I typically find that my students have never been required to do a genuine research paper, in which they must use some form of accepted citations. For such a paper, a bibliography listing sources is not sufficient. A research paper is considered plagiarized if information for the exact source material is not specifically given, including not only author, and title of the book or journal, but also chapter or article name and pages on which the precise information may be found.
The three forms of citation now accepted for scholarly publication are footnotes, endnotes, and internal citations. Footnotes and endnotes are identical in form, with placement either at the bottom of the page on which the reference is used (for footnotes) or all references given in numbered order of appearance at the end of the article or chapter (for endnotes) constituting the only difference. Internal citations typically give only author, title of work (only if more than one book is used for a single author), and page numbers in parentheses immediately following the pertinent material used, with full information as to publisher, date, and page numbers given in a “Bibliography,” “References,” or “Works Cited” list at the end of the research paper.
I prefer the endnote format, and this is the one that I use in the model research paper that I present in this series focused on writing a research paper.
What follows in successive sections are instructions to students for writing a research paper on the comparative virtues of nonviolence or violence as means for achieving social change; a model research paper on that topic; and a vocabulary list that I derived from reading of the source material and the vocabulary used in my own paper. This vocabulary list is one of many that I have compiled for explicit vocabulary instruction to my students.
This series on writing a research paper is very important for exposing the slim cognitive abilities of those in the education establishment and their debased notions of the components of K-12 education.
The education establishment--- led by education professors and then including central school district administrators, building principals, and teachers who have been trained in departments, schools, and colleges of education --- devalues knowledge:
Education professors instruct their students that specific knowledge sets may always be accessed in numerous available sources: traditional books and journals, online versions of these, and websites. They maintain that students need not learn specific subject area material, particularly before high school; throughout most of their K-12 years, factual knowledge is not as important as the matters of “critical thinking” and “lifelong learning.”
Such reasoning emanates from the least respected professorial contingent on college and university campuses, education professors who are themselves short on knowledge. How convenient for them, then, to argue that knowledge is not important. Released from the need to give their future teachers and administrators much in the way of information, they feel free to stress critical thinking and lifelong learning as the goals for education.
This is a sham and a grave injustice to our K-12 students, the reason that they now move across stages at graduation time to claim pieces of paper that are diplomas in name only, and the explanation for why the adult public in the United States is so woefully short on knowledge in the realms of mathematics, natural science, history, government, economics, literature, and the fine arts.
In the absence of true knowledge, students move through school guided by teachers who claim to be teaching critical thinking skills and instilling lifelong learning--- but do neither. One cannot reason critically in the absence of substantial accumulated knowledge about the subjects considered for critical assessment. Nor can one gain much enthusiasm for a lifetime of learning when she or he has learned so little during their years in school.
What I have presented in this series of articles is a research paper assignment of the type that truly requires students to engage in critical analysis. They are asked to consider seriously the arguments of those who favor and those who disfavor violence as a means for social change--- and to decide where they themselves stand as to whether nonviolent means or violent means are most valid for the achievement of social change.
Before they write such a paper, they read lengthy articles and book chapters. And in the case of my own students in the New Salem Educational Initiative, they read these articles on the strength of a great amount of accumulated knowledge in the history of the United States, the particular history of African Americans, and a broad range of historical information pertinent to a world that included the British Empire and the colonial experience of that empire's largest possession--- India.
Witnessed in the presentation of the research paper, and the vocabulary list of terms accumulated in researching and making the presentation, is genuine critical thinking and respect for the processes of serious scholarship that engender enthusiasm for lifelong learning.
The reader of this series of articles will come
to look past the slogans and shibboleths of the education establishment for an understanding of the
excellent education that our children now await and will only have when we have thoroughly overhauled K-12 education into that knowledge-intensive endeavor that will give our young people lives of cultural enrichment, civic engagement, and professional satisfaction.
Jul 30, 2015
Research Paper Assignment: The Issue of Nonviolence versus Violence in Strategies for Social and Political Change
Research Paper Assignment: The Issue of Nonviolence versus Violence in Strategies for Social and Political Change
Prepared by Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
Director, New Salem Educational Initiative
Please write a research paper of approximately five pages (typed, double-spaced) using the photocopied chapters and selected groups of pages that I have provided from the following sources:
Alex Ayres, ed. “Nonviolence,” in The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Meridian/ Penguin, 1993), pp. 164-170.
Joan V. Bondurant, , Chapter II (Two), “Satyagraha: Its Basic Precepts” Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971), pp. 15-35.
Warren J. Halliburton, ed., Malcolm X, “Address to Mississippi Youth,” Historic Speeches of African Americans (New York: The African American Experience/ Franklin Watts, 1993), pp. 129-133.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Chapter VI (Six), “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (New York: Perennial/ Harper & Row, 1958), pp. 72-88.
TOPIC
Please read each of these selections.
After reading these four selections, compare Mohandas K. Gandhi’s ideas on satyagraha (using Bondurant’s Conquest of Violence) and Martin Luther King’s ideas on nonviolence (using the material from both the Ayres [The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr.] and King [Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story] books). You should find these ideas highly compatible, since Martin Luther King based his ideas pertinent to nonviolence on Gandhi’s ideas concerning satyagraha; you should, however, also notice differences in terminology and emphases in the work of these two thinkers and activists. Point out both the many similarities in thought and the significant differences in terminology and emphasis that you observe in the work of Gandhi and Dr. King.
Then contrast what you observe in the work of Gandhi and King with the ideas expressed by Malcolm X in his “Address to Mississippi Youth.” Are there any similarities that you note in the Malcolm X speech by comparison with the Gandhi and Dr. King readings? What are the most notable differences?
Finally, if you were going to plan and lead a social movement, what combination of ideas would you be most likely to use? Answering this question will necessitate your deciding what you think about violent versus nonviolent approaches to social movements--- and which of the ideas about which you’ve read most appeal to you.
Your research paper should include an introductory paragraph with clearly stated thesis; and a concluding paragraph summarizing your most important points and making a final statement that will leave your readers thinking carefully about what you have written. There is no certain number of paragraphs required for this essay; just provide your analysis in the five or so pages, organizing and presenting your paragraphs so as to cover your answers and ideas in the most compelling way.
Use proper format for footnotes or endnotes to document your use of the source materials.
Prepared by Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
Director, New Salem Educational Initiative
Please write a research paper of approximately five pages (typed, double-spaced) using the photocopied chapters and selected groups of pages that I have provided from the following sources:
Alex Ayres, ed. “Nonviolence,” in The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Meridian/ Penguin, 1993), pp. 164-170.
Joan V. Bondurant, , Chapter II (Two), “Satyagraha: Its Basic Precepts” Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971), pp. 15-35.
Warren J. Halliburton, ed., Malcolm X, “Address to Mississippi Youth,” Historic Speeches of African Americans (New York: The African American Experience/ Franklin Watts, 1993), pp. 129-133.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Chapter VI (Six), “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (New York: Perennial/ Harper & Row, 1958), pp. 72-88.
TOPIC
Please read each of these selections.
After reading these four selections, compare Mohandas K. Gandhi’s ideas on satyagraha (using Bondurant’s Conquest of Violence) and Martin Luther King’s ideas on nonviolence (using the material from both the Ayres [The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr.] and King [Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story] books). You should find these ideas highly compatible, since Martin Luther King based his ideas pertinent to nonviolence on Gandhi’s ideas concerning satyagraha; you should, however, also notice differences in terminology and emphases in the work of these two thinkers and activists. Point out both the many similarities in thought and the significant differences in terminology and emphasis that you observe in the work of Gandhi and Dr. King.
Then contrast what you observe in the work of Gandhi and King with the ideas expressed by Malcolm X in his “Address to Mississippi Youth.” Are there any similarities that you note in the Malcolm X speech by comparison with the Gandhi and Dr. King readings? What are the most notable differences?
Finally, if you were going to plan and lead a social movement, what combination of ideas would you be most likely to use? Answering this question will necessitate your deciding what you think about violent versus nonviolent approaches to social movements--- and which of the ideas about which you’ve read most appeal to you.
Your research paper should include an introductory paragraph with clearly stated thesis; and a concluding paragraph summarizing your most important points and making a final statement that will leave your readers thinking carefully about what you have written. There is no certain number of paragraphs required for this essay; just provide your analysis in the five or so pages, organizing and presenting your paragraphs so as to cover your answers and ideas in the most compelling way.
Use proper format for footnotes or endnotes to document your use of the source materials.
A Consideration of the Ideas of Mohandas K. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X on the Issue of Nonviolence as Relevant to Social Movements
Model Research Paper
Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
Director, New Salem Educational Initiative
With regard to the use of violence in promoting social change, the great leaders Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King were in accord: Violence begets more violence and casts those in disagreement with one another as spiteful enemies rather than as opponents engaged in a test of ideas.
Malcolm X had a different view: Although rarely invoked in the immediacy of the moment as the preferred means of action, for Malcolm X violence was one of those options among “any means necessary” reserved for the achievement of goals consistent with the long-term best interests of humanity, especially that portion of humanity long denied fundamental rights of citizenship. In this paper I advance the view that a commitment to nonviolence is preferable to the use of violence for the achievement of political and social justice, for reasons cogently argued by both Gandhi and King. In advancing this thesis, I acknowledge the impact that Malcolm X had on the political events of his place and time; consistent with my thesis, I explain the difference between the immediate benefit of the threat of violence for the achievement of social and political ends, versus the enduring benefits of the commitment to nonviolence as the means to attainment of a more peaceful and loving future for humankind.
In Chapter II of her masterful Conquest of Violence (1), Joan Bondurant discusses the fundamental tenets of Mohandas K. Gandhi’s philosophy of satyagraha, through which he sought to overcome the might of the British Empire. Satya means “Truth.” Graha means “holding firmly.” The term, satyagraha, therefore, means “holding firmly to the Truth."(2)
Gandhi regarded the Truth to be so important as to be in identity with God. And rather than echo the phrasing of “God Is Love” with a similar, “God is Truth,” Gandhi underscored the divinity of Truth with the expression, “Truth is God.”
For Gandhi, Truth with a capital “T” is the first great principle of satyagraha for which humanity must strive.(3) All that human beings can ever know, Gandhi said, is truth with a lower case “t,” that truth as it appears to a mere human being at any given moment in time. Since a mere human being can never know for sure that she or he is correct about a matter in dispute, there is always the possibility that one’s opponent is right.
Ahimsa is the second major principle of satyagraha, the Sanskrit term that comes closest to the English term, “nonviolence.” But in Gandhi’s conception and in the best rendering of the term, ahimsa means more precisely, “refusing to do harm.”(4) If no individual can ever know that she or he is right, violence could never be justified and must be refused: Truth would be destroyed with an act of violence.(5)
Further, ahimsa is such an act of devotion toward the best interests of one’s opponent as to be synonymous with “love”:
I accept the interpretation of Ahimsa namely that it is not merely
a negative state of harmlessness but it is a positive state of love,
of doing good even to the evil-doer. But it does not mean helping
the evil-doer to continue to do wrong or tolerating it by passive
acquiescence. On the contrary, love, the active state of Ahimsa,
requires you to resist the wrong-doer.(6)
Gandhi’s reasoned commitment to nonviolence (ahimsa) gave rise to the third great principle of satyagraha: tapasya or “self-suffering."(7) With the willingness to undergo self-suffering as necessary, the nonviolent proponent of social change commits to a course of action that inflicts no violence but receives violence as necessary. The willingness to receive violence becomes a powerful expression of love for one’s opponent, against whom one struggles to convert rather than conquer.
Martin Luther King, in the sixth chapter of his book, Stride Toward Freedom(8), gives powerful testimony to just how highly he regarded Mohandas Gandhi’s formulation of nonviolence in satyagraha. Dr. King details how he read and appreciated, if he did not agree completely with, the ideas of many Western authors: Henry David Thoreau(9), Walter Rauschenbusch(10), Karl Marx(11), Friedrich Nietzsche(12), John Stuart Mill, Thomas Hobbes, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Reinhold Niebuhr(13). But it was a lecture on the ideas of Mohandas K. Gandhi by Dr. Mordecai Johnson(14) that gave him his ideological framework for social action.
Dr. King identifies six aspects of Gandhi’s philosophy and program for action in satyagraha that are germane and inspiring for waging a social movement such as that for Civil Rights in the United States. First, he stresses that nonviolent resistance calls for courageous action, rather than passivity(15). Second, he emphasizes the appeal of converting the opponent to one’s viewpoint, rather than seeking to defeat one’s adversary(16). Third, he focuses on Gandhi’s emphasis on evil actions, rather than evil people(17). Fourth, he explains the need to endure suffering as additional proof of the courage that attends satyagraha, and stresses the sincerity that such sacrifice entails(18). Fifth, he finds appealing the Gandhian idea that thought, as well as action, is necessary in the commitment to nonviolence--- that one must seek to demonstrate internal, spiritual nonviolence, regarding harmful thoughts about one’s opponent to be as abhorrent as physical violence(19). Finally, Dr. King found enormously powerful Gandhi’s idea that the universe is on the side of justice, so that a commitment to satyagraha aligns one with the God who represents the ideal of just action in behalf of humankind.(20)
Dr. King found the Gandhian formulation of satyagraha to offer a commitment to the principles of universal love (agape) and sacrifice (as found most saliently in the Crucifixion) that follow the best inclinations of Christianity.(21)
In other works, Martin Luther King called upon the United States to turn away from the frontier tradition of violent retaliation(22), sought to promote nonviolence in all areas of human conflict (with implicit implementation on an international scale)(23), and made the case that nonviolence is paradoxically the most powerful of all weapons:
Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is unique in history,
which cuts without wounding, and ennobles the man who wields
it. It is a sword that heals (24).
Against this ethic of satyagraha advanced by both Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Malcolm X objected to nonviolence on the basis of what he saw as its irrational applications and its frequent situational ineffectiveness. In his “Address to Mississippi Youth,” Malcolm X tells an audience of thirty-seven adolescents,
My experience has been that in many instances where you
find Negroes talking about nonviolence… they mean they’re
nonviolent with somebody with else. They are nonviolent
with the enemy… a person can come out to your home, and
if he’s white and wants to heap some kind of brutality on you,
you’re nonviolent… but if another Negro just stomps his foot,
you’ll rumble with him in a minute… which shows you there’s
an inconsistency there.(25)
Malcolm X also raises the very real spectacle of vulnerability to white violence in the absence of armed resistance:
We of the Organization of African American Unitty are… with
the efforts to register our people to vote one thousand percent.
But we do not go along with anyone telling us to help nonviolently.
We think that… if some kind of Ku Klux Klan is going to put
[Negroes] in the river, and the government doesn’t do anything
about it, it’s time for us to organize and band together and equip
ourselves and qualify ourselves to protect ourselves. And when
you can protect yourself, you don’t have to worry about being hurt.(26)
Malcolm X states that he is not driven by hate. But he recoils from the ethic of universally applied love:
I don’t have hate in me. I have no hate at all. I have some sense. I’m not going to let someone who hates me tell me to love him.
I’m not that way out. And you, young as you are, you’re not
going to do it either. The only time you’re going to get in that
bag is if somebody puts you there. Somebody else, who doesn’t
have your welfare at heart.(28)
Any differences in the thought and action of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King are those of emphasis and lexicon. Martin Luther King studied in great detail the principles of satyagraha of Mohandas Gandhi and understood those principles in their original context. But he applied those principles as a Christian pastor, seeing them through the prism of agape, the Greek term for universal love that Christians came to identify with the Spirit moving in the life, activity, and teachings of Jesus. Martin Luther King credited Gandhi for demonstrably moving the guiding force of love from the level of individual interaction to the social sphere. Dr. King clearly stated that Gandhi was his inspiration for the application of the principles of satyagraha and ahimsa to the Civil Rights Movement in the American cultural and political context.
In the manner of these fellow agitators for social change, Malcolm X was a man of tremendous courage and commitment. He shared with them a passion for a better world, one in which all people are accorded their proper dignity, a world in which those who historically have been abused permanently gain the respect that they deserve.
Malcolm X differed fundamentally from Gandhi and King, though, as to matters of nonviolence, love, and effective action. Malcolm X regarded nonviolence as an inconsistently applied creed that African Americans resorted to meekly when faced with white oppression but disregarded in responses to each other. He stated explicitly that he harbored no hate but would not be told to love his enemies.
And he saw those enemies as the other, not the same in constitution as friends. He thought that violence tended to be more effective than nonviolence when a person or group was faced with the starkly brutal actions of one’s enemies.
Malcolm X and this threat of violence in the absence of justice probably hastened passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, for which the nonviolent movement led by Martin Luther King is generally given credit. But in my view, the principles of satyagraha as a code of nonviolent thought and action are superior to those of violence, however effective the latter may be in terms of immediate effect.
Nonviolence requires great love, enormous discipline, and great sacrifice. Completely consistent application often falls away in the face of immediate and clear danger to those one most deeply loves. But pursued as an ideal, followed in most cases, applied broadly to all of humanity, nonviolence would make of this world a more loving, kind, and hospitable arena wherein humankind could dwell, living life much closer to the ideal in this one earthly sojourn.
Notes
1. Joan Bondurant, Chapter II (Two), “Satyagraha: Its Basic Precepts,” Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971), pp. 15-35.
2. Ibid., p. 16.
3. Ibid., p. 19. Here Bondurant quotes Gandhi as asserting, “As long as I have not realized Absolute Truth, so long must I hold by this relative truth as I have conceived it. This truth must be my beacon, my shield, and buckler.”
4. Ibid., p. 22.
5. Ibid., p. 25.
6. Ibid., p. 24.
7. Ibid., p. 26.
8. Martin Luther King, Jr., Chapter VI (Six), “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (New York: Perennial/ Harper & Row, 1958), pp. 72-88.
9. Ibid., p. 73.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., pp. 74-77.
12. Ibid., pp. 77-78.
13. Ibid., pp. 79-81. On p. 79, King very briefly cites his reading of Mill, Hobbes, and Rousseau but on pp. 79-81 gives a more detailed account of Niebuhr’s ideas concerning the propensity of humankind for both good and evil.
14. Ibid., pp. 78-79.
15. Ibid., pp. 83-84.
16. Ibid., p. 84.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., p. 85.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., p. 88.
21. Ibid., pp. 86-88.
22. Alex Ayres, ed., found according to the thematic alphabetization scheme under “Nonviolence” in The Wisdom of Martin Luther King (New York: Meridian/ Penguin, 1993), p. 166. The quotation is taken from its original presentation in Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can’t Wait (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).
23. Ibid., p.167. The quotation is taken form its original presentation in Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).
24. Ibid. The quotation is originally from Why We Can’t Wait, consistent with the full citation information given above.
25. Warren Halliburton, ed., Malcolm X, “Address to Mississippi Youth,” Historic Speeches of African Americans (New York: Perennial/ Harper & Row, 1967).
26. Ibid., p. 132.
27. Ibid., p. 133.
References
Note: This listing of sources either cited specifically or used as general background material also frequently goes under such headings as “Bibliography” or ‘Works Cited.” The following list includes the four sources I used in writing this paper (found in “Notes” on immediately previous pages), and in addition I have provided the full publishing information for the works that Alex Ayres consulted to obtain the quotations of Martin Luther King that I used from the Ayres book.
Ayres, Alex, ed. “Nonviolence,” The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Meridian/ Penguin, 1993, pp. 164-170.
Bondurant, Joan V. Chapter II (Two), “Satyagraha: Its Basic Precepts,” Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Social Conflict. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971, pp. 15-35.
Halliburton, Warren J., ed. Malcolm X, “Address to Mississippi Youth,” Historic Speeches of African Americans. New York: The African American Experience/ Franklin Watts, 1993, pp. 129-133.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. Chapter VI (Six), “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. New York: Perennial/ Harper & Row, 1958, pp. 72-88.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. The Trumpet of Conscience. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. Why We Can’t Wait. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.
Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
Director, New Salem Educational Initiative
With regard to the use of violence in promoting social change, the great leaders Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King were in accord: Violence begets more violence and casts those in disagreement with one another as spiteful enemies rather than as opponents engaged in a test of ideas.
Malcolm X had a different view: Although rarely invoked in the immediacy of the moment as the preferred means of action, for Malcolm X violence was one of those options among “any means necessary” reserved for the achievement of goals consistent with the long-term best interests of humanity, especially that portion of humanity long denied fundamental rights of citizenship. In this paper I advance the view that a commitment to nonviolence is preferable to the use of violence for the achievement of political and social justice, for reasons cogently argued by both Gandhi and King. In advancing this thesis, I acknowledge the impact that Malcolm X had on the political events of his place and time; consistent with my thesis, I explain the difference between the immediate benefit of the threat of violence for the achievement of social and political ends, versus the enduring benefits of the commitment to nonviolence as the means to attainment of a more peaceful and loving future for humankind.
In Chapter II of her masterful Conquest of Violence (1), Joan Bondurant discusses the fundamental tenets of Mohandas K. Gandhi’s philosophy of satyagraha, through which he sought to overcome the might of the British Empire. Satya means “Truth.” Graha means “holding firmly.” The term, satyagraha, therefore, means “holding firmly to the Truth."(2)
Gandhi regarded the Truth to be so important as to be in identity with God. And rather than echo the phrasing of “God Is Love” with a similar, “God is Truth,” Gandhi underscored the divinity of Truth with the expression, “Truth is God.”
For Gandhi, Truth with a capital “T” is the first great principle of satyagraha for which humanity must strive.(3) All that human beings can ever know, Gandhi said, is truth with a lower case “t,” that truth as it appears to a mere human being at any given moment in time. Since a mere human being can never know for sure that she or he is correct about a matter in dispute, there is always the possibility that one’s opponent is right.
Ahimsa is the second major principle of satyagraha, the Sanskrit term that comes closest to the English term, “nonviolence.” But in Gandhi’s conception and in the best rendering of the term, ahimsa means more precisely, “refusing to do harm.”(4) If no individual can ever know that she or he is right, violence could never be justified and must be refused: Truth would be destroyed with an act of violence.(5)
Further, ahimsa is such an act of devotion toward the best interests of one’s opponent as to be synonymous with “love”:
I accept the interpretation of Ahimsa namely that it is not merely
a negative state of harmlessness but it is a positive state of love,
of doing good even to the evil-doer. But it does not mean helping
the evil-doer to continue to do wrong or tolerating it by passive
acquiescence. On the contrary, love, the active state of Ahimsa,
requires you to resist the wrong-doer.(6)
Gandhi’s reasoned commitment to nonviolence (ahimsa) gave rise to the third great principle of satyagraha: tapasya or “self-suffering."(7) With the willingness to undergo self-suffering as necessary, the nonviolent proponent of social change commits to a course of action that inflicts no violence but receives violence as necessary. The willingness to receive violence becomes a powerful expression of love for one’s opponent, against whom one struggles to convert rather than conquer.
Martin Luther King, in the sixth chapter of his book, Stride Toward Freedom(8), gives powerful testimony to just how highly he regarded Mohandas Gandhi’s formulation of nonviolence in satyagraha. Dr. King details how he read and appreciated, if he did not agree completely with, the ideas of many Western authors: Henry David Thoreau(9), Walter Rauschenbusch(10), Karl Marx(11), Friedrich Nietzsche(12), John Stuart Mill, Thomas Hobbes, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Reinhold Niebuhr(13). But it was a lecture on the ideas of Mohandas K. Gandhi by Dr. Mordecai Johnson(14) that gave him his ideological framework for social action.
Dr. King identifies six aspects of Gandhi’s philosophy and program for action in satyagraha that are germane and inspiring for waging a social movement such as that for Civil Rights in the United States. First, he stresses that nonviolent resistance calls for courageous action, rather than passivity(15). Second, he emphasizes the appeal of converting the opponent to one’s viewpoint, rather than seeking to defeat one’s adversary(16). Third, he focuses on Gandhi’s emphasis on evil actions, rather than evil people(17). Fourth, he explains the need to endure suffering as additional proof of the courage that attends satyagraha, and stresses the sincerity that such sacrifice entails(18). Fifth, he finds appealing the Gandhian idea that thought, as well as action, is necessary in the commitment to nonviolence--- that one must seek to demonstrate internal, spiritual nonviolence, regarding harmful thoughts about one’s opponent to be as abhorrent as physical violence(19). Finally, Dr. King found enormously powerful Gandhi’s idea that the universe is on the side of justice, so that a commitment to satyagraha aligns one with the God who represents the ideal of just action in behalf of humankind.(20)
Dr. King found the Gandhian formulation of satyagraha to offer a commitment to the principles of universal love (agape) and sacrifice (as found most saliently in the Crucifixion) that follow the best inclinations of Christianity.(21)
In other works, Martin Luther King called upon the United States to turn away from the frontier tradition of violent retaliation(22), sought to promote nonviolence in all areas of human conflict (with implicit implementation on an international scale)(23), and made the case that nonviolence is paradoxically the most powerful of all weapons:
Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is unique in history,
which cuts without wounding, and ennobles the man who wields
it. It is a sword that heals (24).
Against this ethic of satyagraha advanced by both Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Malcolm X objected to nonviolence on the basis of what he saw as its irrational applications and its frequent situational ineffectiveness. In his “Address to Mississippi Youth,” Malcolm X tells an audience of thirty-seven adolescents,
My experience has been that in many instances where you
find Negroes talking about nonviolence… they mean they’re
nonviolent with somebody with else. They are nonviolent
with the enemy… a person can come out to your home, and
if he’s white and wants to heap some kind of brutality on you,
you’re nonviolent… but if another Negro just stomps his foot,
you’ll rumble with him in a minute… which shows you there’s
an inconsistency there.(25)
Malcolm X also raises the very real spectacle of vulnerability to white violence in the absence of armed resistance:
We of the Organization of African American Unitty are… with
the efforts to register our people to vote one thousand percent.
But we do not go along with anyone telling us to help nonviolently.
We think that… if some kind of Ku Klux Klan is going to put
[Negroes] in the river, and the government doesn’t do anything
about it, it’s time for us to organize and band together and equip
ourselves and qualify ourselves to protect ourselves. And when
you can protect yourself, you don’t have to worry about being hurt.(26)
Malcolm X states that he is not driven by hate. But he recoils from the ethic of universally applied love:
I don’t have hate in me. I have no hate at all. I have some sense. I’m not going to let someone who hates me tell me to love him.
I’m not that way out. And you, young as you are, you’re not
going to do it either. The only time you’re going to get in that
bag is if somebody puts you there. Somebody else, who doesn’t
have your welfare at heart.(28)
Any differences in the thought and action of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King are those of emphasis and lexicon. Martin Luther King studied in great detail the principles of satyagraha of Mohandas Gandhi and understood those principles in their original context. But he applied those principles as a Christian pastor, seeing them through the prism of agape, the Greek term for universal love that Christians came to identify with the Spirit moving in the life, activity, and teachings of Jesus. Martin Luther King credited Gandhi for demonstrably moving the guiding force of love from the level of individual interaction to the social sphere. Dr. King clearly stated that Gandhi was his inspiration for the application of the principles of satyagraha and ahimsa to the Civil Rights Movement in the American cultural and political context.
In the manner of these fellow agitators for social change, Malcolm X was a man of tremendous courage and commitment. He shared with them a passion for a better world, one in which all people are accorded their proper dignity, a world in which those who historically have been abused permanently gain the respect that they deserve.
Malcolm X differed fundamentally from Gandhi and King, though, as to matters of nonviolence, love, and effective action. Malcolm X regarded nonviolence as an inconsistently applied creed that African Americans resorted to meekly when faced with white oppression but disregarded in responses to each other. He stated explicitly that he harbored no hate but would not be told to love his enemies.
And he saw those enemies as the other, not the same in constitution as friends. He thought that violence tended to be more effective than nonviolence when a person or group was faced with the starkly brutal actions of one’s enemies.
Malcolm X and this threat of violence in the absence of justice probably hastened passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, for which the nonviolent movement led by Martin Luther King is generally given credit. But in my view, the principles of satyagraha as a code of nonviolent thought and action are superior to those of violence, however effective the latter may be in terms of immediate effect.
Nonviolence requires great love, enormous discipline, and great sacrifice. Completely consistent application often falls away in the face of immediate and clear danger to those one most deeply loves. But pursued as an ideal, followed in most cases, applied broadly to all of humanity, nonviolence would make of this world a more loving, kind, and hospitable arena wherein humankind could dwell, living life much closer to the ideal in this one earthly sojourn.
Notes
1. Joan Bondurant, Chapter II (Two), “Satyagraha: Its Basic Precepts,” Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971), pp. 15-35.
2. Ibid., p. 16.
3. Ibid., p. 19. Here Bondurant quotes Gandhi as asserting, “As long as I have not realized Absolute Truth, so long must I hold by this relative truth as I have conceived it. This truth must be my beacon, my shield, and buckler.”
4. Ibid., p. 22.
5. Ibid., p. 25.
6. Ibid., p. 24.
7. Ibid., p. 26.
8. Martin Luther King, Jr., Chapter VI (Six), “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (New York: Perennial/ Harper & Row, 1958), pp. 72-88.
9. Ibid., p. 73.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., pp. 74-77.
12. Ibid., pp. 77-78.
13. Ibid., pp. 79-81. On p. 79, King very briefly cites his reading of Mill, Hobbes, and Rousseau but on pp. 79-81 gives a more detailed account of Niebuhr’s ideas concerning the propensity of humankind for both good and evil.
14. Ibid., pp. 78-79.
15. Ibid., pp. 83-84.
16. Ibid., p. 84.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., p. 85.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., p. 88.
21. Ibid., pp. 86-88.
22. Alex Ayres, ed., found according to the thematic alphabetization scheme under “Nonviolence” in The Wisdom of Martin Luther King (New York: Meridian/ Penguin, 1993), p. 166. The quotation is taken from its original presentation in Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can’t Wait (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).
23. Ibid., p.167. The quotation is taken form its original presentation in Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).
24. Ibid. The quotation is originally from Why We Can’t Wait, consistent with the full citation information given above.
25. Warren Halliburton, ed., Malcolm X, “Address to Mississippi Youth,” Historic Speeches of African Americans (New York: Perennial/ Harper & Row, 1967).
26. Ibid., p. 132.
27. Ibid., p. 133.
References
Note: This listing of sources either cited specifically or used as general background material also frequently goes under such headings as “Bibliography” or ‘Works Cited.” The following list includes the four sources I used in writing this paper (found in “Notes” on immediately previous pages), and in addition I have provided the full publishing information for the works that Alex Ayres consulted to obtain the quotations of Martin Luther King that I used from the Ayres book.
Ayres, Alex, ed. “Nonviolence,” The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Meridian/ Penguin, 1993, pp. 164-170.
Bondurant, Joan V. Chapter II (Two), “Satyagraha: Its Basic Precepts,” Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Social Conflict. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971, pp. 15-35.
Halliburton, Warren J., ed. Malcolm X, “Address to Mississippi Youth,” Historic Speeches of African Americans. New York: The African American Experience/ Franklin Watts, 1993, pp. 129-133.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. Chapter VI (Six), “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. New York: Perennial/ Harper & Row, 1958, pp. 72-88.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. The Trumpet of Conscience. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. Why We Can’t Wait. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.
Vocabulary for Research Paper Assignment Evaluating Nonviolent versus Violent Strategies
I render to my students in the New Salem Educational Initiative a great deal of explicitly learned vocabulary. This is very important for students whose parents or significant adults have limited education, do not read very much diverse and challenging material, or are not native English speakers. The list given here is derived from the sources used in researching the paper, and from the terms that I use in writing the model research paper.
6. relativism >>>>> the philosophical position that Truth may vary place, time, and circumstances
(synthesis)
33. divergent >>>>> moving in different directions; going off along diverse pathways
35. stagnant >>>>> remaining the same, typically amidst corrupted or polluted circumstances
1. consummation >>>>> final act of accomplishment of a task,
often having moved through various stages toward
completion
2. manifestation
>>>>> the physical
form or action that clearly represents or demonstrates an idea
3. elucidate
>>>>> to make
clear through vivid explanation, often with the provision of clarifying
examples
4. ontological
>>>>> adjective
describing philosophical speculation on the being or existence of
humankind
5. epistemological >>>>> adjective describing philosophical
speculation or logically sequenced
reasoning concerning
knowledge and ways of knowing 6. relativism >>>>> the philosophical position that Truth may vary place, time, and circumstances
7. acquiescence
>>>>> going along
with, complying, being compliant
8. cognizable
>>>>>
recognizable, comprehensible,
knowable
9. espouse >>>>> to posit, promulgate, or put forward one’s
ideas
10. exposition
>>>>> reasoned and
logically sequenced presentation of one’s ideas
11. votary
>>>>> worshiper; devotee
12. voluntarism >>>>> happening due to human choice, rather than
according to some predetermined set
of circumstances
13. determinism
>>>>> happening
due to some predetermined, already decided set of circumstances, rather than as a matter of human volition or choice
14. elegy
>>>>> a poetic, serious,
and pensive tribute, most notably given in behalf of the recently
deceased
15. subversive
>>>>> secretly
working to undermine or destroy established practices
16. seditious
>>>>> subversive,
with the implication of social unacceptability or illegality
17. deprecation
>>>>> demeaning or
belittling a person or a way of thinking
18. bourgeois
>>>>> adjective
describing a middle class of people and their values, positioned between the aristocracy (those of nobility and
wealth as a matter of birth) and the proletariat
19. bourgeoisie
>>>>> a middle
class of people and their values, positioned between the aristocracy and the proletariat
20. proletariat
>>>>> the working
class, especially those performing wage labor in urban factories
21. feudalism
>>>>> the
political and economic system prevalent in the European Middle Ages,
dominated
by the aristocracy, for whom serfs labored in residentially permanent circumstances on land held
as fiefdoms (granted by the monarch or other authority)
22. capitalism
>>>>> economic
system characterized by a high degree of individual
entrepreneurial
(commercially enterprising, venturous) freedom
23. socialism
>>>>> economic
system characterized by a high degree of government
involvement and
oversight
24. irreconcilable >>>>> the inability to reconcile or to bring two
contending forces together
25. materialism
>>>>> philosophy
or outlook referring to reality as observed in the physical world
26. idealism
>>>>> philosophy
or outlook referring to reality perceived through cognition and
reasoning, revealed
in the realm of ideas
27. totalitarianism >>>>> political system in which the government is
active in every aspect of the
lives
of people under that government’s authority and jurisdiction
28. dialectic
>>>>> the process
whereby an initial idea or circumstance (thesis) interacts with
another idea or circumstance (antithesis) to create a completely new idea
or circumstance(synthesis)
29. pacifism
>>>>> the
philosophical commitment to peace under all circumstances--- including
a
vow to condemn and refuse to participate in warfare
30. monumental
>>>>> occurring on
a grand scale
31. metaphysical
>>>>> adjective
that covers the broad range of considerations important in philosophical thought, such as ontology and epistemology; now in practical usage tends to connote that realm of knowledge that is so abstract as to defy certain understanding--- by contrast with the move provable findings of natural science
32. coherence
>>>>> having unity
in thought; fitting together in a
logical pattern; making sense
as an understandable whole33. divergent >>>>> moving in different directions; going off along diverse pathways
34. boycott
>>>>> the refusal
to purchase goods or services from those whose practices are
considered unjust35. stagnant >>>>> remaining the same, typically amidst corrupted or polluted circumstances
36. agape
>>>>> Greek term for the
love of all humankind; universal
love; the altruistic and empathic love
that abides in a person’s
heart for every other human being
37. philia >>>>> Greek term for the love that abides in a person’s heart for
friends, family members, and other close associates
38. eros >>>>> Greek term for romantic or sexual love
39. spiteful
>>>>>
vengeful; full of ill-feeling and
the desire to inflict harm in word or deed
40. lexicon
>>>>> set of words
used for particular subject manner or in a given cultural context
41. stark
>>>>> bracingly or
startlingly frank, blunt, or apparent
Jul 24, 2015
Utilizing Human Intelligence, Rather Than Maintaining the Illusion of Free Will
One of my readers has become very interested in applications of the principles of behaviorism, primarily to the functioning of the criminal justice system, but also to various topics that I discussed in my previous five-essay series, Meditations on the Art of Living, particularly matters of theology.
I discussed matters of theology in the essay, “The Essence of the Spiritual Life,” from Meditations on the Art of Living. My reader opined that my commitment to Christianity seems in conflict with my philosophical stance that he characterizes as determinism. Though I am more specifically a behaviorist in the parlance of psychology, it is true that this is well-considered one type of determinism.
Very briefly, with regard to theology, John Calvin was famously a determinist who in his Institutes of the Christian Religion detailed his doctrine of predestination, in which only the “elect” shall gain entrance into Heaven through the redeeming grace of God, rather than via any good works of which humankind is capable.
John and Charles Wesley, progenitors of the Methodist Church, placed more emphasis on good works; and Baptists typically speak in terms of free will choices that God gives people the space to make. So Christians differ on the matter of determinism versus free will, but the determinist strain of Calvin that gave rise to the Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches is one of the strongest within Christian theology. And even free-will Baptists conventionally say that grace comes not through good works but through belief in Jesus Christ and the saving grace that attends such belief.
My own theology is linked to the logic of behaviorist psychology, and to the conviction that any Supreme Deity bearing the trait of omniscience knows every event past, present, and future--- so that the fate of humankind is necessarily already determined in the great cosmic scheme. Closer to earth, in the everyday life of humankind, we must go forward according to that preordained scheme, performing our parts within the Divine Plan.
The actions that we take are only perceptibly “free.” In fact, the best that we can do is to utilize our knowledge of those actions likely to be most rewarding (positively reinforcing) to make the best decisions (not the same as free-will “choices”) possible for ourselves and our fellows.
The psychological reality of behaviorism has huge portent for the criminal justice system, which can only consider cases of criminality, render judgment on individual behaviors rather than individual choices, and assign a penalty that discourages the continuance of the given criminal behavior.
I am personally opposed to capital punishment because it contributes to a climate in which violence inflicted on fellow human beings is accepted as part of life; we are in fact best off when we do everything possible to minimize the perverse spectacles and debasement of humanity that violence brings.
Those who do advocate capital punishment must be clear as to what they are doing according to behaviorist principles: They are somehow arguing that life will be better because a person is put to death for perpetrating criminal acts that arise due to the tenets of operant conditioning, not due to free will choice.
A much better way to deal with criminal behavior is to eliminate the causes of illegal and harmful actions. We do this by creating people who are likely to be broadly and deeply knowledgeable and ethically motivated.
We create ethically motivated people by inculcating in our young people the values that I espouse in Meditations on the Art of Living.
We create broadly and deeply knowledgeable people according to my advocacy for excellent education defined as follows:
An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting deep and broad knowledge in mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts in grade by grade sequence to all students.
This definition necessarily includes a definition of excellent teachers thusly:
An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
My very interested and responsive reader, noted at the beginning of this article, writes in one of his comments that education does not guarantee ethical behavior. That is surely true. Most especially, having claimed an academic degree as currently granted at any level of education does very little to promote ethical behavior:
Education in the United States is at every level either insubstantial or so highly specialized as to be incomplete in terms of the acquisition of a broad and deep knowledge base across the liberal arts.
But if we were to provide truly excellent education to all of our students, assuring that they graduate with knowledge sets and moral propensities that I have detailed in many articles, we would create much, much better people.
And the creation of more exalted human beings--- responsive to the environmental cues that we through intelligence rather than free will provide them--- would minimize illegal and harmful behaviors and make of our courts of law and penal institutions much more sparsely inhabited places.
I discussed matters of theology in the essay, “The Essence of the Spiritual Life,” from Meditations on the Art of Living. My reader opined that my commitment to Christianity seems in conflict with my philosophical stance that he characterizes as determinism. Though I am more specifically a behaviorist in the parlance of psychology, it is true that this is well-considered one type of determinism.
Very briefly, with regard to theology, John Calvin was famously a determinist who in his Institutes of the Christian Religion detailed his doctrine of predestination, in which only the “elect” shall gain entrance into Heaven through the redeeming grace of God, rather than via any good works of which humankind is capable.
John and Charles Wesley, progenitors of the Methodist Church, placed more emphasis on good works; and Baptists typically speak in terms of free will choices that God gives people the space to make. So Christians differ on the matter of determinism versus free will, but the determinist strain of Calvin that gave rise to the Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches is one of the strongest within Christian theology. And even free-will Baptists conventionally say that grace comes not through good works but through belief in Jesus Christ and the saving grace that attends such belief.
My own theology is linked to the logic of behaviorist psychology, and to the conviction that any Supreme Deity bearing the trait of omniscience knows every event past, present, and future--- so that the fate of humankind is necessarily already determined in the great cosmic scheme. Closer to earth, in the everyday life of humankind, we must go forward according to that preordained scheme, performing our parts within the Divine Plan.
The actions that we take are only perceptibly “free.” In fact, the best that we can do is to utilize our knowledge of those actions likely to be most rewarding (positively reinforcing) to make the best decisions (not the same as free-will “choices”) possible for ourselves and our fellows.
The psychological reality of behaviorism has huge portent for the criminal justice system, which can only consider cases of criminality, render judgment on individual behaviors rather than individual choices, and assign a penalty that discourages the continuance of the given criminal behavior.
I am personally opposed to capital punishment because it contributes to a climate in which violence inflicted on fellow human beings is accepted as part of life; we are in fact best off when we do everything possible to minimize the perverse spectacles and debasement of humanity that violence brings.
Those who do advocate capital punishment must be clear as to what they are doing according to behaviorist principles: They are somehow arguing that life will be better because a person is put to death for perpetrating criminal acts that arise due to the tenets of operant conditioning, not due to free will choice.
A much better way to deal with criminal behavior is to eliminate the causes of illegal and harmful actions. We do this by creating people who are likely to be broadly and deeply knowledgeable and ethically motivated.
We create ethically motivated people by inculcating in our young people the values that I espouse in Meditations on the Art of Living.
We create broadly and deeply knowledgeable people according to my advocacy for excellent education defined as follows:
An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting deep and broad knowledge in mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts in grade by grade sequence to all students.
This definition necessarily includes a definition of excellent teachers thusly:
An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
My very interested and responsive reader, noted at the beginning of this article, writes in one of his comments that education does not guarantee ethical behavior. That is surely true. Most especially, having claimed an academic degree as currently granted at any level of education does very little to promote ethical behavior:
Education in the United States is at every level either insubstantial or so highly specialized as to be incomplete in terms of the acquisition of a broad and deep knowledge base across the liberal arts.
But if we were to provide truly excellent education to all of our students, assuring that they graduate with knowledge sets and moral propensities that I have detailed in many articles, we would create much, much better people.
And the creation of more exalted human beings--- responsive to the environmental cues that we through intelligence rather than free will provide them--- would minimize illegal and harmful behaviors and make of our courts of law and penal institutions much more sparsely inhabited places.
Jul 9, 2015
Five-Essay Series: Meditations on the Art of LIving
Please read the succeeding five essays as a unit, understanding that the ideas conveyed are typical of the messages in ethics and spirituality that I convey to my students as they receive advanced academic training in the New Salem Educational Initiative
Essay #1: The Meaning of Love
The ancient Greeks had three major words for love, nomenclature that is still relevant in Greek and all languages today. The three words and their meaning are as follows:
Agape >>>>> universal love--- the love for all humankind
Philia >>>>> the love for significant individuals in our lives, most especially members of our families and our dearest friends; by extension, we draw upon this storehouse of love in dealing with all human beings whom we encounter individually on our daily pathways.
Eros >>>>> this is romantic love between two people, love that entails great personal respect for our companions, partners, and mates; for whom we feel attraction that includes some level of sexuality.
Love should be the guiding force of our lives. We should cultivate love for all of our fellow human beings in the spirit of agape. The main themes and activities of our lives should be a concern to move humanity forward toward greater happiness and satisfaction for people as individual members of the human family and the human family as a whole.
We should find within ourselves, therefore, abundant sources of altruism (behavior that contributes to the healing and nurturing of our fellow human beings) and empathy (the ability to project ourselves into the life situations of other people, feeling what they feel, so that we may respond with appropriate action in our love and concern for them).
This is what Christ did so naturally during his earthly sojourn and what St. Paul articulated so well in Corinthians I, Chapter 13.
Informed by this universal spirit of love, we should express philia for those with whom we interact most closely on a daily basis. A great many of our thoughts, words, and deeds should be full of the love that we feel for our family members, friends, and other individuals whom we meet with great frequency in our daily lives. We should listen carefully to what they have to say, feel empathically what they are feeling, and do all that we can to maximize their chances for happiness.
If we are the happy and secure people in the manner that will be detailed in other essays of this series, we will be able to minimize our own selfish desires and ephemeral wants so as to consider the needs of others. Secure in our own abiding happiness, we should be willing to defer gratification of our own preferences for the most compelling and important needs of others among our family, friends, and close associates.
The forms of love expressed as agape and philia should also inform our responses to those for whom we feel the love of eros. This love for our special companion or mate certainly includes sexual attraction, but such attraction only becomes love when we include that person with whom we are romantically enamored among those in the human family--- those for whom we feel agape and those among the individuals for whom we feel philia.
Authentic eros should lead us to care for our romantic companions much as we care for other people: We should listen carefully; empathetically understand their fondest hopes and most important life goals; and nurture them in a way that reconciles their own best interests with our own.
Eros entails a magical and exciting passion but also should be accompanied by a realistic and abiding concern for the dignity of the two people involved, as individuals and as a loving unit. People who live in the spirit of this sort of eros maintain individual dignity; manifest fervent respect and deep empathy for the recipient of this special form of love; maintain love for the significant people for whom philia is felt; and continue to feel an internalized, in-the-gut sense of agape for all humankind.
Genuine eros never interferes with, but rather makes more powerful and more heartfelt, the love that we feel for other important people in our daily lives and for all of those who inhabit our planet.
For every action that we undertake, we should ask first, “Is this a loving response most appropriate for the person or people involved?”
We should include among the loved our very selves, for until we respect and love ourselves we cannot show genuine love for our fellows.
But secure in our own identities and knowledgeable of our own authentic aspirations, we should ever seek to put aside the selfish and the evanescent desires of instant gratification in loving responses to the needs of our fellow human beings. For over the long term, their best interests are also our own, and acting in their welfare improves life for the human family of which we are a part.
Agape >>>>> universal love--- the love for all humankind
Philia >>>>> the love for significant individuals in our lives, most especially members of our families and our dearest friends; by extension, we draw upon this storehouse of love in dealing with all human beings whom we encounter individually on our daily pathways.
Eros >>>>> this is romantic love between two people, love that entails great personal respect for our companions, partners, and mates; for whom we feel attraction that includes some level of sexuality.
Love should be the guiding force of our lives. We should cultivate love for all of our fellow human beings in the spirit of agape. The main themes and activities of our lives should be a concern to move humanity forward toward greater happiness and satisfaction for people as individual members of the human family and the human family as a whole.
We should find within ourselves, therefore, abundant sources of altruism (behavior that contributes to the healing and nurturing of our fellow human beings) and empathy (the ability to project ourselves into the life situations of other people, feeling what they feel, so that we may respond with appropriate action in our love and concern for them).
This is what Christ did so naturally during his earthly sojourn and what St. Paul articulated so well in Corinthians I, Chapter 13.
Informed by this universal spirit of love, we should express philia for those with whom we interact most closely on a daily basis. A great many of our thoughts, words, and deeds should be full of the love that we feel for our family members, friends, and other individuals whom we meet with great frequency in our daily lives. We should listen carefully to what they have to say, feel empathically what they are feeling, and do all that we can to maximize their chances for happiness.
If we are the happy and secure people in the manner that will be detailed in other essays of this series, we will be able to minimize our own selfish desires and ephemeral wants so as to consider the needs of others. Secure in our own abiding happiness, we should be willing to defer gratification of our own preferences for the most compelling and important needs of others among our family, friends, and close associates.
The forms of love expressed as agape and philia should also inform our responses to those for whom we feel the love of eros. This love for our special companion or mate certainly includes sexual attraction, but such attraction only becomes love when we include that person with whom we are romantically enamored among those in the human family--- those for whom we feel agape and those among the individuals for whom we feel philia.
Authentic eros should lead us to care for our romantic companions much as we care for other people: We should listen carefully; empathetically understand their fondest hopes and most important life goals; and nurture them in a way that reconciles their own best interests with our own.
Eros entails a magical and exciting passion but also should be accompanied by a realistic and abiding concern for the dignity of the two people involved, as individuals and as a loving unit. People who live in the spirit of this sort of eros maintain individual dignity; manifest fervent respect and deep empathy for the recipient of this special form of love; maintain love for the significant people for whom philia is felt; and continue to feel an internalized, in-the-gut sense of agape for all humankind.
Genuine eros never interferes with, but rather makes more powerful and more heartfelt, the love that we feel for other important people in our daily lives and for all of those who inhabit our planet.
For every action that we undertake, we should ask first, “Is this a loving response most appropriate for the person or people involved?”
We should include among the loved our very selves, for until we respect and love ourselves we cannot show genuine love for our fellows.
But secure in our own identities and knowledgeable of our own authentic aspirations, we should ever seek to put aside the selfish and the evanescent desires of instant gratification in loving responses to the needs of our fellow human beings. For over the long term, their best interests are also our own, and acting in their welfare improves life for the human family of which we are a part.
Essay #2: The Essence of the Religious Life
I was raised a Christian.
The ethic of Christianity directs and animates all that I do.
I am also a student of other religions and a respecter of people of all faiths. Additionally, I have respect for people who incline toward humanism rather than theism, attentive in those cases to the ethics according to which such humanists live.
In addition to Christianity, two belief systems have had a big impact on my moral values and personal ethic. Those belief systems are Buddhism and philosophical Daoism.
So in order, let me detail what each of those three religions or belief systems has taught me, and how each of them affects my life:
The heart of Christianity is love. Jesus loved all people, from all walks of life. He brought them love and reserved judgment. Jesus attended to the needs of thieves, prostitutes, lepers, and others whom society had cast the judgment that he refused to render. He said that he “sought not to bring peace but a sword,” and yet he was manifestly a person of peace. His most violent act was overturning the tables of the money-exchangers who were in His view corrupting the sacred purposes of the Temple with the material aspirations of the usurer.
But most of the time what Jesus meant by the “sword” was a propensity to shake things up, challenge those in authority, fulfill the spirit of the Law by elevating love over the technicalities of religious observance, and in so doing face off against any secular or religious authority that put the goals of established institutions ahead of the immediate needs of humankind. He said, for example, that “The Sabbath was made for [humankind], not [humankind] for the Sabbath.”
Jesus was love. He called upon people to “be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” The seeming impossibility of that task is mitigated by the reality that as human beings we cannot be perfect--- but that we must try. We must try to do our best every day that our feet hit the ground to be the best people whom we can be. Love must be our guide. If we “have not love,” said the apostle Paul, we “are but a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”
The love of Jesus active in the world is the paramount value in Christianity. Our decisions for employment, volunteer work, and interaction with our fellows in all of our daily activities must be suffused with love--- or we are not Christians.
If salvation is important to us, then we must accept the saving grace of Jesus and then act accordingly. Concern for personal salvation alone entails a selfishness that Jesus could never abide. If we are secure in our salvation, we will demonstrate our gratitude for being under the protective watch of Jesus by acting protectively and lovingly in the best interests of our fellow human beings.
Jesus is Love. Love is Jesus. For the Christian, Love must be the Ultimate Concern.
From Buddhism, I take numerous philosophical notions, some of which original Buddha Siddhartha Gautama inherited from the Hindu tradition.
Buddhism acknowledges the suffering of life; that suffering arises because of our selfish desires; that to end suffering we must extinguish such desires; and that to end suffering, we must act according to eight basic principles: right understanding; right thought; right speech; right action; right occupation; right effort; right mindfulness; and right meditation.
That is, we must understand clearly the essence of spirituality; think thoughts that are pure and wholesome, in accord with our spiritual essence; speak in a manner consistent with our spirituality; walk our talk: do what we say we should do; opt for lines of work that will allow us to make our best contributions to humankind, consistent with our spirituality; always put forth our best effort in the service of our ethics and our fellow human beings; be calmly appreciative of every single moment that we have on this earth; and engage in ongoing meditation that will further our understanding and continually make of ourselves better and better human beings.
The teachings of Buddhism call upon us to look past the triviality of so much of the material world that we see from day to day; into those values that abide in eternity; to that realm of the spirit that recognizes Ultimate Reality beyond this material world. We should therefore not become fixated on the petty concerns that make up maya (illusion); but rather fix our vision on that which has meaning in eternity. When we focus on what is truly important in life, according to our best spiritual aspirations, we achieve spiritual breakthrough (moksha) and attain a sense of eternal peace (nirvana). A person at peace is a person best able to challenge the triviality and the corruption of the world that we have been given, working to replace this very imperfect world with a world that would better reflect the best spiritual goals of Buddhists and Christians alike.
From Daoism I take an awe of nature, and a sense that the most powerful moments are not always obviously so; while great power is often a masquerade for fear and loathing:
The wet substance of the waterfall is apparently soft in composition; and yet over time that waterfall wears down a rocky cliff that seems so strong and impenetrable.
People of great power often are found to harbor deep self-doubt and to engage in conduct that is appalling, wretched, sinful; while people of seemingly humble circumstances patiently change the world with their consistent daily acts of kindness, and with the love they live in the call to service of their fellow human beings.
So the authentic religious life is that which acts upon the ethic of love; recognizes the deeper realities beyond the screen of everyday existence; and sees in humble, confident, patient dedication to one’s fellow human beings a force far more powerful than any formal position can bestow.
Above all, authentic religion is that which articulates a spirit of love; motivates a person to love all of one’s fellow human beings; and puts the ethic of love into the creation of a world that can be so much better than the one in which we now live.
The ethic of Christianity directs and animates all that I do.
I am also a student of other religions and a respecter of people of all faiths. Additionally, I have respect for people who incline toward humanism rather than theism, attentive in those cases to the ethics according to which such humanists live.
In addition to Christianity, two belief systems have had a big impact on my moral values and personal ethic. Those belief systems are Buddhism and philosophical Daoism.
So in order, let me detail what each of those three religions or belief systems has taught me, and how each of them affects my life:
The heart of Christianity is love. Jesus loved all people, from all walks of life. He brought them love and reserved judgment. Jesus attended to the needs of thieves, prostitutes, lepers, and others whom society had cast the judgment that he refused to render. He said that he “sought not to bring peace but a sword,” and yet he was manifestly a person of peace. His most violent act was overturning the tables of the money-exchangers who were in His view corrupting the sacred purposes of the Temple with the material aspirations of the usurer.
But most of the time what Jesus meant by the “sword” was a propensity to shake things up, challenge those in authority, fulfill the spirit of the Law by elevating love over the technicalities of religious observance, and in so doing face off against any secular or religious authority that put the goals of established institutions ahead of the immediate needs of humankind. He said, for example, that “The Sabbath was made for [humankind], not [humankind] for the Sabbath.”
Jesus was love. He called upon people to “be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” The seeming impossibility of that task is mitigated by the reality that as human beings we cannot be perfect--- but that we must try. We must try to do our best every day that our feet hit the ground to be the best people whom we can be. Love must be our guide. If we “have not love,” said the apostle Paul, we “are but a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”
The love of Jesus active in the world is the paramount value in Christianity. Our decisions for employment, volunteer work, and interaction with our fellows in all of our daily activities must be suffused with love--- or we are not Christians.
If salvation is important to us, then we must accept the saving grace of Jesus and then act accordingly. Concern for personal salvation alone entails a selfishness that Jesus could never abide. If we are secure in our salvation, we will demonstrate our gratitude for being under the protective watch of Jesus by acting protectively and lovingly in the best interests of our fellow human beings.
Jesus is Love. Love is Jesus. For the Christian, Love must be the Ultimate Concern.
From Buddhism, I take numerous philosophical notions, some of which original Buddha Siddhartha Gautama inherited from the Hindu tradition.
Buddhism acknowledges the suffering of life; that suffering arises because of our selfish desires; that to end suffering we must extinguish such desires; and that to end suffering, we must act according to eight basic principles: right understanding; right thought; right speech; right action; right occupation; right effort; right mindfulness; and right meditation.
That is, we must understand clearly the essence of spirituality; think thoughts that are pure and wholesome, in accord with our spiritual essence; speak in a manner consistent with our spirituality; walk our talk: do what we say we should do; opt for lines of work that will allow us to make our best contributions to humankind, consistent with our spirituality; always put forth our best effort in the service of our ethics and our fellow human beings; be calmly appreciative of every single moment that we have on this earth; and engage in ongoing meditation that will further our understanding and continually make of ourselves better and better human beings.
The teachings of Buddhism call upon us to look past the triviality of so much of the material world that we see from day to day; into those values that abide in eternity; to that realm of the spirit that recognizes Ultimate Reality beyond this material world. We should therefore not become fixated on the petty concerns that make up maya (illusion); but rather fix our vision on that which has meaning in eternity. When we focus on what is truly important in life, according to our best spiritual aspirations, we achieve spiritual breakthrough (moksha) and attain a sense of eternal peace (nirvana). A person at peace is a person best able to challenge the triviality and the corruption of the world that we have been given, working to replace this very imperfect world with a world that would better reflect the best spiritual goals of Buddhists and Christians alike.
From Daoism I take an awe of nature, and a sense that the most powerful moments are not always obviously so; while great power is often a masquerade for fear and loathing:
The wet substance of the waterfall is apparently soft in composition; and yet over time that waterfall wears down a rocky cliff that seems so strong and impenetrable.
People of great power often are found to harbor deep self-doubt and to engage in conduct that is appalling, wretched, sinful; while people of seemingly humble circumstances patiently change the world with their consistent daily acts of kindness, and with the love they live in the call to service of their fellow human beings.
So the authentic religious life is that which acts upon the ethic of love; recognizes the deeper realities beyond the screen of everyday existence; and sees in humble, confident, patient dedication to one’s fellow human beings a force far more powerful than any formal position can bestow.
Above all, authentic religion is that which articulates a spirit of love; motivates a person to love all of one’s fellow human beings; and puts the ethic of love into the creation of a world that can be so much better than the one in which we now live.
Essay #3: Radical Feminism
I am a radical feminist as an extension of my love for all humankind and my dedication to the principles of my religious faith.
We are at such a crude stage in history, so stuck in maya, that most people cannot even see beyond the world that we are given to imagine a day that will be so much better. Centuries from now, people will look at evidence demonstrating the way that we now live our lives, look at each other and say,
“What? They did what?”
“People killed other people because they thought that they would earn a place in heaven?”
“People considered people of other races, ethnicities, and sexual orientation as somehow different from and even inferior to themselves because of those trivial differences?”
“Corporations encouraged people to smoke, drink, take too many pharmaceuticals, apply harmful substances to their bodies because that would enrich the corporations and the people who run them?”
“Putatively righteous upholders of a religious faith regularly abused and tolerated sexual abuse of children?”
“People of faith denied the reality of global warming even while the splendid state of nature created by the God whom they served was becoming degraded and punishing in its overheated turbulence?”
“And, wow, what were these irrational demands that they placed on women?”
>>>>> How amazing it is indeed that society pressures women to paint their beautiful faces, often times altering them into garish caricatures of the feminine, giving an appearance no better than the imitative transvestite.
>>>>> How cruel is the insistence that women cripple themselves by walking around in high-heeled shoes that are the contemporary form of foot-binding.
>>>>> How selfish are men who may chauvinistically consent to their wives having some semblance of a profession but refuse to do their share of the cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing.
>>>>> How patriarchal it is that women are asked to forgo their surnames by taking that of their husband in a lingering symbol of the patriarchy consigning women to second-class status.
I am a radical feminist seeking to overturn all of the assumptions and practices that have kept women in a second-class position.
A feminist of whatever degree of radicalism seeks a world in which women and men are completely equal.
That world will be created with observation of the following principles and modes of behavior:
1) The feminist woman and believer in equal rights for all will not enrich the cosmetic industry or magnify the salaries of executives in that industry or succumb to society’s silly but insidious pressure by painting her face: She will eschew make-up in favor of the naturally beautiful face that God gave her.
2) The feminist woman and believer in equal rights for all will not totter precariously around on high-heeled destroyers of her foot, the contemporary form of foot-binding: She will opt for sensible flats, shoes that make sense for dancing, walking, running, rushing toward every experience of life that God offers her without fear of debilitation or encumbrance.
3) The feminist woman will not accept any domestic role thrust on women by tradition: She will insist, rather, that household chores and child-rearing be shared equally by her and her husband or partner in life.
4) The feminist woman and believer in equal rights for all will not observe any traditional notion of the male as provider: She will rather pursue a professional occupation at least as remunerative as that of the male in her life, thus assuring her financial independence and the likelihood of economic sufficiency; this will eliminate that condition of dependency that can result in male domination and abuse.
5) The feminist woman will not take her husband’s name if she and her significant other decide to marry, thus maintaining observance of a symbol of patriarchy: She will rather keep her own surname or decide on a new name different from that of her spouse; or on a commonly shared new name different from that inherited by either partner.
Essay #4: Responsible Sexuality
Sexual desire is a prime driver of human experience.
The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud held that the drive for sexual satisfaction motivates all human behavior. Any activity that is not explicitly sexual is nevertheless energized by the sex drive; Freud maintained that we sublimate our desire for sex in every activity that we undertake, transferring energy that originates in the sex drive into the activity of the moment.
Freud placed the sex drive in the Id, along with the other basic biological drives, particularly the desire to satisfy hunger and thirst; thus, the drive for food, water, and sex are fundamental to human need and desire.
Freud then described the functioning of the Ego, which represents the person’s sense of identity: within the family, at school, at work, and out and about in society. The ego is the chief operator in the personality; in that role, the ego keeps the basic biological drives under control, seeking to satisfy those biological imperatives in socially acceptable ways that give one a good reputation among one’s fellow human beings and advance the person’s self-esteem and social status.
The third key part of the human personality is the Superego. This is the person’s sense of morality, learned initially from one’s parents; and then from others, as well, as one gains experience through the years of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. If one gained a questionable or degraded moral framework from one’s parents, the superego may never ascend to higher levels of morality, ethics, and behavior; but at its best, the superego promotes altruism and empathy that work for the best interests of humankind.
When the ego is functioning optimally in directing the biological drives of the id toward morally and socially acceptable directions for expression and satisfaction; and allowing the lofty ethical and humanitarian goals of the superego opportunity to promote the general welfare of one’s fellow human beings; while finding for the ego itself that satisfaction in social and professional accomplishment that it seeks--- the construction of a personality descriptive of the great moral paragons--- extremely good human beings--- in history and contemporary life becomes possible.
The observations of the great behaviorist psychologist B. F. Skinner also are highly important to consider in a discussion of human sexuality. Skinner held that, while complex in detail and operating according to varying schedules and patterns over time, people do what they do essentially because of the combination of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment that the person has received for their behaviors:
>>>>> Positive reinforcement is the most important shaper of human behavior, representing rewards received for the behavior exhibited.
>>>>> Negative reinforcement is the withdrawal of an aversive (punishing) consequence once desired behavior has been demonstrated.
>>>>> Punishment is the occurrence of an aversive consequence for the behavior demonstrated.
The applicability of these principles to human sexuality concerns the individual person’s experience.
If a young person has grown up in a home, for example, in which there is a high degree of dysfunction, and in which the child or adolescent does not receive proper nurturing and care; and then if the youth’s experiences at school are also aversive; that young person is then very likely to be receptive to other kinds of rewards in the search for personal identity, social status, and physical gratification.
Such a child or adolescent, once a candidate for happiness at home and at school, with an optimistic vision for future educational and professional success; gains reward instead in the life of the street, gang affiliation, criminal conduct, and promiscuous sexual behavior.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
A person should always be aware, then, that responsible sexual behavior is not chosen of one’s own free will; but rather is determined by one’s biological imperatives and an environment that rewards healthy, happy expressions of sexuality.
Sexual intercourse should never occur unthoughtfully, without considering the rewards to which one is responding and the consequences:
Is one engaging in sexual intercourse merely for the satisfaction of the biological drive? If so, this is wrong and harmful.
Is one engaging in sexual intercourse merely to satisfy one’s need for self-esteem, or for the selfish desire just to have the experience? This also is wrong and harmful.
Or is one engaging in sexual intercourse with due regard for the impact that this significant human activity may have on one’s own future, the people of importance in one’s daily life (family, friends, frequent associates), and for the general good of humankind (others who are or could be positively affected by one’s professional and personal commitments at the current time and in the future)?
If these factors are considered, if one proceeds in the act of sexual intercourse with due regard for agape and philia, as well as eros, then the chances are maximized that the expression of erotic desire in the act of sexual intercourse is appropriate for the time and circumstances.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The years of adolescence are too early for sexual intercourse:
Experience is too limited, the number of human relationships has been too few, and the quality of human relationships cannot be as high as will be the case once greater experience is acquired. In order to have a vision of a sexual partner with whom the act of sexual intercourse can be undertaken at a high level of aesthetic, ethical, and physical satisfaction, one must have a great deal of experience in the world, far beyond that which can be descriptive of the life of a person at the time of adolescence.
The college-bound person, for example, needs to get to know people on the campus of attendance over multiple years. The person with professional aspirations, such as the prospective physician, would do very well to get to know people who also have ambition to be physicians--- or people with similar aspirations that will require a high level of education and multiple years of training.
If one takes these factors into consideration, an age at which sexual intercourse is likely to be satisfying becomes identifiable. One would do best to utilize the years at ages 17, 18, and 19 to get to know as many different people as possible, including the dating of a great number of people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, religious beliefs, and life aspirations.
At about the age of 20 the consideration of a partner for sexual intercourse becomes legitimate. Some people may be committed to wait until marriage even at that time. But for those who have not identified a permanent mate, or whose professional and life aspirations might lead them to defer marriage until the late 20s or beyond, sexual intercourse with a good and caring person under properly safe and planned conditions is a legitimate decision.
At that point, the two people would need to agree on the context in which they are engaging in sexual intercourse. If there is no commitment to an enduring relationship, the two people should nevertheless agree that the proposed sexual activity be undertaken with a high degree of mutual respect, using effective methods of birth control, and with a desire to demonstrate their passion in an artistic, loving (keeping in view that there are different types of love), and morally elevated experience from which both partners are likely to emerge as morally, intellectually, and sexually satisfied human beings.
Sexuality, like all human endeavor, is a great gift from God and must be undertaken responsibly--- at the right time, under the right conditions, and with the right person.
The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud held that the drive for sexual satisfaction motivates all human behavior. Any activity that is not explicitly sexual is nevertheless energized by the sex drive; Freud maintained that we sublimate our desire for sex in every activity that we undertake, transferring energy that originates in the sex drive into the activity of the moment.
Freud placed the sex drive in the Id, along with the other basic biological drives, particularly the desire to satisfy hunger and thirst; thus, the drive for food, water, and sex are fundamental to human need and desire.
Freud then described the functioning of the Ego, which represents the person’s sense of identity: within the family, at school, at work, and out and about in society. The ego is the chief operator in the personality; in that role, the ego keeps the basic biological drives under control, seeking to satisfy those biological imperatives in socially acceptable ways that give one a good reputation among one’s fellow human beings and advance the person’s self-esteem and social status.
The third key part of the human personality is the Superego. This is the person’s sense of morality, learned initially from one’s parents; and then from others, as well, as one gains experience through the years of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. If one gained a questionable or degraded moral framework from one’s parents, the superego may never ascend to higher levels of morality, ethics, and behavior; but at its best, the superego promotes altruism and empathy that work for the best interests of humankind.
When the ego is functioning optimally in directing the biological drives of the id toward morally and socially acceptable directions for expression and satisfaction; and allowing the lofty ethical and humanitarian goals of the superego opportunity to promote the general welfare of one’s fellow human beings; while finding for the ego itself that satisfaction in social and professional accomplishment that it seeks--- the construction of a personality descriptive of the great moral paragons--- extremely good human beings--- in history and contemporary life becomes possible.
The observations of the great behaviorist psychologist B. F. Skinner also are highly important to consider in a discussion of human sexuality. Skinner held that, while complex in detail and operating according to varying schedules and patterns over time, people do what they do essentially because of the combination of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment that the person has received for their behaviors:
>>>>> Positive reinforcement is the most important shaper of human behavior, representing rewards received for the behavior exhibited.
>>>>> Negative reinforcement is the withdrawal of an aversive (punishing) consequence once desired behavior has been demonstrated.
>>>>> Punishment is the occurrence of an aversive consequence for the behavior demonstrated.
The applicability of these principles to human sexuality concerns the individual person’s experience.
If a young person has grown up in a home, for example, in which there is a high degree of dysfunction, and in which the child or adolescent does not receive proper nurturing and care; and then if the youth’s experiences at school are also aversive; that young person is then very likely to be receptive to other kinds of rewards in the search for personal identity, social status, and physical gratification.
Such a child or adolescent, once a candidate for happiness at home and at school, with an optimistic vision for future educational and professional success; gains reward instead in the life of the street, gang affiliation, criminal conduct, and promiscuous sexual behavior.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
A person should always be aware, then, that responsible sexual behavior is not chosen of one’s own free will; but rather is determined by one’s biological imperatives and an environment that rewards healthy, happy expressions of sexuality.
Sexual intercourse should never occur unthoughtfully, without considering the rewards to which one is responding and the consequences:
Is one engaging in sexual intercourse merely for the satisfaction of the biological drive? If so, this is wrong and harmful.
Is one engaging in sexual intercourse merely to satisfy one’s need for self-esteem, or for the selfish desire just to have the experience? This also is wrong and harmful.
Or is one engaging in sexual intercourse with due regard for the impact that this significant human activity may have on one’s own future, the people of importance in one’s daily life (family, friends, frequent associates), and for the general good of humankind (others who are or could be positively affected by one’s professional and personal commitments at the current time and in the future)?
If these factors are considered, if one proceeds in the act of sexual intercourse with due regard for agape and philia, as well as eros, then the chances are maximized that the expression of erotic desire in the act of sexual intercourse is appropriate for the time and circumstances.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The years of adolescence are too early for sexual intercourse:
Experience is too limited, the number of human relationships has been too few, and the quality of human relationships cannot be as high as will be the case once greater experience is acquired. In order to have a vision of a sexual partner with whom the act of sexual intercourse can be undertaken at a high level of aesthetic, ethical, and physical satisfaction, one must have a great deal of experience in the world, far beyond that which can be descriptive of the life of a person at the time of adolescence.
The college-bound person, for example, needs to get to know people on the campus of attendance over multiple years. The person with professional aspirations, such as the prospective physician, would do very well to get to know people who also have ambition to be physicians--- or people with similar aspirations that will require a high level of education and multiple years of training.
If one takes these factors into consideration, an age at which sexual intercourse is likely to be satisfying becomes identifiable. One would do best to utilize the years at ages 17, 18, and 19 to get to know as many different people as possible, including the dating of a great number of people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, religious beliefs, and life aspirations.
At about the age of 20 the consideration of a partner for sexual intercourse becomes legitimate. Some people may be committed to wait until marriage even at that time. But for those who have not identified a permanent mate, or whose professional and life aspirations might lead them to defer marriage until the late 20s or beyond, sexual intercourse with a good and caring person under properly safe and planned conditions is a legitimate decision.
At that point, the two people would need to agree on the context in which they are engaging in sexual intercourse. If there is no commitment to an enduring relationship, the two people should nevertheless agree that the proposed sexual activity be undertaken with a high degree of mutual respect, using effective methods of birth control, and with a desire to demonstrate their passion in an artistic, loving (keeping in view that there are different types of love), and morally elevated experience from which both partners are likely to emerge as morally, intellectually, and sexually satisfied human beings.
Sexuality, like all human endeavor, is a great gift from God and must be undertaken responsibly--- at the right time, under the right conditions, and with the right person.
Essay #5: Moral Imperatives of the Cultural Enriched and Fully Lived Life
As far as we know, we have one chance for this earthly sojourn. We will not get this chance again. Whatever visions we have for the afterlife, on earth we get one chance to show the Divine and ourselves what we can do. We do not have an easy task, because the vision of life that is presented to us in everyday experience is so dim, so trivial, so corrupt.
In her transcendent poem, “On the Pulse of Morning,” Maya Angelou properly chastises us for the way that we have fallen short, writing
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness
Have lain too long
Facedown in ignorance
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.
Hopeful, Angelou tells us to
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For a new beginning.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
Similarly, in his remarkable “Allegory of the Cave” from his philosophical masterpiece, The Republic, Plato describes the condition of the general populace of people living their lives as if chained as prisoners deep down in a cave, where they have seen only shadows things; they have never witnessed things as they really are, out in the open, in the radiance of the sun.
Plato presents a scenario whereupon one person does escape from the cave to look at things under the bright sunlight, at first with adjusting eyes straining and longing for return to the cave--- but then with increasing satisfaction at seeing the world with clarity. Plato says that for those who have seen such a world, the ultimate responsibility is to bring others to things in their full beauty, by returning to the cave and helping others out.
But before doing this, the person whose soul has been thus liberated must seize the responsibility to use this newfound opportunity to contemplate even better things, most especially the true, ultimate, Form of Goodness, so that life in the light can approach the Ideal:
In the world of knowledge, the last thing to be perceived and only with great difficulty is the essential Form of Goodness. Once it is perceived, the conclusion must follow that, for all things, this is the cause of all that is right and good; in the visible world it gives birth to the light and to the lord of light, while it is itself sovereign in the intelligible world and the parent of intelligence and truth. Without having had a vision of this Form, no one can act with wisdom, either in his own life or in matters of state.
This passage from Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” in The Republic has resonance with the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:
For now we see through a mirror dimly; but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, Even as I have been fully understood.
Both the passages from Plato and from St. Paul impress upon us the dimness of the world of appearances and the greater reality that lies beyond that world. The person who lives life to the fullest seeks higher realms of thought and experience than can be found in the world of appearances, finding in thought, meditation, and prayer pathways to Goodness, Ultimate Reality (recall Brahman [“World Soul”] of the Hindus), God. In establishing a firm connection to the Divine, one loses fear of the judgment of mere human beings, acting with conviction and courage in ways that make of this world a better place.
Robert Kennedy thus spoke in poetic oratory from his “Moral Courage” as follows:
Few are willing to bear
the disapproval of their fellows,
the censure of their colleagues,
the wrath of their society.
Moral courage
Is a rarer commodity
than bravery in battle
or great intelligence.
Yet it is the essential,
vital quality
for those who seek
to change a world
that yields most painfully
to change.
Living without fear, acting with moral courage to make the world a better place, the truly happy person dwells on this earthly sojourn in the service of other people, perpetually manifesting in acts of profound altruism and empathy a concern for the well-being of humankind that arises from a wellspring of Divine Love.
Albert Schweitzer thus wrote:
I know not what
your future will be,
but one thing I know:
The only ones among you
who will be
TRULY HAPPY
Are those
who have sought---
and found---
HOW TO SERVE
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The possibilities for the person who lives life in the service of others are endless.
And the person who has received a knowledge-intense education--- loaded with information concerning mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts---- sees those possibilities most clearly. Such a person walks confidently into any human arena, speaks with conviction on matters of true importance, and elevates the discussion among her or his companions toward those levels of human existence contemplated by Maya Angelou, Plato, Hindu philosophers, the Buddha, and St. Paul.
Such a person moving in a world of love and knowledge finds repugnant the sort of stimulation that so many seek in alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, or corrupting pharmaceuticals. The world beyond appearances that can be seen by one living life to the fullest is too good and too beautiful ever to allow retreat into that fog where joy is sought and despair is found. The morally elevated and culturally enriched person finds in life itself that natural elevation of the spirit that those caught in a web of confusion and pain seek in the artificial high.
For indeed the morally elevated and knowledge-rich person is in a constant state of stimulation. Such a person is never bored. Each day becomes a quest for more chances to do good and to acquire more knowledge:
Other people provide opportunities for acts of human kindness. Books and knowledge-intensive websites provide efficient sources of personally sought knowledge, beyond the trivia of television and those banal forms of electronic media offering merely instant gratification:
Nature provides abiding chances to witness the wonder of Creation. Excellent music offers evidence of the Divine whispering to those people able to create the composition and to hear song. High quality painting, architecture, and sculpture command the attention of those able to understand the intimations of the Good moving the inspired hand, the open heart, the comprehending soul. Fine food commands attention and deepens appreciation for all the good things that God hath wrought.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The moral imperatives of the culturally enriched and fully lived life are universal love and manifestation of that love in the service of humankind.
Endowed also with broad and deep knowledge and the abiding desire to increase knowledge through reading, observation, and experience, such a person is ever ascending toward that level of existence where the human and the Divine unite.
Such a person moves beyond the joy of the moment toward happiness in Eternity, living in full appreciation of this one earthly sojourn.
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