Dalai Lama officially a Luddite, Bishop Desmond Tutu now a Deist
By Wes | September 27th, 2009
The Dalai Lama, while Visiting Vancouver this weekend for the 2009 World Peace Summit, made a bold statement about technology and the human condition. The spiritual leader came out of the luddite closet in through a statement that “technology might be getting in the way of peace” but it wasn’t so much about nuclear weapons and tanks as it was about the diminishing effect on our humaneness and our compassion, that technology can have. In his talk he stressed that technology “has no capacity to produce compassion”, and that “…compassion leads to peace”. But I would argue that technology in fact does offer ways to connect that can create a profound forum where compassion can be fostered and facilitated:
Sites like Kiva and other micro-lenders offer a way for us to interact in a positive way with less well-off members of society in far away countries, it shows us the real consequences that a positive contribution can make, no matter how small they may be. And have improved the lives of people by empowering them.
Sites like Avaaz offer an international forum for those who want to be involved with human rights and environmental issues, connecting people and offering opportunities to stand up for causes through tangible actions.
Assistive Technology improves the functions and capabilities of people with physical or mental disabilities. And new medical technologies aim to prolong and make more comfortable the lives of many older people or those suffering with diseases. These can be seen as direct examples of the compassionate use of technology. And the sites above can be seen as compassionate aims facilitated by internet-technology. What the Dalai Lama may have been trying to hit on was how technology can also seem to separate us and encourage self absorption. Something that parents have complained about since the invention of the wooden top.
Many scientists would be appalled that such a seemingly counterproductive statement would be made by someone with so much sway. Edward O Wilson, who opened the sociobiology debate many years ago, eloquently illustrates in his book Consilience, that science and technology have taken us so far into our understanding of the natural world that many leading thinkers have been inspired to adopt a sense of spiritual thinking regarding the universe and life, or a recognition of some kind of yet to be understood force . Consilience is the notion that our different understandings of our reality and the world around us, through different hard and soft sciences, spriritualism, and the humanities, is converging. There is a synthesis of understanding from the confluence of these sciences and humanities. Scientists like Wilson are in my opinion, are very compassionate. They are humanists, and it is through technology and science that their compassion is strengthened through and vice versa.
There is an even more direct link between science and spiritualism found in the Mind and Life Institute, a series of fascinating talks between the Dalai Lama himself and prominent western scientists that eventually became a full time body devoted to the mutually beneficial study of life that both eastern spiritualism and western science practiced in their own ways. So it was a surprise to me when his holiness came out with so bold a statement, portraying technology as an inhibitor of our human progress- when I so devoutly believe that technology and innovation are key to peace and understanding, and to the future of our species. I believe like Wilson, that further infusing the humanities and sciences will create a much deeper understanding of our experience and that this in turn will fuel the compassion that his holiness believes is necessary to creating peace. Technology can and does alleviate the need or demand for scarce resources, provide new energy, improve our crop growing capacity and fight disease. In a potential world where technology gives us everything we need, the only thing left to have wars over would be God. And that’s where Bishop Desmond Tutu comes in:
Tutu, via video from South Africa, stated how “…religion has often been used almost diabolically to encourage such things as xenophobia and homophobia.” and that he “…sometimes wonder[s] how people could ever think that God is a Christian,” He continued in fine deist form by stating that “The spirit of God is wider than any one particular faith.” The words must have been music to Edward O Wilson’s ears, he is also purportedly a deist.
So it seems that while the Bishop is broadening his perspectives, the Dalai Lama is retreating in his. I would hope that his holiness would become active in involving his compassion with technologies, rather than blame them for our human shortcomings. It’s worth noting that some goof beat his holiness to the punch and started a Dalai Lama Twitter account before the Tibetan leader, gaining 16,000 followers in one weekend- one of the fastest growing accounts the social media provider has ever seen. His holiness now has an official Twitter account and the hooligan was exiled from the social media site.
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Tags: Assistive technology, Avaaz, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Dalai Lama, Dalai Lama Twitter, Deism, Edward O Wilson, Kiva, Luddism, Mind and Life Institute, Science and Spiritualism, Technology, Vancouver 2009 World Peace Summit
