The Necessity of Kindness
Posted on 06 November 2017
A: Although it looks reprehensible, I’m pretty sure almost all of the companies and people acted legally within the laws of their respective countries.
B: Doesn’t make it “right” though, does it.
A: What is right? What is right often is seen from a moral point of view and morals change as fast as fashion.
We are seeing a lot of cynical self-interest passing itself off as realism. This form of realism is polluting all ends of the political spectrum. The problem is that it’s ultimately self-destructive. If you only protect your own house when your neighbors’s houses are burning, you may suddenly find they were providing essential services you no longer have.
This was my answer to the above conversation:
What is right is to support the pro-social.
What is even more right is to support the life-affirming.
Allowing people to die in suffering and poverty will never be right.
Using up what our living world has to offer such that we are bringing about its extinction will never be right.
You can get a solid beginning in understanding what is right by reading these documents:
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
In 1948 of the 58 members of the United Nations, 48 voted in favor, none against, eight abstained, and two did not vote.
Declaration of a Global Ethic
This Declaration was signed at the Parliament of the World’s Religions gathering in 1993 by more than 200 leaders from 40+ different faith traditions and spiritual communities. Since 1993 it has been signed by thousands more leaders and individuals around the world.
Declaration of Human Rights and the Environment
On 16 May 1994, an international group of experts on human rights and environmental protection convened at the United Nations in Geneva and drafted the first-ever declaration of principles on human rights and the environment. The Draft Declaration is the first international instrument that comprehensively addresses the linkage between human rights and the environment.
In peace and kindness,
Katherine
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