Let's Go Back to the Golden Rule

There could be no genocides, or wars over religion, or punishing of other people's choices and characteristics, if we put ourselves in the other's place. In her talk on TED.com from the June conference at Oxford, Karen Armstrong affirms the Golden Rule. She quotes Hillel - What is hateful to you, do not do to others. Such a simple statement, so hard to live up to.

Karen Armstrong's books and teachings in theology emphasize what religions have in common. TED granted her wish last year for a Charter for Compassion created by the online input of thousands of people worldwide, religionists or not. The Charter has its own website and will be published officially in a few weeks.

May it increase the sense of community Earth's people need so much.

Compassion leads to action.

Identity and Violence

Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, by Amartya Sen, W. W. Norton Company, New York and London, 2006.

Part of a series, Issues of Our Times, Series Editor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The writer, Amartya Sen, is a Nobel prize winner in economics.

I've just begun the book. A witness of violence between Hindus and Muslims at the partition of India, Sen seeks ways to overcome the way rigid standards of identity and solidarity often result in demonizing people outside that identity.

Us and them: Too much US, can lead to trying to destroy THEM.

Sen invokes the many ways we identify ourselves, the many circles we belong to, as a clue to seeing each other as complex, struggling, loving human beings rather than as radical Others.

I'll post as I go along. Hope you'll read with me.