Another World Is Needed*

Walk This Way

I went to a panel discussion the other night - "A Communist, a priest and a Buddhist discuss Morality". It was sponsored by the Revolutionary Communist Party, it was a packed house and it's apparent to me that people are dying for this discourse.

The Catholic priest started off and in his presentation he talked about something I thought very important that was never mentioned the rest of the evening. He stated that as a young man he had a mystical experience - being of God, with God, and God-like - and it changed the course of his life. He is a pacifist with a 40 year service and well respected credentials of social justice and antiwar work. It is also difficult these days to defend the Church and he didn't. He deflected into hierarchy and community, he siding with community.

The Communist was pro-Mao, atheist, and unapologetic about it. Unflappable in the Q and A, her case was exponential rationality, shilling a concept of "communist morality". I would love to believe her, and many there did, as exciting as she tried to make economic equality I was left with a coldness and grey Marxian concept of the world. The exploitative capitalist system has to end if this world is to survive, but the destruction of the family as she described seems unnecessary and cruel. She made many strong points, trying to put perfume on a pig.

The Buddhist argued that much of the superstitious nature of religion is comforting to humans. Animism, or the belief in spirits, is the most popular belief system in the world. The whole discussion had a Western/European/monotheistic slant which the majority of the population does not share. His short history on the Buddha, his rebellion and outgrowth against Hinduism and the caste system, the precepts of belief were powerful and most comforting to me. He certainly disagreed with the RCP gal on Mao and the Cultural Revolution treatment of Buddhists and Chinese treatment to this day.

I take it all in through the emotional lens, as I often do these days. One person had a powerful emotional life changing experience and through it has added love and compassion in this world by his actions, words and deeds. The next is totally infused by intellect and rational ordering of society, one human a cut out resembling the other. The final speaker dwelled on the pain and suffering a person has by attaching or craving his desires. It is best to control and be one step ahead of those destructive emotions for a useful life.

Three profoundly different views of the future, all well presented. I'm glad I went, I hope the road show comes your way.