Resist the Urge to Purge | Daily Dhamma

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Good morning, and welcome back to Daily Dharma, a letter to our children.

[00:00:06]Today is March 31st, and our reading is resist the urged purge.

[00:00:17]Niebuhr warns of collective egotism, Auden of collective egoism.

[00:00:24]However termed, it readily enough becomes destructive.

[00:00:30]But there is nothing wrong, everything right with an intelligent, responsible, self-respect, even self-regard.

[00:00:40]The challenge is to make the world safe for and from ethnicity.

[00:00:47]Safe for just those differences which large assemblies, democratic or otherwise, will typically attempt to suppress.

[00:00:59]And that's from Daniel Patrick Moynihan's book Pandemonium, ethnicity in international politics.

[00:01:09]In 1961, Reinhold Niebuhr warned against the collective egotism of Western democracies imposing their vision of {quote} democratic universality {unquote} on the rest of the world via the United Nations.

[00:01:29]He was echoed the same year by W. H.

[00:01:32]Auden.

[00:01:34]{quote} In most poetic expressions of patriotism, it is impossible to distinguish what is one of the greatest human virtues from the worst human vice, collective egoism.

[00:01:51]This theme recurs at the international, national, family, and individual levels.

[00:01:59]Again and again, we see the powerful usurping the decisions of the weak.

[00:02:05]We believe it is a great mistake to compel others to do our bidding simply because we think we're right and we have the means to force them.

[00:02:18]True, this book presents a point of view, but we don't expect anyone else to agree.

[00:02:25]We may be wrong, but it seems better to mind our own business, keep our hands to ourselves, and refrain from being jerks.

[00:02:35]>> [bell] >> Pat Moynihan was the senior senator from New York and hearkens back to a more congenial, more collegial day.

[00:02:53]He knew something about international affairs. He was the ambassador to India when the the first Indian bomb was tested and he worked for Richard Nixon and he was a a lifelong Democrat.

[00:03:11]He knew a lot about getting along with people that might not be natural allies.

[00:03:18]In our opinion, he was a great guy.

[00:03:21]There's something that reminds me of this. It's the Quiet American by Graham Greene and Thomas Fowler, the British correspondent or reporter, is about ready to betray his friend Pyle and he reads the following poem. I drive through the streets and I care not a damn. The people they stare and they ask who I am. And if I should chance to run over a cab, I can pay for the damage, if ever so bad.

[00:04:01]Great poem.

[00:04:03]And when he's challenged on that by Pyle, who said, "Boy, that's a funny kind of poem." He says, "He was an adult poet in the 19th century. There weren't so many of them."

[00:04:16]Ditto for Patrick Moynihan.

[00:04:20]Okay, we're at the end of May, and our theme has been right speech. We need to watch the way that we talk. This is all a part of our second quarter theme, which is sincerity.

[00:04:35]And the Buddha made right speech the cornerstone of Sila, or ethical conduct, stream within the eightfold path.

[00:04:46]We're going to move on next month in June to right action, also a part of Sila, or the ethical conduct stream within the eightfold path.

[00:05:01]And we hope that you'll stay with us.

[00:05:04]Just to sum up, we need to think about what we're saying. We need to watch what we're our intention is. We need to consider the thoughts and feelings and beliefs of other people, and we need to not be so sure that we know what's right for everybody else. Not for sure.

[00:05:26]So, happy trails to you until we meet again.

[00:05:33]>> [bell]