Restoring the Human Connection: The First Step to ... - SGI-USA

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sorrow.For those upholding a faith, the next order would be that of thesupernatural or divine—a fifth order with which Comte-Sponville, anatheist, does not concern himself.Comte-Sponville stresses that these are distinctions, not divisions, and thatwe in fact live within the simultaneous overlapping of these four orders.What is crucial are the interrelations among them. Each is directlycontrolled by the order immediately above it: thetechnological-economic-scientific by the legal-political, the legal-politicalby the moral, etc.Society is disrupted when the functional lines between these differentorders are blurred. Marx, according to Comte-Sponville, clearly confusedthe first and third when he attempted to moralize economics. The resultwas “the shift from the Marxist utopia of the nineteenth century to thetotalitarian horror of the twentieth century of which we are all aware.” 19For us today it is equally a mistake to try to moralize capitalism.Capitalism revolves on its own axis, pursuing without cease that which ispossible and that which is profitable. This is its essential nature. Valuessuch as the assurance of employment and employee benefits will naturallytake second place to the pursuit of profit. Further, those living under thesway of the technological-economic-scientific order may be nucleartechnocrats who, in pursuit of the possible, would strive to enhance thedestructiveness and lethality of weapons with no thought to the horrorsresulting from their use. Or they may be bio-technocrats who, in pursuit ofthe possible, would engage without hesitation in human cloning andgermline genetic engineering, which can undermine the fundamentalconditions for human dignity. Comte-Sponville lambastes these as“technically competent wretches.”18
It is not my intention to paint all engaged in the economic and scientificfields with the same broad brush. There are, needless to say, many ethicalbusinesspeople and scientists. But so long as the basic axis is that which ispossible versus that which is impossible, there is a persistent danger thatthe human element will be overlooked.Looking at our world today, we see clear signs that such negativepotentialities are being realized. A purely egocentric life-state, inflated to aheight of 84,000 yojanas, marginalizes the existence of the other. Humanbeings, however, can exist only through their interrelations: Where there isno other, there can be no self. Humanity, in a word, has been drivencompletely from the stage. This kind of estrangement can make youngpeople, especially, vulnerable to those who would manipulate and prey ontheir need to believe.This is the crisis that contemporary civilization confronts. The internallogic of the technological-economic-scientific order is incapable ofrestraining those most responsible for the crisis—“technically competentwretches.” This restraint must be applied from without, principally fromthe second, legal-political order.In the same way, the internal logic of the second order is unable to restrainthe actions of sly “legalistic wretches” who abide by the letter of the law,and here again restraint must be applied from without, from the third,moral order. But the internal logic of this third order permits the existenceof “moralizing wretches”—hypocrites and dogmatists who know how toskillfully mouth the language of morality.The moral order does not readily accede to restraint from without; theethical order or order of love has the role of completing and opening themoral order to a higher realm of possibilities. Even if the virtues to which19
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Page 4 and 5: participated in a wide range of eve
Page 6 and 7: therefore vital that these states t
Page 8 and 9: Dealing with North Korea—both its
Page 10 and 11: was an expression of his optimism a
Page 12 and 13: infinitely small and insignificant.
Page 14 and 15: adjustment, it should be possible t
Page 16 and 17: The inhabitants of the world of ang
Page 20 and 21: they urge us are the same, the mora
Page 22 and 23: will help achieve a change in the d
Page 24 and 25: they possess nuclear weapons, worki
Page 26 and 27: At present, under the Moscow Treaty
Page 28 and 29: In my view, this is where young peo
Page 30 and 31: Last September, five nations—Kaza
Page 32 and 33: expansion of the scope of the treat
Page 34 and 35: Characterizing Japan as one storefr
Page 36 and 37: On October 2, 1960, I embarked on m
Page 38 and 39: world’s population to be denied a
Page 40 and 41: In January of 1975, I visited the U
Page 42 and 43: Among the political leaders and hea
Page 44 and 45: It is now thirty-five years since t
Page 46 and 47: second such summit following the De
Page 48 and 49: NOTES1 Toda, Toda, vol. 4, 565.2 Bo
Page 50 and 51: ——. 2005. “Toward a New Era o

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