I just returned from seeing my children perform in a children’s production of A Christmas Carol and I had to write this. It has been on my mind since last Christmas season.

In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol occurs the following exchange:

‘Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,’ said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, ‘but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?’

‘It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,’ was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. ‘Look here.’

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

‘Oh, Man! look here! Look, look, down here!’ exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

‘Spirit, are they yours?’ Scrooge could say no more.

‘They are Man’s,’ said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ‘And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!’ cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. ‘Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And abide the end!’

‘Have they no refuge or resource?’ cried Scrooge.

‘Are there no prisons?’ said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. ‘Are there no workhouses?’

It is easy to sit back and criticize the government for either not doing enough for those who are in real need or for providing entitlements and creating a portion of society dependent on and enthralled to an entity of force. It’s like “shooting fish in a barrel” to complain that business is “heartless” and seeking profit at the expense of the worker.

Where does the responsibility lay? Is it the purview of religion to make sure there is no Want or Ignorance? Is it the isolated role of the education establishment to assure gaining of knowledge, guaranteeing that there will be No Child Left Behind? Do the specialists in the media have the role of informing, opining, swaying public opinion and in effect telling people how to think?

At whose feet does Dickens lay the problems of Want and Ignorance? At yours. At mine. Are there no institutions to solve the problems? Are there no schools to educate the ignorant? Why is ignorance persistently present? Are there no TV programs, internet sites, radio programs, newspapers? Are there no welfare programs? Are there no church programs to address the issue of want? The problems are yours and mine. The solutions will be found in how you and I see the world and our fellow inhabitants hereon.

How often do we find that we use the excuse that Scrooge does early in the book in an attempt to justify Jacob Marley’s existence on earth: “But you were always a good man of business.”? How often are we too busy, to involved in “working for that which does not satisfy” to recognize what we must be truly about here on this planet? True social leadership requires some degree of the following attitude:

“Oh! Captive, bound and double-ironed, not to know that ages of incessant labor, by immortal creatures, for this earth, must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed! Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness! Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunities misused!

When we choose to follow the path of statesmanship, social leadership, discipleship, whatever the term, we sign up for the burden described above. We understand that our responsibility is profound and hard. We don’t cast blame on others for the problems of society; we accept them whole-heartedly as our own and understand that only through our actions can these “children of Mankind”, Want and Ignorance, be transformed by lovingly nourishing each other and sowing knowledge and truth.

Action Step: Seek out those opportunities this year that will allow you to take responsibility for your true business. Remember: “Mankind [is our] business. The common welfare [is our] business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence [are all our] business. The dealings of [our trades are] but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of [our] business!”

The crowd stood stunned, some muttering, some building to angry talk in small groups.  The President resumed, “Are we a Christian nation?”  The crowd murmured.  He asked again, “Are we a Christian nation?”  The crowd reluctantly muttered a spattering of yeses.  “Even those of us who aren’t Christians agree that revenge in the abstract is wrongheaded.  Well, we’re not dealing in the abstract anymore.

“What is America?  It’s not really a place.  It has no geographical boundaries.  It’s a concept not only of freedom and opportunity but also of letting the better angels of our nature rule.  Our Founding Fathers knew that only a moral people could remain a free people.  So, what choice is before us?  Do we descend into revenge to satisfy our base and animal instincts?  Or do we truly honor the lives of the fallen here and at the Pentagon and in Shanksville by rising above.  They, I believe, are in a better place where they are gaining a greater understanding.  And I think if we listen to our hearts, they, and the divinity within us, will speak to us the peace and hope of rejecting revenge.

“We will follow the laws of the land in finding and trying those responsible for this, and we’ll do all we can to prevent any such evil in the future.  We will not forget our loved ones nor the pain we feel at their lives being taken, especially this way.  But we will show our love for them, not through reprisal, but through faithfulness to the highest ideals they shared with us. 

“We must not be vengeful.  It is not in the founding character of America.  Let us pray for the families of the victims, for the families of the terrorists, and for strength to reach higher and be better.”

Some of the people gather around the President and joined him in prayer.  Others stood watching, and still others walked away angrily decrying his words.

But his choice that day made a difference in the world.

Our modern world is infatuated with the ends we have in our sight, the goals we want to accomplish, and the changes we want to see. Most people have the same needs and desires: liberty, happiness, security, prosperity, and peace. Why do we consistently find ourselves so far from where we want to be? The problem is two-fold: 1) we mistakenly believe that if we focus on the end we will attain it; and 2) we are using means that are inconsistent with those ends.

History is essentially the account of the means societies have chosen to achieve their ends. France of 1789 wanted “liberty, equality, fraternity.” Because they chose means inconsistent with those ends (“The Reign of Terror”) they reaped a dictatorship. The putative “means” (in the Treaty of Versailles) chosen by Great Britain and France to punish and weaken Germany after World War I accomplished the opposite. The terms of the treaty helped create the environment that allowed Adolf Hitler to rise to power.

The great modern philosopher, Jack Johnson, asks: “Where’d all the good people go?” and then answers his own question: “We’ve got heaps and heaps of what we sow.” There exists a natural law of the harvest: What we sow, that too shall we reap. Others may describe it as the law of cause and effect: we cannot act (the cause) in a certain manner without a specific consequence (the effect) naturally following that action. To believe otherwise is either naïve or insane.

For whatever reason, most of us attempt to defy these laws of the harvest or cause-and-effect. In my family I desire to raise freely obedient children who choose to do good for its inherent goodness; but I often resort to punishments, promises of rewards, or force in order to accomplish that goal. If I persist in these means, I will fail to achieve my end. Most desire to have a home filled with love, kindness, patience, and peace; but how often do we resort to yelling, arguing, blaming, sarcasm, belittling, verbal and sometimes physical abuse in what will be an impossible attempt to achieve our goal?

As a society, we have chosen to be ends-based and goal-oriented, asking ourselves the wrong question (what do we want to accomplish?) instead of asking ourselves the right question: How must I live my life in order to achieve the right ends? If we focus on means instead of ends, our planting will naturally bring us the desired harvest: true means will take us to true ends.

Consider foreign policy for a moment. What do the citizens of nations want? We want food and shelter for our families, peace, freedom, and protection of life. What are the means that will bring these into being? Protectionism, nationalism, war, exploitation, racism, ethnic cleansing, and imperialism? No!

Louis Fischer, in his wonderful short biography of Mohandas K. Gandhi writes: “Gandhi contended that to act while renouncing interest in the fruits of action is the best road to success”.

He who is ever brooding over result often loses nerve in the performance of duty. He becomes impatient and then gives vent to anger and begins to do unworthy things; he jumps from action to action, never remaining faithful to any. He who broods over results is like a man given to the objects of senses; he is ever-distracted, he says good-bye to all scruples, everything is right in his estimation and he therefore resorts to means fair and foul to attain his end.

Living life by the right means, on the other hand, assures us that we will enjoy the fruits of our true labor. This method is diametrically opposed to the pragmatism and expediency that rule the day in modernism; it takes time and a generational view of the world. We must approach it understanding that our means, be they right or wrong, will have consequences many generations into the future. If we choose to use foul means, we will reap foul fruit.

This is the law of the harvest. We cannot expect to reap peace if we sow war. We cannot expect to reap love when we sow hatred. Our means are the sowing and fruits are the ends. One cannot choose to sow corn and expect to grow wheat. Thus our means are the determining factor of the fruit. To act otherwise is illogical, unwise, and doomed to failure.

Consider from literature the means of the Bishop of Digne, the transient, yet omnipresent (because of his impact), initial character in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Jean Valjean, a released convict who had seeds of hatred and humiliation sown in his heart by the criminal “justice” system or penal system, arrives on the doorstep of the bishop, filled with bad intentions. Although not a bad man when initially imprisoned, Valjean responds to the means used to “reform” or punish him for stealing a loaf a bread to feed his sister’s children by becoming filled with contempt, rancor, distrust, and evil designs. These are the natural ends of the means society employs in its effort to achieve justice. The bishop had chosen a different path. He loved Valjean, responding to his query “You knew my name?” thus: “Yes. Your name is ‘my brother’”, with utmost kindness and forgiveness, giving Valjean his silver candlesticks after the convict had just stolen the other silver in the house. This act of kindness, trust, forgiveness, and love sows a seed of the same, which society eventually reaps, as Valjean becomes a wonderful, kind, giving, and patient man. The impact of the means used by the Bishop of Digne is widespread and powerful, changing the lives of many.

If liberty, prosperity, peace, and the pursuit of happiness are the ends we seek, we must daily, hourly, vigilantly check our means to assure that they are completely consistent with these ends. Look around you. See what means we are using in education, families, religion, business, government, communities, foreign policy, and media and decide if what we are planting will give us the desired harvest. Recognize that we are, in all facets of our lives, reaping in abundance what we have sown. We must sow differently.

This book and the ideas of this man have greatly changed my personal point of view.  He was a significant force in the thinking of the 20^th Century.  But, like Christ and many other great teachers, many of his ideas are ignored or ridiculed simply because they are too darn hard for us “modern” people to implement.  We justify this to ourselves by calling them quaint and outdated, but really we’re just too lazy to act on them.

Below are some of my favorite quotes (believe me; I could have made it longer).

Personal Goodness and Betterment

“[M]orality is the basis of things and . . . truth is the substance of all morality”

“[I]t went against the grain with me to do a thing in secret that I would not do in public.”

“My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. . . .  Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word.”

“I think it is wrong to expect certainties in this world where all else but God that is Truth is an uncertainty. . . .”

“To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be harder far than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms.”

“[F]orgiveness is more manly than punishment. . . .”

“[S]trength does not come from physical capacity.  It comes from an indomitable will. . . .”

“The tacit contributor is not exempt from the retribution which must fall . . . , for evil is wrought by want of thought, and all who help in the working must partake of its harvest.”

“True sacrifice lies in deriving the greatest pleasure from the deed, no matter what the risk may be.”

“The slightest deviation from the straight and narrow path mapped out here would bring us down the precipice, not because the cause is at all unjust or weak, but because the opposition set up against us is overwhelming.”

“In trying to realize the false dignity of a false education, we have forgotten the true dignity of manual labor. . . .”

“[K]nowledge which stops at the head and does not penetrate into the heart is of but little use. . . .”

“Even a single lamp dispels the deepest darkness. . . .”

“The only tyrant I accept in this world is the ‘still small voice’ within me.  And even though I have to face the prospect of being a minority of one, I humbly believe I have the courage to be in such a hopeless minority.”

“Strength of numbers is the delight of the timid mind.  The valiant of spirit glory in fighting alone. . . .”

 “Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.  That is why Emerson said that foolish consistency was the hobgoblin of little minds. . . . 

“[A] devotee of Truth may not do anything in deference to convention.  He must always hold himself open to correction, and whenever he discovers himself to be wrong, he must confess it at all costs and atone for it.”

“I have never made a fetish of consistency.  I am a votary of Truth and I must say what I feel and think at a given moment on the question without regard to what I may have said before on it. . . .  As my vision gets clearer, my views must grow clearer with daily practice. . . .”

 “True morality consists not in following the beaten track, but in finding out the true path for ourselves and fearlessly following it.”

“We perish through our perishable bodies if, instead of using them as temporary instruments, we indentify ourselves with them.”

“The modern or Western insatiableness arises really from want of a living faith in a future [resurrected or reincarnated] state, and therefore also in Divinity.”

“[S]ometimes we have to pay too dearly for [compliments].”

Responsibility to our Fellow Man

“It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow-beings.”

“[S]ervice can have no meaning unless one takes pleasure in it. When it is done for show or for fear of public opinion, it stunts the man and crushes his spirit. Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.”

“My experience has shown me that we win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.”

“How heavy is the toll of sins and wrongs that wealth, power and prestige exact from man!”

“Happiness, the goal to which we all are striving, is reached by endeavoring to make the lives of others happy, and if by renouncing the luxuries of life we can lighten the burdens of others . . . surely the simplification of our wants is a thing greatly to be desired!”

“Loyalty to human institutions has its well-defined limits.  To be loyal to an organization must not mean subordination one’s settled convictions.  Parties may fall and parties may rise; if we are to attain freedom our deep convictions must remain unaffected by such passing changes.”

“I am loyal to an institution so long as that institution conduces to my growth, to the growth of the nation.  Immediately I find that the institution, instead of conducing to [this] growth, impedes it, I hold it my bounden duty to be disloyal to it. . . .”

“[Whilst] we may attack measures and systems, we may not, must not, attack men.  Imperfect ourselves, we must be tender toward others and be slow to impute motives.”

“[Self-rule] is to be attained by educating the masses to a sense of their capacity to regulate and control authority.”

“Those whom we regard as wicked, as a rule, return the compliment.”

“[D]o we not arrogate to ourselves infallibility when we seek to punish our adversaries?”

“I cannot picture to myself a time when no man shall be richer than another.  But I do picture to myself a time when the rich will spurn to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor, and the poor will cease to envy the rich.”

“The only real, dignified, human doctrine is the greatest good of all, and this can be achieved only by uttermost self-sacrifice.”

War and Force vs. Non-Violence

“Was not so much valor worthy of a better cause?”

“Brute force will avail against brute force only when it is proved that darkness can dispel darkness.”

“[P]hysical force is wrongly considered to be used to protect the weak. As a matter of fact, it still further weakens the weak, it makes them dependent upon their so-called defenders or protectors. . . .”

 “[All] terrorism is bad whether put up in a good cause or bad. [Every] cause is good in the estimation of its champion.”

“[As soon as] the subject ceases to fear the despotic force, the power is gone.”

“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary, the evil it does is permanent. . . .”

“History is really a record of every interruption of the even working of the force of love or of the soul.”

“A friend says that non-violence cannot be attained by the masses of people.  And yet, we find the general work of mankind is being carried on from day to day by the mass of people acting as if by instinct.  If they were instinctively violent the world would end in no time.  They remain peaceful. . . .  It is when the mass mind is unnaturally influenced by wicked men that the mass of mankind commit violence.  But they forget it as quickly as they commit it because they return to their peaceful nature immediately the evil influence of the directing mind has been removed.”

“The science of war leads one to dictatorship, pure and simple.  The science of non- violence alone can lead one to pure democracy. . . .”

“War with all its glorification of brute force is essentially a degrading thing. It demoralizes those who are trained for it. It brutalizes men of naturally gentle character. It outrages every beautiful canon of morality. Its path of glory is foul with the passions of lust, and red with the blood of murder. This is not the pathway to our goal. The grandest aid to development of strong, pure, beautiful character which is our aim, is the endurance of suffering. Self-restraint, unselfishness, patience, gentleness, these are the flowers which spring beneath the feet of those who accept but refuse to impose suffering. . . .”

“[H]uman nature will find itself only when it fully realizes that to be human it has to cease to be beastly or brutal. . . .”

“To Britain and the Allies [of WWII], . . . it is a marvel to me that you do not see that ruthless warfare is nobody’s monopoly.  If not the Allies, some other power will certainly improve upon your method and beat you with your own weapon.  Even if you win, you will leave no legacy to your people of which they would feel proud.  They cannot take pride in a recital of cruel deeds, however skillfully achieved.

“Even if you win, it will not prove that you were in the right; it will prove only that your power of destruction was greater. . . .”

“It is folly to suppose that aggressors can ever be benefactors.”

Means and Ends

“[P]ure motives can never justify impure or violent action. . . .”

“Means and ends are convertible terms in my philosophy of life.”

“They say ‘means are after all [only] means.’  I would say ‘means are after all everything.’  As the means, so the end.”

“If we take care of the means, we are bound to reach the end sooner or later. . . .”

“[T]he means to me are just as important as the goal, and in a sense more important in that we have some control over them, whereas we have none over the goal if we lose control over the means.”

“[O]ur concern is the act itself, not the result of the action. . . .”

“[One] man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department.  Life is one indivisible whole.”

Politics and Government

“Facts we would always place before our readers whether they be palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding now existing between the two communities in South Africa [or anywhere else] can be removed.”

“It rests with both [parties] to recognize that differences are not necessarily synonymous with superiority or inferiority and to patiently cultivate that spirit of self-restraint and toleration which . . . will . . . destroy the senseless rind of misunderstanding. . . .”

“It does not require much thinking to know that, under the operation of the brute law of force, the modern world is pressed down with the weight of misery and affliction, in spite of the vast system of organized Government and mechanical contrivances to make men happy. . . .”

“I should expect rulers to rule according to my wish, otherwise I cease to help them to rule me. . . .”

“[O]urs will only then be a truly spiritual nation when we shall show more truth than gold, greater fearlessness than pomp of power and wealth, greater charity than love of self. If we will but clean our houses, our palaces and temples of the attributes of wealth, and show in them the attributes of morality, one can offer battle to any combination of hostile forces without having to carry the burden of a heavy militia. . . .”

“It is as amazing as it is humiliating that less than one hundred-thousand white men should be able to rule three hundred and fifteen million Indians. They do so somewhat undoubtedly by force, but more by securing our cooperation in a thousand ways and making us more and more helpless and dependent on them as time goes forward.”

“[The Viceroy, Lord Reading’s] religious and moral views are admirable and indeed are on a remarkably high altitude, though I must confess that I find it difficult to understand his practice of them in politics. . . .”

“There is no conflict between private and political law.”

“Submission to the state law is the price a citizen pays for his personal liberty. Submission, therefore, to a state wholly or largely unjust is an immoral barter for liberty.”

“[W]e must refuse to purchase freedom at the price of our cherished convictions.”

“[A] government that is evil has no room for good men and women except in its prisons.”

“[A] government that is ideal governs the least.  It is no self-government that leaves nothing for the people to do. . . .”

“[T]hat nation will be blotted out of the face of the earth which pins its faith to injustice, untruth or violence.”

“[P]olitics bereft of religion are absolute dirt. . . .”

“[N]o special legislation without a change of heart can possibly bring about organic unity.  And when there is a change of heart, no such legislation can possibly be necessary. . . .”

“[Man] cannot be made good by law. . . .”

“Governments cannot afford to lead in matters of reform.  By their very nature governments are but interpreters and executors of the expressed will of the people whom they govern. . . .”

“I look upon an increase of the power of the State with the greatest fear, because although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of all progress.”

“[D]emocracy and violence can go ill together.  The States that are today nominally democratic have either to become frankly totalitarian or, if they are to become truly democratic, they must become courageously non-violent.”

At the heart of torture are two emotions that are inconsistent with the path to truth: fear and arrogance (demonstrated by utter disregard for another human being).

Because we allow fear to control our feelings, thoughts, motives, and actions we justify awful means because we fear the alternative end.

Because we arrogantly see others as less than human (yes, terrorists are still human beings) we rationalize our behavior to the point that there is no ethical or moral check on it. [I considered showing multiple images from Abu Grahib, but decided to keep this family-friendly].

At this post at my personal blog, I discussed the effects of Nazi nationalistic and racial ideology and Soviet class ideology. Those on the path of fear will grab at any ideology to rationalize and justify the ends they desire.

Neo-conservatives currently use religious, cultural, and racial ideology to skew their view of torture, an act that is viscerally repulsive to any feeling human being. It is the most distorted means (among many such distorted means) to achieve the publicized sought-for end: security.

Gratefully, there are many who argue against torture and recognize its inability to obtain accurate or valuable information and the fact that it is utterly dehumanizing. However, many of these do so because “it’s against the Geneva Convention” or because “it’s illegal.”

Ethics is an idea that is above the legalistic world and is solidly a means-based discipline. Ethics, from the Greek ethikos means, moral, or showing moral character. It has at a deeper meaning a connection with theos, meaning god.

Legalification (yes, it’s a made-up word) is the process of justifying actions by making them legal, even though they are morally reprehensible. Instead of individuals operating life based on what all cultures accept as moral and correct, legalification allows persons to obtain a judicial opinion on an action so that it becomes acceptable.

The judges who wrote the memoranda for the Bush adminstration to allow torture are morally responsible for their action and those who carried out the torture. Those who performed the torture are not “legally” responsible for their action (since the judges legalified the torture), but they still carry the moral responsibility for their treatment of another human being.

Legalification is one of the more dangerous slippery slopes to rear its head in the last 30 years. In his speech at Harvard commencement in 1978, Alexander Solzhenitsyn identified this relatively new method of control, oppression, and deviation from the path of morality and self-responsibility thus:

Western society has given itself the organization best suited to its purposes, based, I would say, on the letter of the law. The limits of human rights and righteousness are determined by a system of laws; such limits are very broad. People in the West have acquired considerable skill in using, interpreting and manipulating law, even though laws tend to be too complicated for an average person to understand without the help of an expert. Any conflict is solved according to the letter of the law and this is considered to be the supreme solution. If one is right from a legal point of view, nothing more is required, nobody may mention that one could still not be entirely right, and urge self-restraint, a willingness to renounce such legal rights, sacrifice and selfless risk: it would sound simply absurd. One almost never sees voluntary self-restraint. Everybody operates at the extreme limit of those legal frames. An oil company is legally blameless when it purchases an invention of a new type of energy in order to prevent its use. A food product manufacturer is legally blameless when he poisons his produce to make it last longer: after all, people are free not to buy it.

I have spent all my life under a communist regime and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either. A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relations, there is an atmosphere of moral mediocrity, paralyzing man’s noblest impulses.

And it will be simply impossible to stand through the trials of this threatening century with only the support of a legalistic structure.

Rule of law can be a powerful equalizer for humanity, but it does not replace rule of morality. To walk the Fearless Path is to disregard the latitude given by legalification of certain behaviors and stay within the moral hedges that “the high level of human possibilities” provide us if we chose a means-based life.