A UN to eliminate Mercy From The Earth Forum For Peace Daisaku Ikeda THE TODA INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL PEACE AND POLICY RESEARCH This was the thrust of analysis I made in my 1990 peace proposal just months after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of the previous year.. I based this on my reading of Platos Republic., in which he states that by supporting the insatiable pursuit of freedom, democracy nurtures a multitude of desires that gradually and insidiously seize the citadels of the souls of youth, Finally , the situation gets out of control and a strong leadet is sought to restore order. From among the idle drones, a single stinger-equipped creature is chosen. In this way, Plato expresses the logic and likelihood of a regression from democracy to tyranny. The concerns I expressed at that time have not proven baseless. The unhinged march of finance-centered globalization has produced a world riven by disparities of an unprecedented scale, the unabashed worship of material wealth on the one hand and a corresponding sense of frustration at the absence of economic , justice on the other. This structural inequity is a key factor---perhaps the key factor---underlying the forms of terrorism now proliferating throughout the world. History teaches that any attempt to suppress terrorism and similar crimes through the unilateral application of force without a careful analysis of and response to the structural factors involved will only make things worse. Order that relies on force is the near neighbor chaos. As a Buddhist, I direct my deepest concern toward the mentality that has arisen against this backdrop- what might be described as a slide toward fundamentalism..This is not limited to the religious fundamentalism that has been the subject of so much debate., but includes ethnocentrism, chauvinism, racism and a dogmatic adherence to various ideologies, including those of the market. Such fundamentalisms flourish in conditions of chaos and disorder. What is common to all of them is that abstract principles and ideas take precedence over living human beings who in turn are forced into a subservient tole. While I will not attempt a detailed analysis here, I believe Albert Einstein(1879-1955); German Born American physicist, recipient for the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 expressed the essence of the issue when he stated, PRINCIPLES ARE MADE FOR MEN AND NOT MEN FOR PRINCIPLES
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 03:19:46 +0000
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