Hate never yet dispelled hate
Only love dispels hate
This is the law
Ancient and inexhaustible."
-- Buddha
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."
-- Jesus
In the aftermath of the horror of September 11, 2001, Kentucky farmer, author, environmentalist and activist wrote a stirring series of three essays, published as In the Presence of Fear.
Berry's clear grasp of what had happened and what needed to be done was a clear indictment of the Bush administration's response. Unfortunately, we have now seen that a change in administration did not change the fundamental nature of the plight we're in. Fourteen years later, the ascendancy of neo-liberalism, with it's on-going march of an unfettered corporate capitalism bolstered by military power abroad and a militarized police force and the national security state at home, makes Berry's words even more relevant.
Here is an excerpt from the first essay. It can be found in it's entirety at: https://orionmagazine.org/article/thoughts-in-the-presence-of-fear/
 |
| Wendell Berry |
This is why the substitution of rhetoric for thought, always a temptation in a national crisis, must be resisted by officials and citizens alike…
The aim and result of war necessarily is not peace but victory, and any victory won by violence necessarily justifies the violence that won it and leads to further violence…
What leads to peace is not violence but peaceableness, which is not passivity, but an alert, informed, practiced, and active state of being… The key to peaceableness is continuous practice…
No comments:
Post a Comment