“a common religion of kindness””

by Stefan Schindler

The Tragic Triumph of the Reagan Counter-Revolution

Against The Spirit of the Sixties, Now Counterbalanced by

the Rekindling of Candles in the Wind

What is to be done about the country in times that seem increasingly dark? Well, all is not lost. The seeds of peace sown in The Sixties continue to sprout across the land. If despair is blowin’ in the wind, so is hope, and the reinvigorating of protest against the status quo. If more and more people are sleepwalking through history, it is also true that more and more people are waking up.

Yes, the sophists, dogmatists and fanatics are better funded and better organized; but there is also an ongoing energizing of national and global enlightenment. A reawakening of the enlightened protest that was the signature glow of The Spirit of The Sixties.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one: Imagine: a world living in peace. More and more people are doing that, and committed to acting in such a way as to bring it about. For example, the Dalai Lama is one of the most admired people in the world. He is a living archetype of peacemaking, calling for egalitarian economics, ecological sanity, and a common religion of kindness.

Meanwhile, forums for enlightened discourse proliferate daily. Engaging Peace, Political Animal, and The Peace Abbey Foundation are three such forums.

Let us, then, as we said in The Sixties, “Keep the faith,” “Keep on truckin’,” commit to lives of voluntary simplicity, love our neighbors in the global village, sing our songs, do our dance, and stay committed to giving peace a chance.

We have a duty: the greater good to serve. And thus bequeath to our children: the world of peace and beauty they deserve.

Imagine it here and now.

Searching for Enlightenment by Kathie Malley-Morrison

By Stefan Schindler

In his 1784 essay on the nature of Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant declared: “Enlightenment is liberation from self-imposed immaturity.” He also noted that, if I may be so bold as to paraphrase, “We live in an age of enlightenment, but we do not yet live in an enlightened age.”

Kant’s observations ought to give us pause. They are worth pondering. They are as relevant today as they were in the late 18^th century. To reflect upon them with the seriousness they deserve, we might begin by noting that one hundred years later, another German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, said of the same Prussian country in which Kant wrote his revolutionary Critique of Pure Reason: “This nation has made itself stupid on purpose.”

Nietzsche’s observation applies to America today. So does the maxim by George Santayana: “Those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” Let us then pause a moment to reflect upon the possibility – indeed, the necessity – of what Richard Oxenberg calls “heart-centered rationality.”

Heart-centered rationality is a way of referring to The Golden Rule, revived by Martin Buber in the Kantian-based ethics of his book I and Thou. Kant and Buber argue for the innate dignity of every person; a dignity worthy of respect. In order, then, to put an end to what the post-Kantian philosopher Hegel called “the slaughter-bench of history,” we need an ethical, educational, and cultural revolution; one in which cooperation has primacy over competition, and which embraces what the Dalai Lama calls “a common religion of kindness.”

Accordingly, we must recognize that our collective survival now depends upon a global commitment to what might best be called The Enlightenment Project. This, of course, returns us to Kant’s definition of enlightenment, which I will elaborate on in my next post, with reference to other major figures in the history of philosophy and the pursuit social justice.

Meanwhile, we might begin by noting that during America’s wars on Puerto Rico and the Philippines, Mark Twain declared: “America’s flag should be a skull-and-crossbones.” And when Mahatma Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western civilization, he replied: “I think it would be a good idea.”

Co-founder of The National Registry for Conscientious Objection, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, a recipient of The Boston Baha’i Peace Award, and a Trustee of The Life Experience School and Peace Abbey Foundation, Dr. Stefan Schindler received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston College, worked one summer in a nature preserve, lived in a Zen temple for a year, did the pilot’s voice in a claymation video of St. Exupery’s The Little Prince, acted in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” and performed as a musical poet in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York City. He also wrote The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Awards for Howard Zinn and John Lennon. He is now semi-retired and living in Salem, Massachusetts. His books include The Tao of Socrates, America’s Indochina Holocaust, Discoursing with the Gods, and Space is Grace; his forthcoming book is Buddha’s Political Philosophy.