The lowly seer

The only way forward

While reading this chunk of President Ikeda's 2007 Peace Proposal, I was struck by just how so many of our current problems stem from this same cause:

At the heart of the nuclear issue is a potential for destructiveness inherent in human life. It is a function of this destructiveness to shred our sense of human solidarity, sowing the seeds of mistrust and suspicion, conflict and hatred. Buddhism characterizes this as the life-state or "world" of anger, which, when it becomes undirected and unrestrained, is a rogue and renegade force, disrupting and destroying all in its path.

...

This same world of anger is at the heart of many of the issues confronting contemporary civilization, with its high degree of capitalist and technological development. It is necessary to reposition economic values within the various hierarchies of values integral to the processes of life, to train and tame the capitalist system. The key to this is a human awakening, a process of individuals and humanity reclaiming their rightful place.

Over the last 20-30 years we've had politicians preaching their "you can't buck the market" ideology, which while it's increased global wealth, has done so to the detriment of society. The wealth has not been distributed even slightly fairly leading to resentment and despair. Human values have been replaced by market prices. A hubristic war to capure Iraq's oil has left us with an increased terrorism threat, unprecedented levels of surveillance and a serious drain on the world's economy.
The attitude that we're ruled by some sort of natural law that dictates the economy and hence politics, is bogus and was carefully engineered to create this sort of society. I doubt its priests ever foresaw the dreary negativity that sprang up in its wake.
The solution isn't at the global political level, it's failed us so many times and will fail again. Contrast the high-mindedness of the Russian revolution on 1917 with its Stalinist outcome.

It's only by individuals making the change in themselves that evenually society can be turned round, in SGI parlance, "the Human Revolution".

posted by Les the Spaceman @ 10:49 am