Love as a Force for Social Justice
Our second course was titled Love as a Force for Social Justice. The premise is that non-romantic, agape love is the way to approach life and make change in the world. Examples are taken from the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious traditions. Buddhism and Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence are also addressed. Ultimately, the course came down to a “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” approach. I have no problem with the golden rule. Yet, the course spent the majority of the term attempting to define non-romantic love (which ended up being the golden rule), rather than explaining how this furthers social justice. As with all things, you take what you can. During this course, I randomly opened one of the “little library” boxes around town and found an anthology on the power of nonviolence (The Power of Nonviolence - Writings by Advocates of Peace - Howard Zinn). It includes writings from Buddha and Thoreau to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Arundhati Roy. It cam