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 came out right after 9/11 and it is a wonderful collection of essays that I would recommend as the text for this course.  My point is that I would not have been looking for this book had I not been taking the class.  So, in a very roundabout way, I found what I was looking for.

I think that whenever we are asked to remember the golden rule, it is a positive thing, even if it’s not new. Religious leaders say it, Gandhi said it, and philosophers say it. It is especially good to remember in times of stress and confrontation but hard to keep in the forefront. It is hard to believe that people used it to gain independence and I like being reminded of that. Consistency is a hard practice to adopt. I guess that is why meditation is so popular these days. We have been very fortunate in our lifetime to not have to worry about conscription of our family and friends in America. Yet other countries have not been so lucky. Those in Syria and the Ukraine need this reminder too.