead to the ultimate goal.
In Mahayana, engaging in any of the ten nonvirtues to benefit others is not necessarily negative karma. Even killing human beings is can be acceptable if one’s genuine motivation is to prevent harm. It is impossible for positive actions to bear negative results.
Thus, there is in classical,Buddhism no articulation of an ethical theory of the kind we find in Rawls, for example, or even Aristotle. And I pointed out why—India had its own version of secular ethical literature, such as the Manusmṛti or Kauṭilya’s, Arthashastra, just as China had Confucian and Taoist writings. There is only the avoidance of nonvirtuous deeds and the cultivation of virtuous ones. Thus, Buddhist ethics are catechistic as I pointed out. The reasons for Buddhist vows may be pragmatic, but that does not make Buddhist ethics any less catechistic.
Therefore, the conclusion is that we Buddhists must turn to secular ethics as articulated at present, just as HH Dalai Lama insists, because religious ethics are too narrow. Our turn to secular ethics may be informed by Dharma, but we won’t find nuanced answers to many ethical questions in the Dharma. This because the Dharma is about personal evolution , not social change, and so on, no matter how much “engaged” Buddhists scold others. My teacher taught us that the point is evolution, one person at a time, not revolution in society.
Karma shapes action. Our actions shape karma. It's a loop. Of course karma doesn't exist, anymore than the self or any of these other things exist. It's an abstraction we use. And what karma is is constantly changing and reforming (just like the self).
The purpose of these vows, at least in the Soto Zen school that I follow (though I've heard Tibetan Buddhists say similar things), is that they provide guidelines for practice. But they're not intended to principals that you reify (such as in Christianity), nor a path for practicing being a better human being (such as in Confucianism). They're just tools that train you (just like meditation and other practices) to be more skillful at living in a way that minimizes suffering and to make ethical decisions instinctively. It is, as Jay Garfield argues, a form of moral phenomenology - distinct from both virtue and consequentialist ethical traditions. Incidentally, Jay Garfield's book is really good, even if one doesn't agree with his conclusions and teasing out some of the subtleties.
> In Mahayana, engaging in any of the ten nonvirtues to benefit others is not necessarily negative karma. Even killing human beings is can be acceptable if one’s genuine motivation is to prevent harm.
I think this is a mistaken understanding. Killing will always have a 'negative' affect on your karma, not because it is bad or good (these concepts are dualistic, and unhelpful), but because it has a coarsening affect. You are now a killer, and people will judge you for that and that will have an effect on how people interact with you (karma). You are practicing killing, and this will mean that it is easier for you to kill in the future.. Maybe killing someone was the right thing to do, or at least of the choices available to you it was the least bad, but it's still going to cost you. And in a way, part of your karma is that you were in a situation where you were faced with these choices. Karma is simply the situation we find ourselves in right now, the resources we have and the habits that we have formed.
> Our turn to secular ethics may be informed by Dharma, but we won’t find nuanced answers to many ethical questions in the Dharma.
Well no, but why would you expect to. Morality, ethical living - these are lived and contingent practices. A text is never going to be able to tell you the right thing to do in certain circumstances. Every situation is different. This is why trolley problems are so silly. Life is not like that. These are artificial problems - but we don't face artificial problems. Instead we face problems such as do we lie to protect a co-worker, knowing full well that there may be things we do not know about that would change our decision if we did.
As for the larger social picture... Well who can say, but if you're engaging in social activism through abstractions, or dualism (the authoritarian Russians vs the progressive West, or whatever it might be), the results are unlikely to be good. If you're doing out of ego - ditto. But if you're doing it our of careful attention to the situation you're in, where you can see flawed people and their karma, rather than ideas and concepts - then maybe you can do help other people. But you can only achieve that if you work on yourself first.
I do as it happens think such a framework is incompatible with western social liberalism, but then it's also incompatible with conservatism, libertarianism and a whole bunch of other 'isms'. Any framework that says this is how the world ought to be, or tries to make the world conform to an ideal (however admirable that ideal might be) is always going to be incompatible with Buddhism. Because such frameworks are dualistic.
The point is that your assessment of Tibet could have been lifted wholesale from Parenti. And no, not 18th century Russia. Asserting that Tibet had a feudal system is a complete mischaracterization, not to mention the fact the whole notion of “feudalism” as an accurate characterization of a period in European history is fraught with difficulties.
> The point is that your assessment of Tibet could have been lifted wholesale from Parenti.
I actually 'lifted' my assessment from the work of Melvyn C. Goldstein and Donald Lopez. Don't know Parenti. Should I?
> not to mention the fact the whole notion of “feudalism” as an accurate characterization of a period in European history is fraught with difficulties.
Huh? Who would make such a claim?
Goldstein’s works are very biased and quite dated. He is also in the pocket of the CCP.
> He is also in the pocket of the CCP.
Don't be silly. There are all kinds of criticisms that can be made of his work, as with any historian/anthropologist - but unless you have some kind of proof, this discredits you.
Who then would you say has published a 'modern' history of the pre-Chinese invasion Tibet?