The Cost of Materialism and Prejudice

It's been a while since I looked at the Post's opinion section. I was really quite surprised to find that it is still publishing the rantings of this lunatic anti-Semite. If anyone needs a reminder of just what an idiotic fool this jerk is, here's what the Washington Post wrote on January 26, 2008: "Gandhi's comments were part of a discussion about the future of Jewish identity on the religion blog On Faith at washingtonpost.com. He wrote that Jewish identity is "locked into the holocaust experience," which Jews "overplay . . . to the point that it begins to repulse friends." The Jewish nation -- Israel, he wrote -- is too reliant upon weapons and bombs and should instead befriend its enemies.

"Apparently, in the modern world, so determined to live by the bomb, this is an alien concept. You don't befriend anyone, you dominate them. We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity," he wrote."

Just a reminder of how low the standards are at the Post.

I suppose the irony of Arun Gandhi posting against racism might be amusing to some; however, many of us are waiting to hear what he has learned form the aftermath of his vicious lunatic racist rant of Jan. 2008.

This despicable, idiotic screed resulted in his being fired from his post at the University of Rochester, but not OnFaith. Instead, Sally Quinn asked that Mr. Gandhi report on what he had learned from the numerous protests against his sick screech.

No learning has been evidenced. In fact, he went on in interviews to deny his culpability and blame the victims for their outrage against his racism.

But look at the man about whom we are speaking, a joke in many quarters of his own country, who has yet to speak out, do anything forcefully about the enslavement of three hundred million people in India.

Pity the poor monster manunkind

I agree.

materialism and consumerism are sources of self gratification.

I am unconvinced that it is a republican issue though. (I suspect you are right but to make such a claim would need a statistical analysis.)

The question of why is bigotry present now a days is interesting. The question can be seen as implying it did not exist before. I suspect you don't mean that. Thus the question is why is it still around. I suspect that has to do with the human condition and a lack of moral teaching by those responsible for moral teaching: parents, churches, mosques. That may reflect the bankruptcy of the traditions morally in our current context - where authority used to define morality, there was no problem (the old world). Where morality defines authority, relativism confronts the old guard.

But that is not the same as an amoral culture. Thus I don't think we can claim "politics without principle." The new context of morality is a society with pluralist choices of right and wrong. This will be justified to the level of the individual, expressed in cooperative governance. That cooperation, an often forgotten part of Darwinian evolution by the way, yields the need for civic regulation. But in the democratization of power process (not power result), the opposition is essential. Here competition comes in. But consumerism argues that the most popular is the best (it becomes a commodity, has the largest market, and thus the longest term profit to market exploiters). But morality is quite the opposite - only a few are exceptionally moral. The question becomes as we democratize the process, do we value the few and thus follow their lead or do we value the many and thus have no leader.

Krishna and Ram both are avatars to show humans as prototypes of human behavior. They each sacrifice their supreme power, to demonstrate what a loving, caring, and good person are. Arjuna, and thus we, are asked to also be examples to each other. It is this teaching that needs to be brought out and can help the modern context - which after all, is sustained by the same biological human brain as that of 100,000 years ago.

Further, by removing the eternal damnation and the ideology of the other (and thus the chosen group), we free up the individual to seek for a deeper morality (personal absolutism) in a civic context (social relativism) and that dynamic results in participation, dialogue, challenges, recognition of diversity as a good, pluralism as a tool, and increased human freedom as a goal - politics with principle.

hariaum