In Defense of Empathy

My next book to read is Jeremy Rifkin's The Empathetic Civilization. I'm very excited to get started on it, as everything I've been reading about it seems to confirms some things I've been thinking for a while. I also think there's a lot in it that could be applied to theology. Anyways here's a quote from Rifkin writing about real freedom in his latest piece on Huffington Post.

"Freedom requires that one is treated by others as an end not as a means. One can't really be free in a society where everyone treats each other in an exploitative or instrumental manner. True freedom, therefore, is only possible in a society that lives by the "golden rule." "By doing onto others as we would have others do unto us" we express our support for the optimizing of each other's life. This is the embodiment of what freedom means. A society that lives by the golden rule and embeds it in its laws and public policy is a free society. The golden rule is rarely exercised in authoritarian regimes."

Honestly

It has obviously been a while since I last blogged. Most of the time people go on a blog hiatus because they are really busy and just don't have time. That is not the case for me. I have had time, and plenty of it. Another reason most people quit blogging for a while is because they just don't have anything to blog about. That also is not an issue. I have plenty of things bouncing around in my brain to post on. The reason I haven't blogged is simply because I don't know what I believe about so many things and I A. don't want to blog on my thoughts and feelings at the moment only to look back and regret doing so and B. I often feel I just don't have enough information.

I've also been thinking about my intellectual and spiritual journey. I've come from a conservative back ground and have steadily journeyed leftward. What I don't want to be is a pendulum, and I think, on this blog at least, I have come across that way. I don't want to be a liberal fundy anymore than I want to be a conservative fundy. What I believe to be true, what I think makes the most sense, however, tends to always fall on the left rather than the right. It's just the way it is. I don't only listen, watch and read liberal sources of information. I go out of my way, like listen to Glenn Beck, to get a broad range of opinion. I read columnists like Robert Samuelson and David Brooks-- not liberal guys! -- and often agree with them on certain issues. Yet, at the end of the day, liberals often make the most sense and represent the most moral point of view.

What I've come to realize is that the only thing I can offer on my blog is my honesty. What I write represents how I view the world, and as long as I am listening to all sides and doing my best to make sense of them, then that's all I can do. If I'm wrong then that's o.k. If I mostly agree with one political view then that's o.k. as well. I can only offer an intellectually honest point of view with the information I am given. So that's what I'm trying to do, not offer a liberal or progressive point of view, just mine.