{"id":164494,"date":"2020-07-13T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=164494"},"modified":"2020-07-09T11:09:21","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T10:09:21","slug":"heart-centered-rationality-and-the-peaceable-kingdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/07\/heart-centered-rationality-and-the-peaceable-kingdom\/","title":{"rendered":"Heart-Centered Rationality and the Peaceable Kingdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

8 Jul 2020 – <\/em>In his 1844 Manuscripts<\/em>, Karl Marx is an existential humanist.\u00a0 He engages in Socratic questioning and provocation.\u00a0 He echoes Buddha\u2019s critique of ignorance, oppression, alienation. \u00a0He foreshadows Sartre and Camus \u2013 their protest against the absurdity<\/em> of our social condition. \u00a0And as part of his egalitarian, holistic, humanistic vision, Marx was early and perpetually a vigorous environmentalist.<\/p>\n

As Marx\u2019s thinking and writing evolved toward The Communist Manifesto<\/em> and Das Kapital<\/em>, he was<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. developing his pioneering notion of species consciousness<\/em>, currently resurrected as morphic resonance<\/em> in the work of Rupert Sheldrake;<\/li>\n
  2. working out an egalitarian social program aiming toward peace and prosperity, based on ecology and holistic thinking; and<\/li>\n
  3. calling for what Nietzsche would soon term a \u201ctransvaluation of values.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The value inversion at the heart of the paradigm shift: Put peace first.<\/p>\n

    The war and suffering endemic in the current world structure puts prosperity first (read: the wealth of the mega-rich), with peace (and the appearance of peace, like shadows on the wall in Plato\u2019s cave) flickering off and on as befits economic apartheid and its cycles of boom and bust.<\/p>\n

    Socrates says wisdom is pursuit of wisdom; virtue is pursuit of virtue.\u00a0 This parallels Parsifal\u2019s quest for the Holy Grail of enlightenment.<\/p>\n

    It mirrors the Buddhist path of awakening \u2013 detachment fused with a passion for compassion.\u00a0 It embodies the Taoist art of being in the world but not of it<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    To be is to interbe.\u00a0 Interbeing points to universal brother-sisterhood.\u00a0 The Buddhist sangha<\/em> \u2013 commune \u2013 exhibits the spirit of The Peaceable Kingdom.\u00a0 Peace and awakening go together.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe demand to put an end to illusions about our condition is a demand to put an end to the conditions which require illusion.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Marx articulates here the heart of Plato\u2019s cave parable.\u00a0 He also echoes Buddha\u2019s second and third Noble Truths \u2013 suffering is caused primarily by ignorance, and freedom from ignorance and suffering is possible, and clearly preferable.<\/p>\n

    Marx saw a classless society as the only viable way to actualize, if you\u2019ll forgive the Schindlerian paraphrase, Buddha\u2019s word-teaching mission to universally end so much unnecessary suffering<\/em>.\u00a0 Which, of course, means ending both poverty and war.<\/p>\n

    An enlightened society secures the economic security of the many for the sake of the well-being of the whole.\u00a0 This holistic, social sangha<\/em> ideal is pragmatic, democratic, utilitarian, realistic<\/em>.\u00a0 It secures leisure time for family and group interaction, travel, and education; i.e., personal and social evolution.\u00a0 It applies equally to what Marshall McLuhan called \u201cthe global village.\u201d<\/p>\n

    There is a planetary groundswell of awakening, a resurgence of the spirit of The Renaissance and The Enlightenment, urging what Kant called \u201chuman dignity,\u201d what John Stuart Mill called \u201cthe greater good,\u201d Martin Buber named \u201cI-Thou\u201d interbeing, and it is fiercely opposed by what Freud called \u201cthe furies of private interest,\u201d manifest as greed, prejudice, and violence.<\/p>\n

    Rousseau: \u201cMan is born free, but he is everywhere in chains.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

    H. G. Wells: \u201cHistory is more and more a race between education and catastrophe.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

    Immanuel Kant: \u201cWe live in an age of enlightenment, but we do not yet live in an enlightened age.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

    Voltaire: \u201cIt is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

    Gandhi: \u201cWestern civilization?\u00a0 I think it would be a good idea.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Humanity\u2019s survival now depends on a long overdue and necessary inversion of values<\/em>.\u00a0 The new equation reads: peace and prosperity.\u00a0 Peace first.\u00a0 And peace includes redistribution of the world\u2019s wealth.\u00a0 Peace is egalitarian, where cooperation takes precedence over competition.<\/p>\n

    Helen Keller was a socialist, and blind though she was, she saw more than America has yet to see.\u00a0 The Dalai Lama calls himself a socialist because Awakening is both personal and global, ontologically entwined, and, as Eckhart said:<\/p>\n

    \u201cCompassion is where peace and justice kiss.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    When each person, each family, has economic security, peace is possible, and certainly more probable.<\/p>\n

    Buddha, Eckhart, Rousseau, Marx, Mother Jones, Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Tenzin Gyatso \u2013 all urge us to Realize that \u201cpeace and prosperity\u201d is kinetic, creative, challenging.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s a formula that nourishes, and it needs<\/em> nourishing.\u00a0 It\u2019s a razor\u2019s edge.\u00a0 A middle way.\u00a0 Every day: challenge and response; being-in-the-world-with-others.<\/p>\n

    Freedom entails work.\u00a0 Buckminster Fuller:<\/p>\n

    \u201cThere are no passengers on spaceship earth; we are all members of the crew.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Awakening is where personal prosperity is conjoined to a life of learning, service, and voluntary simplicity.\u00a0 The social gestalt exhibits global cooperation to care for and sustain a healthy biosphere, bequeathing to all children, now and henceforth, the world of peace and beauty they deserve.<\/p>\n

    Peace and prosperity, as a paradigm of virtue, embodies an attitude of gratitude for the miracle of life, and a dedication to the art of education.\u00a0 If you will: nirvana in<\/em> samsara.\u00a0 The Peaceable Kingdom on earth.<\/p>\n

    Where schools are gardens of learning, adventures in self-discovery, palaces of creativity.<\/p>\n

    Where lifelong educational opportunity is guaranteed.<\/p>\n

    Where street fairs and festivals are a weekly, perhaps nightly, occurrence.<\/p>\n

    __________________________________________________<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/em>Stefan Schindler taught philosophy, psychology, education, and religion for 40 years at institutions of higher learning, including The University of Pennsylvania, La Salle University, Berkley College of Music, The Boston Conservatory of Music, Dance and Theater, and the Boston and Brookline Centers for Adult Education.\u00a0 Co-founder of The National Registry for Conscientious Objection, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, a recipient of The Boston Baha\u2019i Peace Award, and a Trustee of The Life Experience School and Peace Abbey, Dr. Schindler received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston College (on Freud, Sartre, Hegel, and Jung). He wrote The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Awards for Howard Zinn and John Lennon.\u00a0 His books include <\/em>The Tao of Socrates and <\/em>America’s Indochina Holocaust.\u00a0 His forthcoming book is titled <\/em>Buddha’s Political Philosophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The war and suffering endemic in world structure puts prosperity first, with peace (and its appearance like shadows in Plato\u2019s cave) flickering off and on as befits economic boom and bust. Humanity\u2019s survival depends on an inversion of values: peace and prosperity. Peace first. And peace includes redistribution of the world\u2019s wealth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":137963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[119,308,380],"class_list":["post-164494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus","tag-peace","tag-philosophy","tag-solutions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}