Martin Buber – Engaging Peace

by Stefan Schindler

The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love. – William Sloane Coffin

Engaging Peace has a “comments” section that occasionally inspires stimulating dialogue. The editor of Engaging Peace has invited me to share my reflections on recent comments on my posts in, as it were, a main-page post.

I can’t see governments, including our own, fading away anytime soon (as Karl Marx hoped and predicted). Nor do I see in the near future a triumph of the proletariat, on either a national or global basis, establishing a civil civilization – a culture in which swords have been turned into plowshares, misogyny and racism at last relics of the past, and the common good of humanity resting on a firm foundation as cooperation takes precedence over competition. But I am not without hope that something sane, humane, and glorious may emerge from the mess we are now in.

America’s national redemption must come from the people, and their Judeo-Christian-Bodhisattva good-works on a daily and enduring basis. For me, that also means perpetual self-educating, increasingly honest socio-political discourse, and electing leaders brave enough to shatter the status quo. Embracing Thich Nhat Hanh’s notion that “To be is to inter-be,” I believe that love is the heartbeat at the core of our identity, and that, therefore, agape – universal brother-sisterhood – is our prime obligation as being-in-the-world-with-others, which Martin Buber expressed as “I and Thou.”

I believe that educated citizen activism is our best hope for survival. Given what’s left of our endangered democratic choices, that includes an obligation to vote for what is usually and clearly “the lesser evil.” For example, I believe that if Jimmy Carter had had a second term as president, the Reagan-Bush packing of the Supreme Court with Republican ideologues would not have happened; and, therefore, the judicial coup d’état in December of 2000 (the Supreme Court cancellation of further vote-counting, and their unconstitutional appointment of George W. Bush as president) would not have occurred.

I also believe that if Al Gore had assumed his rightful place in the White House, 9/11 would not have happened (with its subsequent multi-trillion dollar wars on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, constituting yet another of America’s “crimes against humanity”).

Also – and of profound importance! – President Gore (having already published his book Earth in the Balance) would have transformed America into a leading light in the world’s long overdue attempt to rectify destruction of the biosphere, and confront, with all due pragmatism and rapidity, the globally increasing dangers of climate change.

In short, who sits in the White House, in Congress, and on the Supreme Court, does make a difference. Yes, the system is rigged; but we can – with intelligence and determination – mitigate the damage, and by voting wisely, perhaps steer the ship of state toward democratic ecosocialism, fiscal pragmatism, economic security, and lifelong health-care and education for all.

Change will not come without intense struggle. We are in a battle for the soul of our nation, and I shudder to think that Thomas Paine and Martin Luther King lived and died in vain. The Bill of Rights is increasingly threatened, but it is hardly obsolete, and it is certainly worth preserving.

I do not know if we will, collectively, survive the next 50 years. I suspect that “civilization” as we now know it will indeed collapse. But I also believe that we have a socio-political obligation to steer a path through the trauma to a brighter global culture for all future generations.

We are blessed to live in a society where freedom of speech still exists, where the right to vote still offers hope, and where protest has not yet become a crime.

So I’ll end here with a potent, poignant, intentionally satiric and ironic quote:

Oh no! [Fox News] has discovered our vast conspiracy to take care of children and save the planet. – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; newly elected Democratic member of the House of Representatives.

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.