If the Festive Spirit seemed lacking in my previous post, I hope that this one might make amends.
Just the other day, I came across an article by the US academic Harold Bloom in the New York Times (http:/www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12bloom.html). In his NYT article, Bloom considers the relevance of Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophy to our present day economic problems, and, in particular the concept of "self-reliance".
Now, for my money, if former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher felt that "there is no such thing as society", excluding her own (ie "one of us"), our present one, Gordon Brown, feels that there is no such thing as the individual, excluding himself and his cronies, of course.
This bring me to what seems a central message of "The Christ Story", the importance of individual conscience and action in the face of oppression (military, political, social, cultural, economic etc).
Sharing the same North American tradition as Harold Bloom, the management writer Tom Peters has drawn attention to the importance of the "Army of One" ie the self-reliant individual working within and without organisations , often overcoming the forces of oppression in the process, for some greater societal good.
Good Luck to Them and Seasons Greetings to All !
No comments:
Post a Comment