BLUNDERS OF THE WORLD

Blunders of the World are the source/true roots of human violence, they each mark a common human oversight that leads to suffering and destruction which grows the violence that plagues the world. Supposedly, there are no other mistakes of significant consequence. The blunders are: - Wealth without work. - Pleasure without conscience. - Knowledge without character. - Commerce without morality. - Science without humanity. - Worship without sacrifice. - Politics without principles. Mohandas Gandhi called these disbalances “passive violence,” which fuels the active violence of crime, rebellion, and war. He said, “We could work ’til doomsday to achieve peace and would get nowhere as long as we ignore passive violence in our world.” The blunders have been institutionalized, built into our corporations, our governments, our very culture. Not only are we no longer embarrassed by them; we actively practice them. In some of them we even take pride, we entice ourselves with the promise of wealth without work. Whole sectors of the economy offer pleasure without conscience. Many scientists believe their greatest strength is their ability to separate their knowledge from their character and their science from their souls. Somehow our public discussion has become dominated by either-or simplicities. If you complain about commerce without morality, you are accused of being against commerce. Suggest bringing humanity back into science, and you’re anti-scientific. Say there’s something wrong with wealth without work, and you’re class-jealous, a hater of rich people, an underminer of capitalism. The murmur that worship might require sacrifice, that faith might entail service to the unfortunate, and you are suddenly an enemy of religion. This simplistic thinking seems incapable of embracing the idea of BALANCE, which was Gandhi’s central point. He wasn’t calling for work without wealth or humanity without science, he was calling for work AND wealth. Science AND humanity. Commerce AND morality. Pleasure AND conscience. Life is full of unsolvable problems. Pretending to have solved them by choosing just one or another of profound opposites can generate even more blunders than the ones Gandhi listed. Justice without mercy, Order without freedom, Talking without listening, Individuality without community, Stability without change, Private interest without public interest, Liberty without equality, Or, in every case, vice versa. Listen to our public debates about health care, crime, taxation, regulation. You will hear the Gandhian blunders, the frantic search for a permanent simplicity, the passive violence that leads to active violence. There’s no point in taking sides in these debates. There’s only an opportunity to point out that balance, discovered through love, is what we should be seeking — and what we will always have to be seeking. A balance to the Blunders! By: Sidiqah Uthman @rebirth_2003