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The Principle of Symmetry in Spiritual Traditions

Submitted by Ken Watts on Thu, 05/06/2010 - 11:39

LAST TIME, IN RESPONSE TO A POST BY Tim Wise, I suggested that there was a deep connection between politics, spirituality, and science.

That connection was the idea of symmetry.

I gave an oversimplified example of symmetry in science, by observing that the scientific view of gravity has replaced ideas like "falling to Earth" with formulas about the attractive force between two objects, based on their mass and the distance between them.

This makes the formula more useful, but also more true, since the old idea of "falling toward Earth" would not work, for example, on Mars.

The point is that the more a rule depends on my unique point of view, the less likely it is to be true in any general sense.

But we aren't talking just about gravity.

Many ancient cultures (not just Judaism and Christianity) made use of this root idea, this principle of symmetry, for centuries before the advent of modern science.

They did it in the context of spiritual considerations.

It looked, in one famous case, like this:

"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

The idea—a very human idea, given our natural talent for empathy—involves symmetry in three ways:

  1. The idea that the person I am dealing with will want to be treated in much the same ways I would want to be treated.

    That is, I can expect that another person has the same kinds of needs, desires, and concerns that I have in general.

    This takes some unpacking, in specific cases—some thinking about just what those broader, more general, needs, desires, and concerns are.

    A soft landing for a spaceship on Earth may require different specifics than a soft landing for a spaceship on Mars, but the general desire for a soft landing remains the same.

    We are not all that different.
  2. The idea that the person I am dealing with has the same rights and privileges that I have.

    Their rights deserve the same respect as mine.
  3. The idea that I should act accordingly—treat that person the way I would want to be treated in the same or similar circumstances.

    This, of course, includes judging that person's actions the way I would want my actions to be judged, if the situation were reversed.

These points lead to a corollary: all behavior is best judged by the same standards, no matter whose behavior it is.

This kind of symmetry is essential to any legitimate spiritual stance.

You and I may disagree about the rights and wrongs of some particular issue of principle, and that is one thing.

I may turn out to be right, or I may turn out to be wrong.

But if I devise a morality which has one set of rules and principles for me and quite another for you, I am automatically in the wrong—my morality has failed the ancient human test of symmetry.

To return to Tim Wise's post, those people who are hinting at violence if things don't go their way, assembling with assault weapons a few miles from our nation's capitol, and spitting on congressmen because they don't like their votes have two choices.

If they want their position to have any integrity, they must either:

  1. decide that a person who doesn't share their skin color, their culture, their wealth, or even their values has a perfect right to behave in the same way, to push his or her agendas, without any criticism from them, or
  2. admit that they are out of line.

Given who they are, they are not at all likely to choose the first option.

Which only leaves the second.

At least, that's what I think today.