Blog
30.June 2003 - 00:00
When the Soul Leaks
FOR WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
If the man who pronounced that had known what religion would do to his words he would probably have turned in his grave – if he had been there long enough.
What a pity that quotation is called religious wisdom, because it’s then presumed to have nothing to do with everyday life.
So if some piece of wisdom disturbs you and threatens your peace, turn it into a religion. Dot the i’s and cross the t's, found a cult and start to worship form instead of content and you are sure to get people to forget the issue itself. Shift all the relevance from this life to something beyond, and you'll ensure that the revolutionary sentence is encapsulated in a vacuum and rendered harmless.
The thought about the soul being lost should shock those in power, every politician, every writer, cleric and civil servant; especially because the issue is not the soul being lost only in some distant eternity but at this very moment. The punishment, too, is already happening, most tragically in the loss of self-respect. It is only a matter of time before others notice.
Political tinkering has long had the reputation of getting one's soul dirty and not without reason. When you know that with your rhetoric you can either increase or decrease your popularity and affect your future prospects, it would be a sheer wonder if you didn't start to prostitute yourself. With the present media culture it is all the more tempting.
For that reason politics is the object, not only of my special respect but also of disdain. If someone stays incorruptible, and will not trade his ideology while hungering after favour, he is without doubt my hero.
It would be worth those politicians who fear being ameba-like to create for themselves personal safety structures to guarantee their immunity. We have a dire need for politicians whose world wouldn't collapse if favour fails. So it would be good to keep their civilian profession alive and well just in case. In fact I wonder why this is not as self-evident a requirement as having to declare economic interests. Having no alternative is of course a significant economic interest.
Man’s capacity for good makes democracy possible and his propensity for bad makes it necessary, said theologian and philosopher Niebuhr. Wise politics admits these realities. So does a wise politician.
Originally published in April -97 in Vihreä Lanka, a Finnish green magazine
FOR WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
If the man who pronounced that had known what religion would do to his words he would probably have turned in his grave – if he had been there long enough.
What a pity that quotation is called religious wisdom, because it’s then presumed to have nothing to do with everyday life.
So if some piece of wisdom disturbs you and threatens your peace, turn it into a religion. Dot the i’s and cross the t's, found a cult and start to worship form instead of content and you are sure to get people to forget the issue itself. Shift all the relevance from this life to something beyond, and you'll ensure that the revolutionary sentence is encapsulated in a vacuum and rendered harmless.
The thought about the soul being lost should shock those in power, every politician, every writer, cleric and civil servant; especially because the issue is not the soul being lost only in some distant eternity but at this very moment. The punishment, too, is already happening, most tragically in the loss of self-respect. It is only a matter of time before others notice.
Political tinkering has long had the reputation of getting one's soul dirty and not without reason. When you know that with your rhetoric you can either increase or decrease your popularity and affect your future prospects, it would be a sheer wonder if you didn't start to prostitute yourself. With the present media culture it is all the more tempting.
For that reason politics is the object, not only of my special respect but also of disdain. If someone stays incorruptible, and will not trade his ideology while hungering after favour, he is without doubt my hero.
It would be worth those politicians who fear being ameba-like to create for themselves personal safety structures to guarantee their immunity. We have a dire need for politicians whose world wouldn't collapse if favour fails. So it would be good to keep their civilian profession alive and well just in case. In fact I wonder why this is not as self-evident a requirement as having to declare economic interests. Having no alternative is of course a significant economic interest.
Man’s capacity for good makes democracy possible and his propensity for bad makes it necessary, said theologian and philosopher Niebuhr. Wise politics admits these realities. So does a wise politician.
Originally published in April -97 in Vihreä Lanka, a Finnish green magazine