Arthur Koestler's The Lotus and the Robot is an exploration of the religious and cultural identities of India and Japan based on two years of travels he conducted there during the late 1950s. Koestler's look at the two civilizations is very interesting with respect to both his time period and in comparison with modern views.
Koestler occupies an interesting location on the artistic continuum between journalism and academia. His works are journalistic in the report style he adopts, yet many of his descriptions are based on historical, psychological, philosophical and theological insights. His book reads like an exceptionally long-form Western newspaper article, although with lots of opinionated elaboration.
Koestler's best quality is his skeptical outlook. Many times in the book he recounts being told of Eastern mystics and holy men who could produce wonders beyond Western comprehension. Koestler investigates and invariably finds nothing outside the ken of modern science, no doubt much to the consternation of New Age-y types. In the India section of the book, Koestler investigates four holy persons, three men and one woman, and finds all of them to be nothing of the sort. Koestler was thoroughly disenchanted by their distinct lack of supernatural accomplishments. Koestler also investigated traditional yogic practices through interviews with practitioners and experts, including the founders of several institutes devoted to the study of yoga. While Koestler agreed that some of the abilities of accomplished yogis were indeed astonishing, there was nothing vaguely miraculous or supernatural about them. For the most part, they consisted in exhibitions of endurance such as remaining awake for several days, not eating for several days, being buried for several days, or contortions and acts of self-mortification. Koestler took a dim view of these, and was particularly saddened by the accounts of starry-eyed westerners who insisted on the existence of something truly transcendental in Indian religious practices.
Koestler's investigations into Indian culture were less condemnatory, although still unflattering. Koestler examines the paramount importance the father plays in Indian life, including a discussion of Gandhi's strange relationship with his father. Koestler also makes an interesting observation about taboos in India. Due to Hindu religious beliefs, excrement and human waste are considered heinously unclean throughout India (at least in Koestler's time). This is to such a great extent that some more observant Hindus do not eat with their left hand, as it is the hand used in the fulfillment of bathroom routines, preferring to leave it motionless at their side during a meal. Another taboo is the cleaning of latrines and sewers, a job often left to the members of the lowest caste, the Untouchables. Hindu beliefs surrounding human waste are far stronger than typical Western sentiments, with Hindus believing that touching waste can produce not just a bacterial but also a moral taint. With that background, Gandhi's reforms surrounding Hindu bathroom beliefs seem truly remarkable. Gandhi insisted on cleaning the latrines at his ashrams himself and on washing the feet of Untouchables, acts considered not just disgusting but religious apostasy to Hindus at his time. However, Koestler paints these reforms in a different light. He sees them as Hindus trading one strong belief with its opposite. The underlying view of human offal as being fundamentally unclean and of Untouchables as being tainted subhumans is still present. The difference is that interacting with both is now a way to perform good acts in life and reduce karmic debt.
Koestler's descriptions of Japanese culture are truly fascinating, primarily due to the time during which Koestler wrote. Japan had been open to the world for some time but was just emerging from the ashes of the second world war. Koestler describes the seismic changes occurring in Japan at the time of his writing in the passage below:
A Japanese who lived for four score years, from 1865 to 1945, would have witnessed developments which, in European history, occupy several centuries: Absolute Monarchy, Constitutional Monarchy, Liberalism, Imperialist Expansion, Military Dictatorship, Totalitarian Fascism, Foreign Occupation. He would also have witnessed the disestablishment of Buddhism, the proclamation of Shinto as the State Religion, and the subsequent disestablishment of Shinto — changes which struck at the very root of ethical beliefs.
These changes, according to Koestler, had so mangled Japanese society that Japan could be said to be suffering from a case of the bends, similar to divers who fail to depressurize properly and get nitrogen bubbles in their blood. He contrasted this with the effect of Westernization on Indian society. According to Koestler, all external influences on India are absorbed and integrated based on a particular outlook on the world that is distinctly Indian. This Koestler likened to a bathyscope or diving bell, from which one views everything as “outside” or external. Koestler's metaphor about the bathyscope and the bends is just one of a number of metaphors he makes throughout the book that form one of his strengths. Koestler has a gift for creating insightful and beautiful metaphors that capture sweeping historical and social trends.
Koestler was particularly perplexed by the Japanese views of social obligation. According to Japanese people, when one person performs a kind act for another, a kind of social debt called an on is created. In order to discharge this debt, a Japanese person must reciprocate with an equivalent act of service. In order to prevent the creation of on, Japanese people sometimes avoid doing favors for other people. However, some on are unavoidable. Children have on to their parents for raising them and therefore are honor-bound to do well in school, or else risk failing to discharge their on, leaving them permanently indebted to their parents. To Koestler (and I must admit to me as well) this seems completely alien. Koestler also discusses the strictures of Japanese etiquette, best exemplified in the Japanese epic the Forty-seven Ronin, which he says would seem demented to most Western readers. To give a very brief account, a newly-appointed court member commits the faux pas of wearing the wrong article of clothing to a ceremonial gathering in the presence of the Emperor and is therefore honor-bound to slay the samurai tasked with educating him on court etiquette. Failing to do this, he commits suicide. 300 of his samurai also decide to commit suicide, apart from the most loyal 47, who, through the use of elaborate disguises and ingenious subterfuges, manage to slay the etiquette teacher, and then commit suicide. It's also based on a true story.
In his descriptions of Japan, Koestler was a little less sneering but perhaps a little more horrified. In his descriptions of Hinduism, Koestler often sounded exasperated at the obdurate beliefs of Hindus that holy men worked miracles and could heal illnesses, beliefs held even by educated members of society such as professors, lawyers, and psychologists. In Japan, Koestler was seemingly shocked at not just the hollow emptiness of Zen Buddhism, but at the almost laughing, tongue-in-cheek acceptance of this fact by its practitioners. Koestler describes the entire enterprise of Zen as the quest to rid its practitioners of the strictures of Japanese society. The Zen trainee is taught how to answer meaningless or impossible questions without thinking, but rather based on the immediate insight that comes to the brain unfiltered. An example: A Zen monk, in demanding the answer to a thorny koan, threatened to kill an innocent kitten if not given a sufficient answer by the attendant students. Hearing none, he kills the kitten. Later, a Zen master arrives. Upon hearing that the kitten was killed, he immediately removes his shoes, puts them on his head and walks away, to which the first Zen monk responds by collapsing and wailing that only if the master had been present, the kitten should have lived. The wearing of the shoes on the head represents the Master's willingness to do something gross and uncouth in mourning for the life of something as meaningless as a kitten, a noble act in Zen thought. The Master's immediate reaction with an act as strangely symbolic demonstrated his mastery.
Zen is almost entirely irreligious. It knows no God, and indeed dispenses with much of the profound respect placed on the Buddha by other Buddhist sects. Rather, the Zen practitioner is taught above all to respect intuition and to be unorthodox. Koestler finds this to be really uninteresting for the Western audience. While a Japanese person born and raised in the oppressive social environment of Japan might achieve some relief through Zen, the typical Western learner is unencumbered and has little to gain from Zen. This is why Koestler looks so circumspectly at Westerners who serve as proselytizers of Zen, like Alan Watts.
Koestler briefly discusses a very interesting subject, the concept of guilt cultures and shame cultures. According to Koestler, Indian culture represents a guilt culture, where social conformance is encouraged by the cultivation of guilt for nonconformance. This is contrasted with a shame culture like Japan, where social conformance comes from external sources, or shame. These two terms were popularized by a book called The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, which seems interesting. Here is a link to Wikipedia page for the phenomenon.
Koestler's book also took an interesting tone on colonialism, especially considering the time it was written. In several passages, Koestler discusses the damage wrought by colonialism and praises the liberation of formerly colonial nations. At the same time, Koestler criticizes the Western colonial guilt complex, advocating for a more useful outlook.
If the past were admitted to weigh on its conscience, every nation would be compelled to commit hara-kiri. Instead of nursing a guilt complex derived from the crimes of our forbears, the duty of the West is to give material help to the ‘underprivileged’ Asian nations; and that is now being done on a larger scale than ever before in history.
Koestler seems primarily reminiscent of Fareed Zakaria. In his book The Post-American World, Zakaria discussed the decline of the American empire and its impact on the future world. Zakaria struck an interesting tone, as a person cheering the ascendance of the formerly-colonial world, while simultaneously praising the might and prowess of the former colonial powers. For instance, Zakaria discussed the history of China including its harsh and exploitative treatment at the hands of European nations, while also explaining the particular cultural circumstances that precluded China's rise to the power of a European country. Why didn't China rule the East the way the European powers sought to? According to Zakaria, it wasn't because China was morally better than Europe, but simply because they lacked the vision or weren't interested. Ditto for other great Asian cultures, such as India and Japan. Koestler seems largely in agreement with Zakaria's assessment throughout his book. Did colonialism happen? Yes. Was it wrong? Yes. Would China have done the same thing to us if they had been in our position? Also yes. Should we feel bad about it? To the extent that it prevents us from repeating the same mistake and motivates us to make amends, although not far beyond that.
Overall, Koestler's take was a welcome alternative to the fawning adoration much Eastern mysticism seems to invoke in Western audiences. Rather than presenting Japanese or Indian holy men as holders of secret knowledge, Koestler shows many of them to be simple variants of the same sort of religious figures present in the West. Koestler's book presents Indian and Japanese culture from the position of a respectful albeit discerning outsider. It's a welcome tone that should be more common. Koestler has several other interesting books, including The Sleepwalkers, a discussion of scientific visionaries that was brought up several times in Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI, as well as the Yogi and the Commissar, and the Ghost in the Machine.