Don't rely on karma

re: "Do not mistake ritual for repentance" (BP, Opinion, January 31, 2022)

Dear editor,

Whilst true as Paritta Wangkiat writes that "taking a genuine responsibility for our actions would be a good way to start atoning," it is false that "at the end of the day, we all, Pol L/C Norawich and his ilk included, will pay for our sins in one way or another." And that falsehood is a dangerous one.

the blunt reality is that unless it be done here on Earth by their fellow human beings, justice will not be done. There are no gods handing down infallibly impartial judgements, with special deals for those who ruthlessly impose their gods' will on others or raise gorgeous temples, cathedrals, or mosques in their names. And there is no karmic accounting department allocating rewards and punishments in the rebirth business, with special deals for those who donate generously, or enter the monkhood, or pay for a proxy to do so. Unless their fellow humans insist on justice in the here and now, many bad people will prosper mightily, and will go to death undeservedly rich, at ease, and respected by all.  

History, when such truth speaking is not criminalized, might in some cases later discover the truth about them and reassess their moral and other worth, as we see in the reevaluation of many once commemorated in statues that have rightly been ditched or removed to museums of the less than saintly. However, since the perpetrators memorialized in stone, bronze, poetry, ceilings, or whatever no longer exist, such posthumous correction of myths exacts no justice on those who prospered mightily by collaterally harming others during their lives.

At best, an improved historical awareness allows some material justice to be done among the generations now living. Their children cannot be guilty of the sins of the mother or father. However, if a fortune was, for example, acquired unjustly, such as by conquest or corruption, then that unjust initial acquisition, like the fruits of the harms inflicted on those from whom it was unjustly taken, does continue to affect later generations, and for those very real present consequences of past injustice, reparations can and should be made, especially by a due redistribution of wealth, preferably by voluntary acts of those holding it, to better serve distributive justice in the here and now by correcting the baleful influences of historical wrongs. This is why some narrowly defined forms of affirmative action can also be just.

It is also held by those who value truth seeking and speaking that the impartial quest for right understanding of history and its figures is a good thing in itself, a value that, while often unkind to myth, comports perfectly with justice as with truth.

 Felix Qui

 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on February 3, 2022, under the title "Don't rely on karma" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2257871/dont-rely-on-karma