Layer 428 . . . Forbidden Love, Sex on the Job, Rough Trade, Politics, Wee Dougie Alexander, and Adele

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Douglas Alexander has been chosen by Ed Miliband to become his shadow foreign secretary. This raises very serious questions about Brother Ed's ability to build a winning team. He's never actually managed an organisation in real life, and he's making a complete nonsense of the most important aspect of management - recruiting the right people to fill the key roles.

He totally messed up with his appointment of Alan Johnson to be his shadow chancellor - which also makes you wonder how much Ed himself knows about economics. Now that Johnson's resigned he's brought into his senior management team one of the dullest, most right-wing, most conservative, most careerist, most New Labourist little shits he could possibly have found.

The boy Alexander is an appalling choice. He's the ultimate machine politician. He's a revolting little toad of an arselicking, conniving, over-ambitious, political pillock. What's more, his speaking voice, his delivery and his language are so boring he's impossible to even listen to, let alone understand and appreciate.

He has no ideology, no principles, no regard for Labour traditions. He's the classic managerialist. He has no passion for equality and social justice whatsoever. He'll go along with whatever Ed Mili says is current policy, and he'll do whatever he's asked to do in order to keep his nose clean(ish) and further his career in politics.

This whining prat was in charge of DAVID Miliband's leadership campaign. What's that tell us about his effectiveness - he couldn't even get the hot favourite for the leadership to be first past the winning post. Brother David must be cringing in disbelief.

Voting record (from PublicWhip)

How Douglas Alexander voted on key issues since 2001:
   
    * Voted very strongly for the Iraq war.
    * Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war.
    * Voted strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws.
    * Voted moderately for replacing Trident.
    * Voted very strongly for introducing foundation hospitals.
    * Voted strongly for introducing ID cards.
    * Voted moderately against greater autonomy for schools.

This man was a bugler in the Boys Brigade, he's the son of a Church of Scotland minister, he was a speechwriter and a researcher for Gordon Brown, he was a solicitor for precisely six months, he supported Blair on the abolition of Clause 4, and he's done fuck all of any real use - ever.  He's typical lobby fodder.

Make your own mind up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Alexander

PS There's no point anyone saying that Alexander was/is a decent constituency MP. Even if that were the case - so what? There are lots of us who could be hard-working MPs, given half a chance. Those Labour politicians who hold the senior posts in politics ought to be those who have a track record of fighting for the principles of equality, social justice and solidarity which the Labour party was created to fight for. Alexander is a third-rate apparachik and a lickspittle who supports illegal wars, supports a police state, supports nuclear weapons, supported the most right-wing leadership the Labour party has ever had, and hasn't a single radical thought in his head.

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People on the political programmes this morning were all talking about politics being a 'rough trade' - as they were discussing the resignations of Coulson and Johnson, the promotion of Balls, the competence of the police, the further questions about Blair being a war criminal, etc.

Presumably the word 'trade' is supposed to differentiate politics from proper professions, for which you need academic qualifications - as distinct from trades such as building, carpentry, plumbing, electrical contracting, etc . . . for which you also need proper qualifications. Plus practical skills, rather than academic theory.

The professions are for the middle classes. Trades are for the working classes.

Working class men and women used to be in Parliament, but not any more. These days you need to be something like the son or daughter of a church minister, preferably with a first class degree in politics, philosophy and economics, or law; preferably from Oxbridge. There are lots of lawyers in Westminster and Washington.

By 'rough', they mean that if you're a politician you become an object for abuse, condemnation, ridicule and hatred. Which is true. I'm happy to give my fair share of abuse, whilst also trying to reasonable, accurate and honest.

If you put yourself up to be a representative for people's needs and aspirations, and you then fail to say or do anything of significance to challenge or change the status quo, and you fail utterly to improve the lives of the poorest sections of society (if you happen to be a Labour politician), then you thoroughly deserve to be despised and verbally roughed up.

People are going crazy with frustration, living in poverty, living with no hope of a decent job, let alone a career or a decent pension, whilst fat cats get ever fatter, thanks to the complacency, indolence and self-serving smugness of unprincipled, visionless bastards like Douglas Alexander. What the hell do they expect?

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Ello, Ello, Ello, Goodbye.

Undercover police officers are apparently allowed to have sex with those they're spying on, but they're not allowed to fall in love with anyone they're trying to bang up, so to speak. Sounds about right.

It would look very strange if some needy activist says to her environmentalist-activist 'colleague' - "I'm gagging for a damn good bonk, old mate - let's go back to my place and get jiggy," and he - who's apparently a healthy heterosexual male then turns round and says, "No thanks".

What kind of collegiality and solidarity would that show? That would blow his cover instantly. The 'activist' would immediately realise that she was in the company of of an undercover plod who's under orders not to do normal human things - like having sex.

On the issue of falling in love - well, what can one say? Falling in love is NEVER a good idea. Admittedly it can sometimes take half a lifetime for people to learn NOT to "fall in love" (and just as quickly fall out again) and to realise that the love drug is just as dangerous and  as addictive as crack and heroin. This can be a very hard lesson to learn, especially when someone's bloodstream is full of the endorphins produced by great sex with an attractive partner and they feel BRILLIANT!

There's a world of difference between wanting to be with someone whose company and whose sexuality makes you feel fully alive, and mistaking your desire for that person for enduring love.

Loving someone involves a hell of a lot more than desiring someone, wanting to be with someone, feeling good when you're with someone. There are thousands of books and films about people who fall in and out of love. Mills and Boon created an industry out of people's desire for romantic love. People might want it, but that doesn't make it desirable. It can seriously mess up your life. Especially if you're an undercover cop.

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There's a brilliant song about crazy love released this week by a young English singer called Adele. She and her band performed it last night on the Alan Carr show. It's a rocking and rolling soulful groove called Rolling in the Deep. Catch it here:

http://www.adele.tv/videos/179/rolling-in-the-deep-official-video

http://www.metrolyrics.com/rolling-in-the-deep-lyrics-adele.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3gkoU7KtG4&feature=fvsr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lazyDlfaptM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8slyQBbZFgc&feature=related

Great pounding rhythms, great voice, great backing vocals.

Very interesting how different her second album (21) sounds compared to her first album (19). Apparently the experience of touring in the USA and listening to soul and blues music had a huge impact on Adele, as she'd not really paid attention to these types of music previously.

The first single (from ("21")is a revenge tune "Rolling in the Deep". Adele described it as a "dark bluesy gospel disco tune."  -  Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adele_%28singer%29

The fact that Adele had a huge hit with Bob Dylan's "Make You Feel My Love" (which was on her first album) also speaks volumes about her excellent taste and musical sensibilities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0put0_a--Ng&feature=related

http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/make-you-feel-my-love

http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/a/adele/make_you_feel_my_love.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnn9JlqqTE4

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Sex Was A Tool

Undercover police cleared 'to have sex with activists'

Promiscuity 'regularly used as tactic', says former officer, contradicting claims from Acpo

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/22/undercover-police-cleared-sex-activists

Undercover police officers routinely adopted a tactic of "promiscuity" with the blessing of senior commanders, according to a former agent who worked in a secretive unit of the Metropolitan police for four years.

The former undercover policeman claims that sexual relationships with activists were sanctioned for both men and women officers infiltrating anarchist, leftwing and environmental groups.

Sex was a tool to help officers blend in, the officer claimed, and was widely used as a technique to glean intelligence. His comments contradict claims last week from the Association of Chief Police Officers that operatives were absolutely forbidden to sleep with activists.

The one stipulation, according to the officer from the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), a secret unit formed to prevent violent disorder on the streets of London, was that falling in love was considered highly unprofessional because it might compromise an investigation. He said undercover officers, particularly those infiltrating environmental and leftwing groups, viewed having sex with a large number of partners "as part of the job".

"Everybody knew it was a very promiscuous lifestyle," said the former officer, who first revealed his life as an undercover agent to the Observer last year. "You cannot not be promiscuous in those groups. Otherwise you'll stand out straightaway."

Well, of course - we all know these promiscuous activist anarchists are all bonking like bunnies. Especially the women. Mad, bad and dangerous to know. OK to shag though, if you really need to.

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Layer 275 . . . Positive Psychology, Maslow, and Individual Journeys

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A few remarks on "positive psychology" - thoughts which have been fermenting and distilling  in Oxzen's spirit refinery for quite a while. It's time for a tasting.

Firstly, "positive psychology" isn't even psychology. It's bleeding common sense, as far as it goes. You don't have to be a trained psychologist in order to understand it or practice it. Millions of Buddhists, for example, have been practitioners for millenia.

Abraham Maslow, who was a psychologist by trade, is usually referred to as the "father" of positive psychology. Since Maslow wrote about a hierarchy of human needs and described what he saw as "self-actualised" or fully evolved human beings (see Layer 20), a great many of his fellow practitioners have grabbed on to what he said and made a great deal of money out of it, using the label "positive psychology". Whereas, in fact, Maslow's insights actually amount to a philosophy of human development and human behaviour, and aren't a prescription for treating psychological disturbance and disorder.

Maslow understood that once our basic needs for safety, food, shelter and human relationships have been taken care of then healthy human beings are motivated by a quest for social, emotional and spiritual development. The driving forces beyond safety, sustenance and sex are the need to have and to receive what Buddhists call lovingkindness, along with sustainable feelings of joy and pleasure which occur through giving and receiving lovingkindness. These aren't terms used by Maslow, but it's clear to me, at least, that this is a useful way of paraphrasing what he said.

Beyond the positive feelings that occur through positive human contacts there is another level of joy and wellbeing which is gained through contact with nature, and feelings of awe and wonder that enter our beings when we feel a connection with the divine, and a sense that we're in fact connected with everybody and everything that exists. In other words, when we experience an enlightened sense of understanding that we're all part of everything and we depend for our existence on our place in the universal flux - beyond our individual egos; beyond our individual striving for power or riches or status; beyond even a concern for our own self-preservation.

At this level we appreciate just how precious an individual life can be, and we feel motivated to help others to walk a path towards greater enlightenment and wellbeing. Ultimately each of us has to make that journey through our own efforts, but we can all help one another along the way. Through our connectedness in a spirit of lovingkindness we can reduce levels of loneliness, misery and sickness, and promote universal wellbeing. The answers to life's challenges are not "out there", not in a God or gods, not in material wealth, and not in individual power or status. The answers lie within each of us, and in reaching higher states of enlightened living, and in promoting those states in others. Not only do we not need power or wealth or status in order to become a fully evolved human being - those things more often than not hold people back from attaining any degree of enlightenment.

Ignorance is what holds us back, and lack of insight. Many of the richest and most famous and powerful people are unbelievably ignorant. They may also be some of the loneliest and unhappiest. The possession of comfort, popularity, safety and oppulence is no guarantee of wellbeing, let alone happiness. Time spent on pursuing wealth and status is time that's unavailable for pursuing spiritual intelligence and enlightenment. If we have no time for reflection and meditation then we are doomed to remain mired in ignorance and poor in spirit.

Education could play a massive role in overcoming ignorance and spiritual impoverishment, but unfortunately the schools and colleges in most industrialised nations have been turned into mere results factories with their managers primed to believe that their aim is to prepare pupils for the world of work.

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This little spiel, this minor rant against "positive psychology", was sparked by a recent article in the New Statesman -  by Anna Minton, called "Smile now, cry later."

http://www.newstatesman.com/health/2010/03/positive-psychology-happiness

Britain has bought in to America’s positive thinking and is heavily pushing the “science of happiness” – but does it work?

Maslow moved to Brandeis University, Massachusetts, in 1951 and three years later published Motivation and Personality, which rejected the determinism of both the psychoanalytic and the behaviourist approaches to psychology, taking dynamic and successful figures as its model, rather than those with negative pathology.

Maslow referred to humanism as a "third force" behind these two schools of thought, and became known internationally as the founding father and leader of this emergent branch of psychology.

I'd urge readers to have a look at this article, and ignore some of its superficiality to just take note of its comments on Martin Seligman, his stupid formula, and the comments on Richard Layard. We should also take note of how Layard and others are promoting the idea of "happiness lessons" in schools, which may amount to not much more than promoting "learned optimism" and a capacity to see a glass as half full instead of (or as well as) half empty.

As I was saying . . . bleeding common sense. A century of psycho-analysis, psychological quackery, ECT, etc, has done nothing for the promotion of human wellbeing. Our only hope is to show our children what the best of humanity is capable of (Layer 20), and to provide the conditions in which they can begin their individual journeys towards self-discovery, self-actualisation, wellbeing, lovingkindess, spiritual intelligence and enlightenment.

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Talking of Individual Journeys . . .

Two of the people I'm very impressed with at the moment are David Haye, the world champion boxer, and Emma Thompson, Oscar-winning actress and screenwriter.

Not since the heyday of Muhammed Ali have I heard a boxer speak with such intelligence and lucidity. Yesterday was a Haye day, with the man himself speaking on Radio 4 about his fight this evening. You rarely hear anyone speaking as well as DH does, let alone a boxer.

Emma T was this week's guest on Desert Island Discs, and was also on TV promoting her latest film, Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. She's also a wonderfully intelligent and lucid speaker, and also has a superb, subtle sense of humour, just like her late father, the sublime Eric Thompson, who died tragically young following a stroke in his late 40's. The Magic Roundabout wasn't exactly his creation, but the words he spoke, in his incredibly listenable voice,  were entirely his own. Brian, Dougal, Dylan, Florence, Mr McHenry, Ermintrude, Mr Rusty, Zebidee - Eric did them all.-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/28/emma-thompson-kenneth-branagh

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/7530122/Emma-Thompson-says-work-saved-her-from-going-under-in-her-battle-with-depression.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Thompson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfNUdhFIVHA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zCGjSoZzkY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMZ_cQYOzkQ&feature=related


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This says it all:

Only drug dealers will benefit from this absurd ban on mephedrone

Prohibition will drive supply underground, endanger users and make it tougher to wean addicts off harder drugs

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/01/drug-dealers-profit-illegal-mephedrone-ban

As its last measure the present parliament will approve its silliest. It will "ban" a recently discovered party drug called mephedrone. MPs will declare next week that, while they may have been venal, spendthrift and corrupt, at least their final act will have protected thousands of young innocents from the devil. They will have well and truly banned something. They will feel much better, and go off whistling into the night.

Another government advisor has quit in protest against the government's handling of this issue:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8601315.stm

Eric Carlin said we need to get to the root causes of why young people use drugs. Indeed we do.And it's something to do with lack of a decent education, spiritual intelligence, and unbalanced human beings.

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Carly Simon was on the radio, talking about her heritage track, which turned out to be Cat Stevens'  "How Can I Tell You?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsk5MJeV5Qc

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/c/cat+stevens/how+can+i+tell+you_20028195.html

Interesting that she described the love she feels for her grandchildren as "an adrenaline rush" which occurs every time she sees them. I've never seen the words "love" and "adrenaline" linked in this way before, but it makes sense. If people feel a craving for "love" then it may well be because of the heightened sense of aliveness, wellbeing and joy they get from increased levels of adrenaline. After all, it's the drug of choice for people who are addicted to "falling in love".
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Layer 258 . . . More on Spiritual Intelligence and Citizen Ethics . . . and the BBC

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After considering the state of Britain (and the State of Britain) (as characterised by our attitude to football) I've come to the conclusion that we've no chance becoming an enlightened society unless we have a critical mass of people who, through developing their spiritual intelligence (and maybe even Zen), then start to behave in ways which might be called enlightened.

The Buddha recognised that enlightenment requires meditation and putting oneself in the service of others. There's no sign of our society signing up for these things any time soon. All we have is a few glimmerings of people here and there recognising that there IS such a thing as spiritual intelligence - and that it's something that ought to be developed in all of us. As things currently stand, very few people even understand that spiritual intelligence has nothing to do with religion or a belief in a God or gods.

[See Oxzen Layers 13 - 21.
http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/04/layer-12-spiritual-intelligence.html]

Words and concepts associated with spiritual intelligence:

LOVE - caring   compassion   friendship  forgiveness  generosity  helpfulness  joy  kindness tolerance   sharing  sympathy   patience

PEACE -  calmness  contentment  dignity  discipline  happiness  honesty  humility  understanding  patience   reflection  self-confidence  self-control  self-discipline  self-respect
optimism

RIGHT CONDUCT -  Contentment  Courage  Dependability  Duty  Ethics  Gratitude  Good behaviour  Healthy living  Helpfulness  Leadership  Initiative  Unity  Respect  Responsibility
Sacrifice  Self-confidence  Self-sufficiency  Simplicity  Perseverance

NON-VIOLENCE -  appreciation of others  brotherhood / sisterhood  citizenship  compassion
concern for all life  consideration  cooperation  unwillingness to hurt  equality  forgiveness
global awareness  good manners  loyalty  social justice  service to others respect for people and property  unity  universal love  collaboration

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Big Moral Questions

Readers may recall that 10 days ago the Guardian and the Observer started a campaign about what they call Citizen Ethics:

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2010/02/layer-250-citizen-ethics.html

Last week Madeleine Bunting wrote a superb column in the Guardian that really ought to be read in full -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/21/ethics-failure-market-moral-code

To tackle the last decades' myths, we must dust off the big moral questions

A robust debate on ethics is crucial to the pursuit of a good society in which individuals are more than mere economic units

To many of [our] kids, equipping them for the labour market [is] the primary purpose of ­education. Any idea of it as enriching and deepening their understanding of what it is to be human and lead meaningful, contented adult lives, had been entirely lost to view.

The gap that intrigues me [is] the absence of any notion of being a good person, or of the many values that might not be able to command a market price such as being challenging, courageous, truthful, honest, spontaneous, joyful or even kind, compassionate.

The central premise of the Citizen Ethics supplement published in this paper at the weekend (the full pamphlet can be downloaded on Comment is free) is that we have lost a way of thinking and talking about some very important things. The preoccupation with market ­efficiency and economic growth has loomed so large that other activities, and other ­values, have been subordinated to its disciplines.

"You can't buck the market," said Margaret Thatcher, and no government has disagreed since. It was the adage that was used to justify soaring pay for the highest earners and stagnant earnings for the low-paid. The ­market ruled, and questions of injustice, honour or integrity were all secondary or irrelevant.

A poll for the World Economic Forum last month found in 10 G20 countries that two-thirds of respondents attributed the credit crunch and its ensuing economic recession to a crisis of ethics and values. Sir Thomas Legg declared in his final report on MPs' expenses that there had been a failure of ethics.

There's a widespread perception that social norms have subtly and gradually shifted towards the centrality of ­personal self-interest. As long as it's legal, it's legitimate; no further ­individual judgment is necessary. ­However much we may have laughed at the Gordon Gekko's "greed is good" line, we can now see how it seeped into ­powerful institutional cultures such as the City and parliament.

Citizen Ethics was a project to ask nearly four dozen prominent thinkers what this was all about. Did ethics really have a role to play, and had it failed? First, despite plenty of disagreements, on one thing there was a clear consensus: ethics are crucial. They are the underpinning to all political debate; they frame the questions we ask of ourselves and of our political economy and therefore do much to shape the answers we end up with.

They are vital to the civic culture in which both politics and economics are ultimately rooted. So, as Will Hutton will do in his book, Them and Us, out in the autumn, if we really want to understand how some of the incredible myths perpetrated over the last couple of decades have gone unchallenged, we have to go back to some basic arguments of philosophy. What is justice? Who deserves what? What constitutes human flourishing?

Too many of these questions have simply been shelved for too long. Questions of justice and reward were left to the market to resolve; questions of human flourishing were privatised. It was left to everyone to decide their own sequence of pleasurable experiences in life with little acknowledgement of how many of those depend entirely on mutual co-operation.

One explanation for this abandonment of the debate is that we lost a language in which to think and argue about ethics. Perhaps this is partly attributable to the vexed legacy of institutional religion and the long shadow it still casts. The promotion of ethical behaviour has been bound up with particular institutions, and as they decline, it leaves a vacuum of authority.

Who dares talk on this subject with confidence? It prompts fear that any such discussions are really a Trojan horse for promoting a religious belief. There's a suspicion that words such as "morality" tip us quickly into the kind of instinctive conviction made infamous by Tony Blair in which sincerity is regarded as an adequate substitute for careful reasoning.

Even the language itself is mired in a history of ­social control; morality and virtue are words that are reluctantly used, since both still convey overtones of intrusive monitoring of (particularly female) sexual behaviour.

Perhaps it is finally possible to move beyond these familiar anxieties and resume a task of ethical reasoning regarded through most of history as essential to being human. This is philosophy as the Greeks understood it – love of the wisdom to lead lives of meaning and fulfilment, not some kind of abstract game with words.

Ethics is a word that derives from two Greek words, ethos for habit and ethikos for character, and it better fits what Citizen Ethics proposes rather than "morality", which comes from the Latin word "mores" for social institutions and customs.

This is not about reasserting conventions, a preconceived code, but about reinvigorating a habit, a pro­cess of reasoning to the perennial question: what is the right thing to do? We wouldn't claim there is a consensus waiting to be found – on the contrary, our aim is to provoke a noisy debate on what kinds of habits and characters we need to run the good society.

To go back to the lovely kids in the classroom, what is the good society we want to inspire them with – beyond their future roles in the economy as workers and consumers? What habits and character can we offer them as ­conducive to deeply rewarding lives? If we don't know plenty of possible answers to that question, it's no ­surprise they don't.

• Read the Citizens Ethics pamphlet in full here

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The Battle of the BBC

Jonathan Freedland has a good column in the paper today concerning the huge row that's continuing about the BBC and its activities, and about the Murdochs' efforts to control it from afar, with the aid of the Tories, of course.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/02/rupert-murdoch-tory-media-policy

The BBC is caving in to a Tory media policy dictated by Rupert Murdoch

Mark Thompson is jumping from the second storey because he fears a new government may throw him from the roof

The BBC has decided its best strategy for self-preservation is to suffer a little pain now to avoid a lot of pain later.

The strategy review unveiled today offered up a couple of radio networks and half its web pages by way of a sacrifice.

6 Music exists partly because if it wasn't there, the market would never invent it: a specialist channel offering not the hamster's wheel of a repetitive playlist but curated, eclectic music. "Like friends playing each other bits from their record collections," Jarvis Cocker said yesterday.

So why has Mark Thompson done it? Because he feared that if he didn't jump from the second storey window, an incoming Conservative government would push him off the roof. He is right to be anxious. The Tories have indeed signalled a hostility to the BBC that is rare, if not unprecedented, in an opposition. Why might that be? Two words: Rupert Murdoch.

Start with the BBC. Murdoch, with son James, can't stand it – regarding it, a senior figure in broadcasting tells me, as "like the Ebola virus: they can't destroy it, so they try to contain it". They dress up their opposition in pseudo-intellectual free market blather, but the reality is much earthier than that: the BBC is a rival, and therefore an obstacle to their commercial ambitions. The smaller and weaker the BBC becomes, the more money News Corp can make.

So the Murdochs constantly demand a cut in the licence fee. Last year Cameron nodded dutifully, and called for an immediate freeze in the licence fee. That would have marked an unprecedented break in the multi-year financial settlement that is so integral to the BBC's independence – preventing it from constantly having to make nice to the politicians to keep the money coming in.

Any doubters should play a game of spot the difference. Hold a copy of James Murdoch's 2009 MacTaggart lecture in one hand, and a clutch of Tory policy positions on the media in the other. Then see if you can tell them apart.

Obviously we should all get involved in this battle, and at the very least start listening to BBC 6 Music online and on digital radio, and supporting its continuation. Even the Tory Boy shadow minister now says he's going to do that.And as someone said on the radio (Radio 4) yesterday, if the commercial stations are finding it hard to compete with the BBC, OUR BBC, then they'd better start trying a bit harder. They could start by broadcasting stuff people actually enjoy listening to, and using broadcasters who don't speak to listeners as if they're morons. On the other hand, if they want to keep their mass moron constituency happy, they can carry on doing exactly what they're doing.

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Layer 61 A Blogella

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To read the final chapter of ‘On Chesil Beach’ took an early-morning hour of slow, concentrated effort. Having reached what is effectively (figuratively and literally) the climax of this novella in the previous chapter, what remains is simply the denouement - how will the characters play out the consequences of what has gone before?

The reader approaches McEwan’s ending with a sense of dread and foreboding, but still retaining, perhaps, a slight hope that events will play out for the ‘best’, that happiness and fulfilment is, after all, possible.

And yet we know (because we know that the writer will not cop out - he will not pretend that life is other than it is) he will confirm that the human condition is essentially tragic, and that life cannot be, and is perhaps not meant to be, a simple place where young lovers live happily ever after.

Sex, of course, is the problem. Without sex, life could be easy. Without libido, attraction, yearning for physical fulfilment and release; without arousal, desire for ecstatic pleasure, and the joining of spirits through physical bliss; without a need for transcendence through orgasmic satori experience, life could be so simple. Or so it might seem - to an ascetic, a logician, a virgin or a celibate.

The female character in Chesil Beach, on her wedding night, is, and wishes to be, all of these things. Not that she’s without passion and desire. But her passion is her profession, her vocation and her music; and her desire is to achieve perfection through the creation and the performance of the one thing she loves unconditionally.

Like so many homo sapiens she’s assertive, strong, fearless and decisive - when she’s at work on her beloved profession. She needs no advice and she doesn’t hesitate - she instinctively knows what’s right and what’s wrong. But like so many English women and men, when she needs to manage relationships and her own emotions she hesitates, she flounders, she frankly hasn’t a clue. She no more knows and understands her inner self or other people than she knows and understands the physical structure of atoms or the universe.

Why should this be so? How can university educated, bright young people with talents and aspirations be so socially, emotionally and spiritually dumb? Because that’s the way we do things here - it’s what you might call the English condition, rather than the human condition. It doesn’t have to be this way. Elsewhere, people do it differently. Not a lot, but some.

But what we have here are two clever young people who have been brought up to be emotionally illiterate, to have no understanding of their own feelings, emotions and sexuality. They have no words and no concepts with which to communicate, or to even think about these matters.

They have no idea that to become a mature, three dimensional human being they need to effectively have degrees in three different sorts of intelligence, and that IQ is not only NOT the be all and end all - that the pursuit of ‘academic’ excellence and intellectual refinement precludes, in most instances, the development of the other key intelligences. Locked for hours and days in the individual, egotistical pursuit of certificates and diplomas and degrees is no way to find enlightenment.

It's also precluded by the pursuit of money, fame, professional success, and any kind of material goal, when these things consume so much precious time that could be better spent on more worthwhile achievements. Like knowing oneself, understanding others, and developing the precious qualities of intuition, empathy, generosity, kindness, imagination and creativity, awe and wonder. Out of which love - unselfish, unconditional, unstinting love - might eventually emerge. But that’s not how we do things.

It’s a dog eat dog world, and the masters of the universe, our universe, have decreed these things should be otherwise. The hard-faced decision makers with iron and lead in their toxic and radioactive souls decided long ago that academic attainment, from which they themselves profited, obviously, should be the only goal of what they call education.

Oh yes, they pay lip service to what they see as the fluffy fringes of schooling - the stuff that can’t be tested, graded and sorted - like becoming a decent human being. But they don’t, after all, want others to have what they don’t have, which is rich human relationships, laughter, time to enjoy their loved ones, time to enrich the lives of others, time to relax and meditate, time to create and imagine, and time for fulfilling and mutually enriching sex.

It’s clear from McEwan’s book that none of the older characters has any kind of a sex life. They don’t even have any genuine enjoyment of one another on any level. Each pursues his or her lonely goals within the conventional social frameworks which they, and society, have created.

Not that sex could or would be a cure-all for the things that separate and divide the principal characters on Chesil Beach. Life is more complicated than that. Her background is well-to-do business-owning people with cars and servants. His is relative poverty, make-do and mend, and cramped, chaotic accommodation. She loves classical music and can’t see any merit whatsoever in any other sort. He loves blues, jazz and rock, and can’t see any merit in anything classical. And so on.

We know that love can transcend differences of class and background, and even cultural tastes. But when love hits the rocks, what resources have we to use that will help us to re-float our boat? What means of communication do we have that will allow us to work together, agree what repairs are needed, assign tasks, agree on how to be collaborative and supportive? And in times of crisis can we even be calm enough and patient enough to arrange a meeting where things might be discussed objectively, considerately, disinterestedly? Or do we resort to primitive instincts and let reactions and emotions overwhelm us - fight, flight or freeze? Of course we do.

McEwan’s genius, like any fine artist, is to wrap up the story without condemning either character - both of them have their strengths and weaknesses, their fine points and their faults, their guilt and their innocence. What they’re both guilty of is their age, their inexperience, their ignorance, their egotism, their incomprehension, their lack of communication, their absence of real inter-personal and intrapersonal intelligence, their lack of real empathy, intuition and emotional intelligence. None of which is their fault. In essence they are both victims, living in a world that’s run so badly, so incompetently, so utterly without the benefit of real spiritual intelligence. So are we all.

Chesil Beach is a hard place, though not without its own beauty. Nothing lives there, and nothing grows on that rocky, pebbly, bouldery spit of land between cold, grey waters. Even to walk there is difficult. You wouldn’t choose it for a beach holiday. It’s not really a beach at all. It’s nothing more than a barrier; and it’s desolate, it’s featureless, it’s barren, it’s without colour and it’s where nothing really happens, except the continuous pounding of the elements, of tides and wind and rain. It’s a bit like life as it’s lived by many unfortunate souls.

It doesn’t have to be this way.
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And if you ever have any doubts that August is the silly season then check out today’s news as brought to you by the good people at Yahoo! Hold that front page!

* Rooney quizzed over spitting.
* ‘Big Brother’ Rex blows the food budget.
* Police hunt for British girl’s body parts in Brazil.
* Dad reveals Destiny’s Child may reform.

All of which rival the classic Sky Sports’ “Leeds in talks with unnamed player.”

Stop Press!
* Whale rescue in Hampshire!
* Thatch Croaks!
* Cameron shags pig!
(Which of these is NOT true?)
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Layer 21 Spiritual Intelligence

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Most people seem either completely baffled by, or have real problems understanding, the idea of spiritual intelligence. To be self-actualised (see Layer 20) is to be spiritually intelligent. And learning to be spiritually intelligent may not be easy to achieve, but it’s fairly clear what we need to do.

The foremost task of parents and of schools should be to teach pupils how to learn and how to become independent learners – how to ask questions, and how to seek answers. Intelligent schools and homes see learning as something that’s as natural and as desirable as breathing and eating, and something that’s crucial to every individual’s growth and well-being. They try to help all members of their community towards a love of learning, and recognise the truth in the saying, “More than wealth or power, education is the key to human dignity”.

They recognise that individuals learn in different ways, and must ultimately find their own answers, beliefs and truths which will enable them to fulfil themselves as individuals and as members of communities and societies. Lifelong self-directed seeking after knowledge, truth and meaning leads to greater enlightenment, peace and productive living for us all.

So what? you may say. But many schools and homes do exactly the opposite – they expect their children, their students, to be passive and not active learners - they tell them what to think and what to remember. They operate a “transmission” model of teaching and learning, and they teach in a didactic manner, which is traditional in many societies. (Although Socrates, in Ancient Greece, believed that learning should be based on dialogue and not didacticism.) In the 19th Century, at the beginning of the State education system in Britain, Charles Dickens, a truly great writer in the English language, wrote a wonderful book called Hard Times, which is in part a satire on an education system that he believed strangled and stunted children. The book begins with the words, “Facts. Give these children nothing but facts.”

Whose facts? Which facts? In post-modern societies we recognise how problematic it is to believe that there are so-called key facts that should be ‘understood’ and assimilated by everyone. Such beliefs are especially problematic in multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-faith societies populated by diverse peoples of different traditions, different beliefs, and different values. What is recognised as factual and true in one section of such a society is nothing of the kind to many other people.

Consider the current struggle in the United States between “creationists” and others – those who consider the words written in the Christian Bible to be literally true, and those who do not. There we see prosecutions of individuals whose only crime or misdemeanour has been to reiterate the tenets of ‘Darwinism’ – the belief that human beings have their origins in and are descended from the family of the apes, and not through creation by a Divine Being. Imagine this situation in reverse – with fundamentalist Christians being persecuted and prosecuted, victimised and demonised by the Darwinists.

Herein lies the key problem for our societies and our schools – how to promote pluralism, tolerance, and respect for others of different backgrounds, beliefs and values.

We must consider the extent to which our schools are truly inclusive places:
Open to pupils of all abilities and backgrounds
Free from the need to promote particular beliefs
Able to help all pupils consider for themselves, and to make decisions about, different sets of values and beliefs
Able to help all pupils become “spiritually intelligent”, to learn proper respect for themselves, and respect for others who adopt different beliefs and values.

So how well does your child’s school perform according to these criteria? Is there a respect for children, and a determination to treat them with kindness, with the same courtesy and consideration we would show to adults?

In such a learning community the quality and quantity of interactions and communications between adults and children alike can of themselves promote many positive things, and in particular emotional intelligence, social intelligence and spiritual intelligence – the keys to successful living and learning. Of course we value high academic achievement and the development of the intellect, but we should not consider these forms of learning and intelligence to be superior or of greater priority – indeed it is difficult to see how children’s academic and intellectual potential can be optimised without the underpinning of a balanced development of all their intelligences, all their potentials, through meeting all of their needs – spiritual, social, emotional, physical, instinctual and intellectual.

In such a community there is the potential for harmony and non-aggression, for cooperation rather then competition, and collaboration rather than isolation and suspicion. In other words there is an atmosphere of peace and trust, of sharing and giving, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Where all of this comes to fruition, in certain high-performing schools, to the average visitor it seems like stepping on to another planet, entering a place where lives are lived according to different rules, different values, different expectations. It seems almost impossible to understand – how children who can be seen acting with aggression and violence and hatred in other contexts – in the streets and estates and parks – can be seen exercising self-discipline, cooperation and respect for others in an inclusive, spiritually intelligent community called a school.

The curriculum for spiritual intelligence consists for the most part of the ‘informal’ learning that goes on from the moment a child enters the school – whether as a 4 year old or as an older child – they discover that “this is the way we do things here, this is how we interact, how we solve problems, how we relate to one another”.

It also consists in what the Japanese call “zest for living” – developing an appreciation of how good it feels to live, learn and work in a community where there is the appreciation and love of other people, where there is an appreciation of beautiful and stimulating surroundings, of freedom from aggression and injustice and fear, appreciation of being accepted and respected for who one is and what one believes, whatever that might be, whatever one’s current level of ability or learning. Such places develop high levels of enthusiasm, and feelings of joy and well-being, as well as greater commitment to learning, and confidence that one can be successful.

Certain key concepts for developing spiritual intelligence can be found in schemes of work with a sharp focus on human values. These are values that are subscribed to by humanists and by people of no particular religion, as well as by members of the many different faith communities throughout the world – values that give meaning to life and help to direct our most positive beliefs and actions. They are values that help to make our families, our communities and our societies better places to live in for all of us. Without such values we descend into strife, conflict, selfishness and aggression.

The following list is a summary of the key words and concepts we need to understand as part of our curriculum for human values and spiritual intelligence.

If your child scores highly in understanding these key ideas, and in living life according to these human values, then he or she is indeed high in emotional, social and spiritual intelligence, which means that your child’s school is almost certainly doing a good job, and that you, as the child’s parent, are doing a superb job too. Well done!

TRUTH

Curiosity
Equality
Honesty
Integrity
Intuition
Optimism
Truthfulness
Self-knowledge
Reasoning


LOVE
caring
compassion
friendship
forgiveness
generosity
helpfulness
joy
kindness
tolerance
sharing
sympathy
patience

PEACE
calmness
contentment
dignity
discipline
happiness
honesty
humility
understanding
patience
reflection
self-confidence
self-control
self-discipline
self-respect
optimism

RIGHT CONDUCT
Contentment
Courage
Dependability
Duty
Ethics
Gratitude
Good behaviour
Healthy living
Helpfulness
Leadership
Initiative
Unity
Respect
Responsibility
Sacrifice
Self-confidence
Self-sufficiency
Simplicity
Perseverance

NON-VIOLENCE
appreciation of others
brotherhood / sisterhood
citizenship
compassion
concern for all life
consideration
cooperation
unwillingness to hurt
equality
forgiveness
global awareness
good manners
loyalty
social justice
service to others
respect for people and property
unity
universal love
collaboration
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Layer 18 The Nature of Reality. Redefining the Goal.

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Chapter 3 of Ancient Wisdom, Modern World is concerned with ‘dependent origination’ and ‘the nature of reality’. Broadly speaking I take these ideas to mean that we are not, in reality, independent individuals, and that all life, all phenomena, and every human being, are interlinked and interdependent. Within this context, all of our actions have consequences not only for ourselves but for others, and we are nothing ourselves without other people.

With this in mind, then time has no real meaning - there is only a NOW when past actions inform the present and when what we do at any given moment has consequences for the future - both for ourselves and for others; both positive and negative.

These ideas were touched on in Layer 1 of this blog.

In Chapter 3 the Dalai Lama says, “If the self had intrinsic identity, it would be possible to speak in terms of self-interest in isolation from that of others’. But because this is not so, because self and others can only really be understood in terms of relationship, we see that self-interest and others’ interests are closely interrelated.

Indeed, within this picture of dependently originated reality, we see that there is no self-interest completely unrelated to others’ interests. Due to the fundamental interconnectedness which lies at the heart of reality, your interest is also my interest. From this it becomes clear that ‘my’ interest and ‘your’ interest are intimately connected. In a deep sense they converge.”

“Particular causes lead to particular effects, and certain actions lead to suffering while others lead to happiness. Thus it is in everybody’s interests to do what leads to happiness and avoid that which leads to suffering. And because our interests are inextricably linked, we are compelled to accept ethics as the indispensible interface between my desire to be happy and yours.”

Chapter 4 - Redefining the Goal - deals with the nature of happiness - short term and long term.

Money and material things can only bring short-term happiness. Having a lot of money and a lot of material things can even create a state of constant anxiety about their possible loss, for example. There can be no hope of gratifying the senses permanently.

The principal characteristic of genuine happiness is inner peace. Flourishing mentally and emotionally makes a significant contribution to inner peace. So does the satisfaction of love, and in order to attain it we need friends and family who can return our affection.

Our basic attitude to life is a major factor in attaining inner peace. Life consists of both light and dark elements. We can see a glass, and indeed our life, as half full or half empty. A tendency to see it as at least half full is needed in order to attain inner peace.

The other major source of inner peace, and therefore genuine long-term happiness, are the actions we undertake day to day. There are actions which contribute positively to the inner peace of ourselves and others, and actions whose impact are negative - certainly in the long run - to both ourselves and others.

Positive actions can be either ‘ethical’ or ‘spiritual’.

“An ethical act is one where we refrain from causing harm to others’ experience or expectation of happiness. Spiritual acts we can describe in terms of qualities such as love, compassion, patience, forgiveness, humility, tolerance and so on which presume some level of concern for others’ well-being. We find that the (spiritual) actions we undertake which are motivated not by narrow self-interest but out of our concern for others actually benefit ourselves. And not only that, but they make our lives meaningful.”

“Because our every action has a universal dimension, a potential impact on others’ happiness, ethics are necessary as a means to ensure we do not harm others.”

“Genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, humility and so on. It is these which provide happiness both for ourselves and others.”

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Back in the mists of time I first became interested in human well-being as a subject in itself (what some people are now calling ‘happiness studies’) when considering the ideas of the humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow who maintained that people who achieve something like their full potential (in terms of being the best human being they can be) are ‘self-actualised’.

In recent times I’ve come to see such people as being ‘3 dimensional’ - fully developed in terms of spiritual intelligence (SQ), emotional intelligence (EQ), and intellect (IQ). These three dimensions also encompass physical intelligence, instinctual intelligence, social intelligence and metaphysical intelligence. Self-actualised individuals have all of these in abundance.

These ideas concerning three dimensionality and three continuums of intelligence have already been described in Layer 2.

Self-actualised people have travelled a long way along the path towards enlightenment, and they experience satori as a day to day reality. These ideas concerning enlightenment have been described in other recent blogs, recent Layers.

In Layer 20 I’ll summarise Maslow’s work and set out a description in terms of day to day behaviour and attitudes what it actually means to be self-actualised. We can then consider which types of behaviour and which attitudes correspond with which intelligences. We will then be able to judge the proportions of SQ, EQ and IQ that are engaged in the day to day lives of self-actualised individuals. We can then take a view on the relative importance of each of the three dimensions to individual and collective well-being, happiness and enlightenment.
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Materialism [In Our Time. Radio 4 (9.00am.)]

Melvyn Bragg, A.C. Grayling, and others.

Listening to this reminds me I need to get back to reading (and blogging about) Grayling’s 2003 book, What Is Good? The Search For The Best Way To Live, which can happen after I’ve finished Richard Layard’s Happiness - Lessons from a New Science. (2005)

Notes on the broadcast:

Materialists maintain that the only thing that exists is Matter.

The universe is fundamentally material in nature.

Epicurus said that materialism also applied to human nature. But whereas Aristotle believed in permanent substances, Epicurus didn’t.

He believed that humans should follow Pleasure - meaning tranquillity, serenity.

Lucretius believed the world consists of atoms - the basic stuff out of which everything is created.

Religion is mostly about fear and it oppresses people. If people realised they’re just atoms they wouldn’t worry about gods.

Aristotle saw nature as an interlocking system.

Purposes and intelligent design? Final causes? Opposite view to atomists and materialists.

Mind/soul/spirit = good? Matter = bad?
Christian doctrine was an espousal of this dualist view.

4th C Arian persecution. The Arians thought that ‘God is just a man’. They were wiped out for this view.

16th C Descartes. It’s possible to think about the material realm through science - to investigate this realm without impugning religion.

Galileo said that science is to do with quantifiable phenomena. Analysis of the world is a long way from common sense approaches. Science should be based on mathematics? Not an obvious idea.

Descartes and Gasendi - understanding the world through the senses. “There are only surfaces - not soul.” Injecting Epicurus into scientific debate.

The church’s doctrines had been dominant for centuries.

Hobbes espoused radical atomism. The only thing that exists are bodies.

Experiences produce thoughts and ideas in our brains. Consciousness is the ability to be aware of what’s happening.

There are no spiritual or immaterial realities. Hence the need to be atheist.

18th C saw the beginnings of the organised study of psychology and the phenomena of mind. We are still researching how consciousness arises. Our experience of the world is conditioned by our physiology and our psychology.

Issues of free will. Everything we do caused by anticedal states of affairs. Endless cause and effect. There is no freedom, fundamentally. Though we need our freedom to follow our desires.

The mind (memory) is a book that endlessly writes on itself. A Palimpsest. Layers. [See Layer 1]

We conceive ourselves as free moral beings. Whereas science proposes causal explanations.

Consciousness unifies disparate activities within the brain to create a unified sense of self.

The idea that there is a thing called soul or spirit that has ‘its’ own feelings, memories, desires, etc will fall away as we find proper explanations as to how the brain itself, of itself, gives rise to ‘mental’ phenomena.

No time on the programme to discuss Hegel, Marx and Quantum Physics!

If you missed the programme catch it on the BBC website - Listen Again.

Also Start The Week on R4 this week - another ‘must listen to’.

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A recent award for best individual contribution to radio went to Melvyn Bragg. And so say all of us In Our Time devotees.

Layer 17 No Magic, No Mystery. The Dalai Lama

Shakespeare’s birthday. St George’s Day. To be or not to be. Killing a dragon?

This blog consists of more quotations from the Dalai Lama. Sub-headings are my own.

Chapter Two. A Spiritual Revolution.

This is not about religions.

In calling for a spiritual revolution am I advocating a religious solution to our problems? No.

I have realised that there are other faiths and other cultures that are no less capable than mine of enabling people to lead constructive and satisfying lives. What is more I have come to the conclusion that whether or not a person is a religious believer does not matter much. Far more important is that they be a good human being.

The influence of religion on people’s lives is generally marginal, especially in the developed world. No single religion satisfies all humanity. We may also conclude that we humans can live quite well without recourse to religious faith.

As a human being I have a responsibility towards the whole human family, which indeed we all have. Since the majority do not practice religion I am concerned to try to find a way to serve all humanity without appealing to religious faith.

Religions are all directed towards helping human beings achieve lasting happiness. And each of them is, in my opinion, capable of facilitating this. Under such circumstances a variety of religions (each of which promotes the same basic values) is both desirable and useful.

My concern in this book is to try to reach beyond the formal boundaries of my faith. I want to show that there are some universal ethical principles which could help everyone achieve the happiness we all aspire to.

Religion versus spirituality.

I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality.

Religion I take to be concerned with faith in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another, an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of metaphysical or supernatural reality, including perhaps the idea of some form of heaven or nirvana. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, rituals, prayer and so on.

Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit - such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony - which bring happiness to both self and others.

While ritual and prayer, along with the questions of nirvana and salvation, are directly connected with religious faith, these inner qualities need not be, however. There is no reason why an individual should not develop them, even to a high degree, without recourse to any religious or metaphysical belief system. This is why I sometimes say that religion is perhaps something we can do without. What we cannot do without are these basic spiritual qualities.

Concern for other’s well-being.

There is much confusion, as often among religious believers as among non-believers, concerning what spiritual practice actually consists in. The unifying characteristics of the qualities I have described as ‘spiritual’, may be said to be some level of concern for others’ well-being. In Tibetan we speak of shen-pen kyi-sem, meaning ‘the thought to be of help to others’. And when we think about them, we see that each of the qualities noted is defined by an implicit concern for the well-being of others.

Moreover, the one who is compassionate, loving, patient, tolerant, forgiving, and so on to some extent recognises the potential impact of their actions on others and orders their conduct accordingly. Thus spiritual practice involves acting out of concern for others’ well-being.

It also entails transforming ourselves so that we become more readily disposed to do so. To speak of spiritual practice in any terms other than these is meaningless.

My call for a spiritual revolution is therefore not a call for a religious revolution. Nor is it a reference to a way of life that is somehow otherworldly, still less to something magical or mysterious. Rather, it is a call for a radical reorientation away from our habitual preoccupation with self. It is a call for a turn toward the wider community of human beings with whom we are connected, and for conduct which recognises others’ interests alongside our own.

Some may object that a revolution of spirit is hardly adequate to solve the variety and magnitude of problems we face in the modern world. However, given that each problem could certainly be solved by people being more loving and compassionate toward one another - however improbable this may seem - they can also be characterised as spiritual problems susceptible to a spiritual solution.

This is not to say that all we need do is cultivate spiritual values and these problems will automatically disappear. On the contrary, each of them needs a specific solution. But we find that when this spiritual dimension is neglected, we have no hope of achieving a lasting solution.

Bad news is a fact of life. Events can be divided into two broad categories: those which have principally natural causes - earthquakes, droughts, floods and the like - and those which are of human origin. Wars, crime, violence of every sort, corruption, poverty, deception, fraud, social, political and economic injustice are each the consequence of negative human behaviour.

And who is responsible for such behaviour? We are. There is not a single class or sector of society that does not contribute to our daily diet of unhappy news. Fortunately, unlike natural disasters, about which we can do little or nothing, these human problems can be overcome because they are all essentially ethical problems.

Where ethical restraint is lacking, there can be no hope of overcoming problems like those of rising crime. What then is the relationship between spirituality and ethical practice? Since love, compassion, etc, by definition presume some level of concern for others’ well-being, they also presume ethical restraint. We cannot be loving and compassionate unless at the same time we curb our own harmful impulses and desires.

Religious belief is no guarantee of moral integrity. Looking at the history of our species, we see that among the major troublemakers - those who visited violence, brutality and destruction on their fellow human beings - there have been many who professed religious faith, often loudly. Religion can help us establish basic ethical principles. Yet we can still talk about ethics and morality without having recourse to religion.

We must be able to show that violence towards others is wrong. And yet we must find some way of doing so which avoids the extremes of crude absolutism on the one hand, and of trivial relativism on the other. Ordinary common sense should tell us that establishing binding ethical principles is possible when we take as our starting point the observation that we all desire happiness and wish to avoid suffering. We have no means of discriminating between right and wrong if we do not take into account others’ feelings, others’ suffering.

One of the things which determines whether an act is ethical or not is its effect on others’ experience or expectation of happiness. An act which harms or does violence to this is potentially an unethical act.

Emotions and motivation.

When an individual’s overall state of heart and mind is wholesome, it follows that our actions themselves will be (ethically) wholesome.

The individual’s overall state of heart and mind (or motivation) in the moment of action is the key to determining its ethical content, and this point is easily understood when we consider how our actions are affected when we are gripped with powerful negative thoughts and emotions such as hatred and anger. In that moment our mind and heart are in turmoil.

Not only does this cause us to lose our sense (!) of proportion and perspective, but we also lose sight of the likely impact of our actions on others. Indeed, we can become so distracted that we ignore the question of others, and of their right to happiness, altogether. Our actions under such circumstances - that is to say our deeds, words, thoughts, omissions and desires - will almost certainly be injurious to others’ happiness. And this in spite of what our long-term intentions towards others may be or whether our actions are consciously intended or not. The less calm we are, the more likely we are to react negatively with harsh words, and the more certain we are to say or do things which later we regret bitterly, especially if we feel deeply for that person.

When the driving force for our actions is wholesome, our actions will tend automatically to contribute to others’ well-being. They will thus automatically be ethical. Further, the more this is our habitual state, the less likely we are to react badly when provoked. And even when we do lose our temper, any outburst will be free of any sense of malice or hatred. The aim of spiritual and, therefore, ethical practice is thus to transform and perfect the individual’s kun long [spirit, disposition, motivation]. This is how we become better human beings. [Spiritual intelligence]

I trust that I have made it clear that a spiritual revolution entails an ethical revolution.