Issue

12th Issue (June, 2009)

Factors Leading to Deterrence of Crimes and Maintaining Social Conformity

Ven. Upali
University of Peradeniya
revupalisramon@gmail.com

The Aggikkhandhopamasutta[1] characterizes human beings and the nature of the world with an exceptional, yet imposing simile of fire. The central message of this sutta is – the world is in flames, burning, with the fire of greed [lobha], hatred [dosa], and illusion [moha]. In addition to these unrestraint internal evils human beings are twisted in the hazardous net of views and ideologies. The Buddha had analyzed the diversity of views existed in his time pointing out their weaknesses and impacts on human society. The Buddha had also shown how these weaknesses can be overcome proposing his own explanations. Yet, we can see even in today’s world, there is such multiplicity of political and philosophical ideologies that it is impossible for us not to be caught in this net.  All our thoughts and activities are governed by the view or views we hold. This diversity of views can never be totally eliminated from the world; even to propose for a single view or ideology to encompass all human wants and needs would be unwise. Yet, the bitter truth is that human beings are so attached to these views that they would not hesitate even to wage wars for the sake of what they belief to be ‘true’. The human history has witnessed so many wars for states, religions, rights, even language to realize this bitter experience of human nature. The conflict resulted mainly from enforcement of an ideology by some and rejection by others or opposing groups who cannot tolerate each other.

All the immoral actions or misbehaviours can be categorised basically according to the Buddhist five precepts. There might be differences according to the instruments one may use to commit them or their effects. However, the observance of these fundamental precepts is sufficient to maintain a harmonious social life; the fact is indisputably true. The uniqueness of these precepts is that the system applied here is self-regulatory one. In other words, an individual is, as the Buddha says, his or her own guide[2] . Therefore one should exercise them realizing their significance, not because they are enforced by law. This self- regulatory system is good for compliant followers, but, the obstinate ones would not conform to this system. As a result we see the rise of deviants intently harming the social peace.

In early days, these misbehaviours had very minor effects on society. Among the small tribal communities it was not hard to find out the evil-doers and punish them. As these tribes gradually expanded to occupy colonies in large areas those minor misbehaviours also grew to be criminal activities carried out by groups of deviants. During the recent centuries, we have seen, as international interactions have grown, people with evil motives have come up with gigantic anti social programmes. Terrorists and various underground groups are the latest outcome of this process of behavioural decadence. The irony is that, as humans have started to win planets, crimes have expanded up to universal level. Now, we hear of alien beings invading the Earth. The world today is threatened not only by criminals or terrorists but also by beings of other planets, while economic and ecological crises have been on the increase. That is why the Buddha said – the world is in flames, burning.

There was a time when evil peoples could be sorted out because they were extremely few. Now, it is becoming very difficult to find out the good people. The growth of these evil forces is on the increase. Just as there are schools and universities to create educated peoples for the betterment of the world, there are schools and training centres for producing these terrorists and underground groups. Everyone has his or her own understanding and explanation of what he or she  does. In this egocentric world who will establish the universal good to satisfy everyone’s wants?

The Buddha has shown in Aggaññasutta the natural growth of evils in society. No one taught early humans to kill, steal, or to do any other evil actions. Conditions were provided by the social members who had possessive and dominating attitudes. This was the first analysis of ‘crimes’ and ‘criminals’ as ‘social production’. They introduced these because they felt that these are necessary for them to meet their gains! As the evil mentalities were exposed, other members in the society became concerned and employed protective measures to preserve their social conformity redefining the social values and objectives.

A similar explanation is seen in sociology also. Some sociologists say that deviant activities have positive function to redefine social values and goals. It is like; when there is an attack from invaders, we become aware of our need to protect the country. Therefore, what the Buddha says with regard to evil forces attacking within oneself or the society is to take necessary protective measures. When evil attitudes occur in us, the Buddha has shown how we should strive to eliminate them. In the same way, when there are criminals all around the society, we should take protective measures to maintain the conformity of our own society. The Buddha, observing the probable threats that may ruin social harmony, had outlined some essential principles to develop collective strength and sustain social solidarity.   

In the Mahāparinibbāna sutta in appreciation of the Vajjian politics, the Buddha prescribed seven factors to preserve their social values and maintain harmony. These seven factors are explained as aparihāniya dhamma-s – factors following which there is no destruction or downfall. Even king Ajātasatthu could not defeat the Vajjian unity. The seven factors are as follows:

1. Vajjians hold regular and frequent meetings.
2. They  meet in harmony, carry on in harmony, and break up in harmony.
3. They do not authorize what has not been authorized, do not abolish what has been authorized, but proceed according to what has been authorized by their ancient tradition.
4. They honor, revere, and salute the elders among them and consider them worth listening to.
5. They do not forcibly abduct others’ wives and daughters and compel them to live with them.
6.  They honor, revere, and salute the shrines home and abroad, not withdrawing proper support made and given before.
7. Proper provision is made for the safety of Arahants, so that such arahants may come in future to live there and those already there may dwell in comfort. [3]

There have been attempts to point out the inapplicability of these ideals to modern society. In contrast, we see that various kings in the past employed Buddhist principles for government and had immense success. Vajjians themselves had great benefits from these. The emperor Aśoka implemented Buddhist ideals to politics with a massive project. In fact it has been asserted that, “Aśoka was the Lenin of Buddhism, as he was the first to translate Buddha’s way of life into a polity”.[4] The emperor unified the good ideals of Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra and Buddhism to establish his own doctrine. The central mission his government set to achieve was to upgrade his state by ensuring its safety, increasing its efficiency, and proving its effectiveness.[5] “The dhamma spoken by Aśoka” writes Prof. Barua “was essentially the law of piety or duty”.[6]   Besides piety, Dr. Barua has shown two methods adopted by Aśoka “for sufficient growth of the people.” They are :

1. Enactments in the form of imperial regulation [dhamma-niyāma], and
2. Moral persuasion.

The first was intended to suppress schisms among religious community. With regard to the second, the emperor Aśoka employed means of communicating the dhamma such as establishing rock edicts, holding popular demonstrations of the good ideals, “the maintenance of tolerant, reverential and helping attitude towards all faiths and religious teachers” and so on. [7]   K. N. Jayatilleke has shown that Buddhist political ideals and the example of Aśoka’s politics were imitated by Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Japan, China and shows their applicability at present.[8]

The central message of the seven factors of no-downfall is the need for constructive mutual social interaction and establishing a ‘collective consciousness’ among the members in a society to act against any sort of evil forces. In Dhammapada, the Buddha says avoidance of the evil and the practice of good must be a regular exercise, not for occasional employment.[9] We must not wait until some social disorder breaks. Instead we should be aware of all the probable mishaps. With regard to this, Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh says – “To prevent war, and  to prevent next crisis, we must start right now. When a war or crisis has begun, it is already too late. If we and our children practice ahimsa in our daily lives, if we learn how to plant seeds of peace and reconciliation in our hearts and minds, we will begin to establish real peace and, in that way, we may be able to prevent the next war.”[10]

Some social analysts and researchers have demonstrated that violence and aggression “arise from the daily “violence” of our social institutions.” Sulak Sivaraksha has been quoted writing – “In order to create a culture of peace, first we must make society more just, more fair, and give equal rights to people. The imposition of so called peace has, in fact, at times been a tool of repression. Look at the many programmes for pacification undertaken throughout history and the world. In many cases the institutional definition peace is tantamount to the suppression of righteous struggles for equal rights and justice. In other cases, the institutionalization of peace is really propaganda for maintaining the status quo of an unjust government or system.”[11]

Among the seven factors, the ones instructing to hold regular assembly and maintaining harmony throughout the process of discussion is of immense importance to establish social power. The deficiency of such an attitude can be observed even in Parliamentary meetings of some third world countries. Members in a society need to realize that they are in a group and sometimes individual preferences need to be sacrificed for greater social benefit. Some young delinquents, a real incident, get addicted to intoxicating drugs and in their infatuation attack an institution breaking the windows, making ugly terrific commotion. None of the people around the place came out to stop this despicable behaviour keeping themselves apart from ‘probable trouble’ that may arise from interfering.  Maintaining total apathy in this way shows the lame social power in that society. In fact, general people are on the habit of believing in ‘mind your own business’ to get away from troubles. This is not a formula for maintain social peace. We cannot wait for a special class of persons to act against the threats to our society. Because, in a way or other we are all subject to such evils. The whole world, for example, has to bear the tragedy of 9-11 even today. 

The Buddha employs fourfold objectives of the practice of right exertion [sammā vāyāma] applicable in resisting internal individual evils as well as social evils. They are

1. for avoiding the occurrence of unrisen evil factors,

2. for the elimination of evil factors that have already risen,

3. for the rise of already risen good factors, and

4. for the stability, maintenance, and perfection, of the existent good factors.

The general concept of deterrence is practiced employing military forces and arms. The Buddha has shown that fear of punishment is only one way of deterrence. But, improper use of rods may aggravate aggressive mentality among the deviants. In addition to the fear of punishments, there are three other fears such as self accusation [attānuvāda], social accusation [parānuvādabhaya], and fear of evil consequences [duggatibhaya] that may be helpful to deter the harmful tendencies.

The common attitude in socializing human children is mostly ego-centric and needs to be modified. Generally a child is trained to focus his or her establishment – for economic, social, and political pursuits. In this highly competitive world ‘to establish yourself’ but totally ignoring ‘others’, we hardly sit together to discuss  our social values and the threats to social peace. A child of today is conditioned to think that a specific objective is set upon him or her to achieve. In the less-sophisticated rural societies, there was enough time to get together and evaluate the position of the society, but, now in the complexities of modern societies, such collective attitudes are lacking. As a result, evil-forces find easy access to attack the society.

Therefore, Buddhist socialization seeks to internalize human values emphasizing not only an isolated individual’s happy life but also moral development in relation to the society. Such ideals as the five precepts are not for sermonization but to have real effect in the hearts of every human and social member. Therefore, every person should find out some time to contemplate on them and evaluate his or her moral position.   The best way of deterrence of crimes is to act collectively and make people understand the evil and shamefulness of the deviant activities.      

Bibliography

1. Aṅguttaranikāya, ed. Morris and E. Hardy, PTS, London, 1885-1900
2. Dhammapada, ed. Sumangala Thera, PTS, London, 1914
3. Dīghanikāya, ed. T. W. Rhys Davids and E. J. Capenter, PTS, London, 1890-1911,
4. Dīghanikāya, tr. Maurice Walshe, Wisdom Publication, Boston, 1995
5. Barua, Dr. B. M., Aśoka and His Inscriptions, New Publishers Ltd, Calcutta, 1955
6. Jayatilleke, K. N., Dhamma Man and Law, Buddhist Cultural Centre, Dehiwela, 2000
7. Jones, Ken, The New Social Face of Buddhism: A Call to Action, Wisdom Publication, Boston, 2003
8. Kalupahana, David J., The Buddha and the Concept of Peace, A Sarvodaya Vishva Lekha Publication, Ratmalana, 1999
9. Siddhi Butr-Indr, The New Social Face of Buddhism, Mahamakut Rajavidyalaya Press, [3rd ed.], 1995
10. Swaris, Nalin, Buddhism, Human Rights and Social Renewal, Asian Human Rights Commission, 2000