WPHO surveillance cameras: What would Buddha say?

Here's looking at you (Photo by Quevaal)

We might only be able to guess what Buddha would say

about the growing use of surveillance cameras that monitor

activities of everyday citizens. 

We do know, however, that a group of professed Buddhists

from the World Peace and Health Organization (WPHO) in

Amsterdam, New York has not only recently donated 20

surveillance cameras to Amsterdam’s police department, but has also played a role in deciding where they shall be placed.  These cameras had been donated to the WPHO by an unnamed “student” who had “serious health problems before he started studying the teachings of the Buddha” - who “flew from mainland China to the U.S.” and donated them.  John Becker of The Leader Herald also reported that Jennie

Wong (a WPHO “spokeswoman”), along with other WPHO members and city officials, “toured the city… to look for locations to place the cameras.” 

Not only does this sound a little too much like the Amsterdam, New York walls between “church and state” are crumbling, but it also sounds like a surprisingly “new” version of Buddhism.  Last some of us heard, Buddha had preached against attachment to bodily states (as well as to government “states,” for that matter). 

Therefore, an allegedly grateful Buddhist who is so pleased about his own state of health that he is donating surveillance cameras to be used by a small-city government in another nation halfway around the world might just raise a few mindful eyebrows…

As for the overall moral implications of these surveillance-oriented actions?  Emrys Westacott - in his Philosophy Now article “Does Surveillance Make Us Morally Better?” – has a lot to say about that. Although surveillance might, indeed, cut down on crime (at least in the short run) – it also tends to cut down on moral strength and personal accountability.  In other words, people might be better behaved while spied upon, but they are being motivated by fear (of being caught, of being punished, perhaps of worse…) rather than by conscience.  As governments (and, historically worse yet, religions along with them) continue this

surveillance trend, the opportunities for inner strength to develop become less and less.

And last some of us also heard - Buddhism is far more about inner strength than it is about outer controls… 

   

Resources

http://www.leaderherald.com/page/content.detail/id/547416.html

http://www.philosophynow.org/issues/79/Does_Surveillance_Make_Us_Morally_Better

Copyright May 30, 2012 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved