Hi Again

Woody, something you said in your post about the Greeks reminded me of what was written in Thomas Merton's book, The Nonviolent Alternative . So I am going to post it for you all to read. Thomas Merton wrote this book during the Viet Nam war. It was orginally published in 1971 after his death. Thomas Merton never saw the end of the Viet Nam war. He died in 1968 in an automobile accident in Rome.

In his book Thomas Merton says: "The climate of irrationality, confusion and violence which is characteristic of such times as ours is after all nothing new. The circumstances are different, but in the end we can find in our world much that is analogous to the classic discription of Athens after the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides masterfully outlines the political situation of a rich society that is in a crisis of decline and change."
Merton then goes on to present Thucydides words:

War destroys the comfortable routine of life, trains us in violence and shapes our character according to the new conditions...The cause of all these evils was imperialism, whose fundamental motives are ambition and greed, and from which arises the fanaticism of class conflict. The politicians on each side were armed with high-sounding slogans....Both boasted that they were servants of the community and both made the community the prize of war. The only purpose of their policy was the extermination of their opponents, and to achieve this they stopped at nothing. Even worse were the reprisals which they perpetuated in total disregard of morality or of the common good. The only standard which they recognized was party caprice and so they were prepared, either by the perversion of justice or by revoluntionary action, to satisfy the passing passions begotten by the struggle....Society was divided into warring camps suspicious of one another. Where no contract or obligation was binding, nothing could heal the conflict, and since security was only to be found in the assumption that nothing was secure, everyone took steps to preserve himself and no one could afford to trust his neighbor. On the whole the baser types survived best. Aware of their own deficiencies and their opponents' ablilities, they resorted boldly to violence, before they were defeated in debate, and struck down, by conspiracy, minds more versatile than their own.
(Thucydides, Peloponnesian War )

Merton adds: " In such a situation, Plato, who hoped that a return to reason could be brought about by the participation of the philosopher in public life, also recognized that intelligent men would be tempted to withdraw from a situation they regarded as 'hopeless'. The lover of justice, Plato wrote, seeing himself as though thrown into a 'den of beasts' and unable to change the jungle law around him: ' Will remain quietly at his own work like a traveller caught in a storm who retreats behind a wall to shelter from the driving gusts of dust and hail. Seeing the rest of the world full of iniquity, he will be content to keep his own life on earth untainted by wickedness and impious actions, so that he may leave this would with a fair hope of the next, at peace with himself and God' " ( Plato's Republic, 496 )

Merton says: " It is perhaps true that sometimes indivduals may be forced into this position, but to view it as normal and to accept it as preferable to the risks and conflicts of public life is an admission of defeat, an abdication of responsibility. This secession into individualistic concern with one's own salvation alone may in fact leave the way all the more open for unscrupulous men and groups to gain and wield unjust powers."

Love Connie