All we need is love….
Michael Edwards writes in OpenDemocracy of Love, reason and the future of civil society.
All life, one might say, is negotiation, and the price of entry into civil society is the willingness to change one’s mind through an encounter with the views of others. Like rocks in a stream, the sharp edges of our differences are softened over time as they knock against each other [hyperlink in original]. A healthy civil society depends on the development of our collective capacities to talk, argue, innovate, learn and ultimately solve our problems together through a process of social reason. Harry Boyte [hyperlink in original] calls this the “politics of freedom”, in which no one has a monopoly of truth and everyone shares an obligation to negotiate their interests with each other. [More…]
As if that weren’t bad enough, Mr. Edwards goes on to put his foot in it wholesale. After describing how reason has led plenty of times in recent memory to atrocious acts of unreason, he asks, what is the power “that counterbalances the influence of reason in civil society?” [tsk tsk] Poor man, he’s gonna get nailed for this one: he says we need “the deliberate cultivation of mutually reinforcing cycles of personal and systemic change.” Um, does this mean I have to change my shopping patterns, ’cause I can’t buy me love?
“The essence of love”, says the “Institute for the Study of Unlimited Love” at Case Western University, “is to affectively affirm as well as unselfishly delight in the well being of others, and to engage in acts of care and service on their behalf, without exception, in an enduring and constant way.”
This is universal love, unconditional love, attached only to the equal and general welfare of the whole. [More…]
Well, yes, and maybe this is Kool-Aid.
…But you know what? He could be right. And besides, it’s New Year’s Eve, and 2005 was a bit of a stinker in many ways, so drink up.
See you in ’06 — Happy New Year! Just remember, all you need is love.
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