Interconnected

Issue #3.3 ~ March 30th, 2024

Thomas Friedman, writing recently in the New York Times about the misguided leadership both in Israel and in Palestine, concluded his essay with this startling paragraph:

Israelis and Palestinians are interdependent. The only question is whether they can one day forge a healthy interdependency or will be doomed to an unhealthy interdependency. But interdependent they will be. Each community needs a leader whose actions are motivated by that fundamental truth. Right now, neither has one.

I describe this paragraph as “startling” only in the sense that it was a surprise to me to read words from this highly-regarded pillar of mainstream punditry that I might just as easily have heard while sitting through a dharma talk at the community center where I formerly attended weekly meditation gatherings. The only difference is that the term used by the dharma teacher would more likely have been “interconnected” rather than Friedman’s “interdependent”.

The latter term, as I understand it, connotes some sort of relationship of mutual dependency between two parties - a situational phenomenon that’s subject to change, or even dissolution, if the particular circumstances change. For example, as a city dweller, I maintain an interdependent relationship with the local shops where I purchase my groceries. I depend upon them as a consumer, and they depend upon me as a customer; thus, our relationship is interdependent. But, it’s also very much subject to change. If they go out of business, or should I move out of the city, our interdependent consumer-customer relationship simply ceases to exist.

The former term, as it typically occurs in Buddhist teachings, describes not some transient situational condition, but rather an ongoing existential status. In this view, we humans are not merely seen as autonomous individuals engaging in various temporal transactions with each other. Instead, we are deemed to be interconnected beings, bound to each other by virtue of our co-existence in an ever-changing world of continuously unfolding causes and conditions. This dynamic world is being created anew in every moment by the collective sum of our individual actions, and in turn, its constantly changing conditions continuously impact the ways in which each of us chooses to go about living our lives and pursuing our hopes and dreams.

In the context of Friedman’s essay, the Israelis and the Palestinians are seen to be interdependent - two separate, autonomous entities engaged in a decades-long succession of extremely detrimental (and in recent times, deadly) transactions concerning how they, as two separate groups differing in their religious and cultural histories, ought to live together on the same stretch of land to which each claims entitlement.

In the context of Buddhist philosophy, the Israelis and the Palestinians are seen to be interconnected - two groups of people sharing an unwelcome proximity in the vast web of constantly changing causes and conditions arising not only from their respective actions within the bounds of their small stretch of land, but also from events occurring in the larger geopolitical region comprising the various nations of the Middle East; and yet again from events taking place in the infinitely vaster international arena of nations - the United States, in particular - that are feeling the repercussions of what is happening in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.

Neither Buddhism nor I have solutions to propose, but there is a perspective that I would offer as a way forward to those who are in a position to make such proposals. And that perspective begins with the recognition that there is a huge amount of suffering taking place right now, suffering that seems inevitable given the history of conflict over the past 75 years, but that in fact could have been largely avoided if there had been - or were now - leaders on all sides who truly understood the basic truth of our interconnectedness. Leaders with the vision to see that we are all bound together in each other’s joys and in each other’s sorrows, and that we are all mutually responsible for our collective flourishing and for our collective suffering.

But the sad truth is that it’s so much easier to ignore the fact of interconnectedness, and so much more satisfying to take refuge in the ignorance of an “us/them” perspective. And of course, this sad truth applies not just to Israel and Palestine. Every form of political polarization, both in the United States and across the globe, has its roots in the willful collective denial of our interconnectedness and the arrogant assertion of tribal primacy - “we” (i.e., my religion, my nationality, my political affiliation, etc., etc.) are the righteous ones, so “they” (everyone outside of my chosen group) must be the evil ones … who must be defeated … who must be imprisoned … and in the most extreme cases, who must be killed.

To paraphrase Thomas Friedman’s closing sentences from the opening quote above, the entire world needs more national leaders whose actions are guided by the recognition of the fundamental truth of our interconnectedness. Right now, sadly, we have too few.

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Postscript …

In the last issue of TLBR, I used this space (as of now, and henceforth, entitled “Postscript”) to fulminate a bit about what I consider to be the ineffectualness of the expression “be the change you want to see in the world”. Now, I risk coming perilously close to contradicting myself by suggesting that, while we wait for more world leaders to embrace the concept of interconnectedness, we each strive to embrace it ourselves in our individual day-to-day lives.

Not because I think that by doing so we will bring about such change in the world - absolutely not! Rather, because I think that by doing so we can each make our own lives more free of what Buddhism calls “small-d dukkha” - the personal suffering caused by the ordinary trials and tribulations of everyday existence, resulting in distressing feelings of fear and anxiety.

Enhancing our awareness of how interconnected we are with everyone and everything else can moderate those feelings by helping us to realize that we’re not alone in our suffering, and by reminding us of how many others throughout the world are suffering to such a much greater degree than we are.

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Further reading …

• New York Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie offered this unusual perspective on the upcoming presidential election, suggesting that we view it not as a contest between two different personalities, but rather as one between two different coalitions …

  Personality certainly matters. But it might be more useful to think about the election as a race between competing coalitions of Americans. Different groups, and different communities, who want very different things for the country. The coalition behind Joe Biden wants what Democratic coalitions have wanted since at least the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt: government assistance for working people, federal support for the inclusion of more marginal Americans. As for the coalition behind Trump? Beyond the insatiable desire for lower taxes on the nation’s monied interests, there appears to be an even deeper desire for a politics of domination. The actual goal of the Trump coalition is not to govern the country, but to rule over others.

• No doubt you, like me, have more reading on your daily agenda than you can usually find enough time for. So it is with sympathy, and even some small trepidation, that I share this remarkable list of 136 (!) “great American novels” recently compiled by The Atlantic in consultation with a broad range of scholars, critics, and novelists. Each of the selected books is accompanied by a link to a brief commentary on its worthiness for inclusion - so even if you don’t have time to read all the books, you may well enjoy reading the mini-reviews. In browsing through the list myself a few days ago, I was simultaneously elated by the number of honorees I’ve already read, and deflated by the much larger number of those I haven’t. So many precious books, but so precious few available hours :-((

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