“I would not shed a tear if there were no railroads in India.” ~ Gandhi, in Louis Fischer’s A Week With Gandhi, p. 55
We keep saying that Gandhi was not a Luddite, but he could veer pretty close, especially in conversation with friends he wanted to shake up a bit. What Gandhi wanted to make us stop and question here was nothing less than the “blind faith in technology” that Eknath Easwaran has pinpointed as one of the serious flaws in our present-day beliefs (rooted as they are in centuries of misapprehension of reality). Of course, in his ideal slow-paced decentralized world there might well be no need for railroads, or cars either. As always, we have to make our best adaptations.
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Stephanie Van Hook, the Metta Center’s executive director, launched Daily Metta in 2015 as a way to share Gandhi’s spiritual wisdom and experiments with nonviolence.
Our 2016 Daily Metta continues with Gandhi on weekdays. On weekends, we share videos that complement Michael Nagler’s award-winning book, The Search for a Nonviolent Future: A Promise of Peace for Ourselves, Our Families, and Our World. To help readers engage with the book more deeply, the Metta Center offers a free PDF study guide.
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By: Prof. Michael Nagler
As the Founder and President of Metta Center, Michael Nagler is also Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at UC, Berkeley, where he co-founded the Peace and Conflict Studies Program. Michael is the author of The Search for a Nonviolent Future and The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action. His latest book is The Third Harmony: Nonviolence & the New Story of Human Nature. Visit his website: michaelnagler.org.
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I’m always walking that line between the temptation to be a Luddite and the realization that it can only be helpful at times. And the need to be honest makes me admit that I like having a warm house and secure food supply, so pointing a finger becomes too complicated. I usually wind up realizing, once again, that what we need is to work together, and the skills and training for doing that are the essential things. I’m using “training” to refer to nonviolence training as you discuss it in the book.
I appreciate this post today since I had to evacuate from hurricane Matthew. We live on a barrier island (renting due to employment) and from my experience there have concluded that what technology has done to Florida is not wise–filling in swamps to make condos on the ocean that are 3 feet above sea level. So in this hurricane reporting I hear we need finances from the government for damages and national guard service and more and more and more., all because this isn’t wise. When I saw on TV that a home owner lost her roof, didn’t have home owners insurance, and yet had a swimming pool–and she was going to apply to FEMA, I was beginning to doubt my compassion because it seems that if she can afford a swimming pool she could pay for a roof without FEMA. Seeing this post helped me realize that I’m in good company of a very compassionate man. Thank you.