Good and Transactional Morality

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  • Good and Transactional Morality

    Regardless of your tradition, many prophets and wisdom teachers have pointed out, to their peril, that just because you follow the rules you have not necessarily discharged your obligations to the spirit of the God or wisdom teacher. Moral rules… Continue reading

  • Good and the Elephant

    We are frequently warned about the ‘elephant in the room’. You can be sitting in your living room and someone wisely points out that ‘we are avoiding the elephant in the room’ suggesting if we master the elephant maybe the… Continue reading

  • Good, People, War, Crime

    If you really want a prolonged war the first thing to do is to reduce people into categories. Create a box that looks like an egg crate and line those people up in neat abstract rows. Crimes of passion in… Continue reading

  • Good and the Brokers of Suffering

    After much contemplation I have come to think that to advocate for the legislation of morality is to declare one’s private self the Broker of Human Suffering. Legislating morality doesn’t reduce suffering as much as rearrange suffering in a different… Continue reading

  • Good and Power

    For some people good and power are contradictions and for others, near perfect synonyms. Of course both positions are false which is why we have two different words representing two distinct forces in this universe. The formal definitions of these… Continue reading

  • Good, Despair, and Broken Narratives

    There is no lack of opportunity to feel anger and despair. We live in a time where such emotions thrive. The rage of this historic moment spreads like mold, first sticking and disarming the very words we need to find… Continue reading

  • Good and Once Again, More Violence

    Entering the realm of violence is a one way journey. Crossing that threshold you cannot turn around and undo the the explosion of consequences that ripple down the stream and across the pond expanding the center of the violent act.… Continue reading

  • Good, Penalty and Civil Disobedience

    David French in his NYT article (Colleges have Gone Off the Deep End. There Is a Way Out) on college protests quoted Martin Luther King in his treatment of the conduct of civil disobedience. He writes: “the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther… Continue reading

  • Good, E Pluribus Unum, and Majority Rule

    The idea of e pluribus unum or ‘one out of many’ not only has roots in, but is in fact, ‘the root’ of the idealism underlying the tradition of the United States. Majority rule is a rough approximation of a solution to… Continue reading

  • Good, Efficacy, and Authoritarian Government

    I have carefully walked around all the ‘isms” on this website because I feel we need to speak from the heart sometimes or, as you may know by now, respond freely with discipline to our feeling states. Joy, inspiration, rage,… Continue reading