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Sunday, 6 August 2023

No man is only an island

re: "Religion and politics" (BP, PostBag, August 4, 2023)

Dear editor,

Jeff Wilcox presents as being as well informed on Buddhism as he is on Thai political history. Both are solidly on a par with his understanding of human society. In describing Buddhism's founder, he writes that "Siddharta established the sovereignty of the individual human mind: that people are individuals, not one of a collective species." I am not sure that Siddhartha would have claimed to have established any such broad understanding of human reality, nor would he have dogmatically asserted he had infallibly gotten that or any other factual matter right for all time. He presents as a more modestly human individual.

We are indeed all individuals, although under Thai law, the sovereignty of each is restricted, even to criminalizing the peaceful expression of ideas that displease powerful political players. Whatever else they might be, such political players are thereby proved decidedly not apolitical; to support Mr Wilcox's claim of them being apolitical, considerable public debate would be required. For some reason, that required debate has not occurred.

If Mr Wilcox seriously thinks that we are "not one of a collective species," how does he explain his use of the Internet to interact with the Bangkok Post? Did that just appear out of blue for his "individual human" use? And the Post itself where his letter is published? And if Mr Wilcox buys food, how is that not making him a part of a collective species? Being unique individuals with rights that can be violated does not preclude our also being members of collectives, which are themselves collectivized. 

If might shock Mr Wilcox, but the evidence supports John Donne's pithy "No man is an island entire of itself" (1624). Our species has not become the dominant animal on this planet, now with literal power of life and death over all other living things, because we evolved not to be interdependent members of massively connected and interconnected organizations: collectives we call religions, NetFlix, states, tribes, clubs, corporations, families, projects, political parties, PostBag, and so on. 

 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 August 6, 2023, under the title "No man is only an island" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2624287/revolving-door-politics

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