The Right Hand Path and the Left Hand Path and the Middle Way
In the Indian religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sihkism, and Jainism you have the Right Hand Path and the Left Hand Path. The Right Hand Path is the orthodox path; the Left Hand Path is the heterodox path. The Right Hand Path is typically collectivist in nature, while the Left Hand Path strongly emphasizes more individualist approaches. One is order, one is disorder. One leads to unity; the other to disunity. One should note that both paths lead to the same place: enlightenment.
Heraclitus argued that the way up and the way down are the same, suggesting that he had a similar view. Whether you are going up or down, whether you are going left or right, you end up in the same place. This is true only if the world is curved rather than straight, fractal rather than linear.
Of course, with Christianity, the way up and the way down are not the same. The way up leads to Heaven; the way down leads to Hell. The Right Way leads to virtue and God; the Left (Sinister) Way leads to vice and Satan. If the right is collectivist and the left is individualist, that means collectivism is good and individualism is evil. There is one way to salvation; you cannot get there by your own way. This is then a deeply Christian division.
The Buddha emphasized The Middle Way. One could argue then that any emphasis on a Right Hand Path or Left Hand Path is missing the point. One should take the Middle Way. What is the middle way between orthodox and heterodox? What is the middle way between individualism and collectivism?
F.A. Hayek argued that continental European philosophy gave us collectivism precisely because it argued for a kind of radical individualism, where the individual is inherently unsocial and must be made social by “society,” which gets equated with government. Collectivism is the solution to the problem of radical individualism. That is, the Right Hand Path and the Left Hand Path lead to the same place; the way up and the way down are the same. But here, the solution is the complete dissolution of the Left Hand Path into the Right Hand Path. The solution is dissolution of the “bad” path and the complete acceptance of the “good” path. It is a Christian solution.
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