On Ideals: A Unique Delivery System
Photo: Brisbane Austrailia
"Bahá’ís can very easily be labelled as utopian idealists, new age people, simply dreaming of a wonderful world, anticipating that if you dream hard enough it will come true. We can defend ourselves against those accusations because not only do we have the shining ideal set out in our Writings but much more than that we have the mechanism to bring it about, the vehicle for its accomplishment through the Administrative Order. So when people say to us “Your ideals are wonderful” and pat us on the head, at least metaphorically, occasionally physically, and say, “You are such a wonderful person. You have wonderful ideals” the subtext being, “It’ll never happen. Go away. It won’t ever come true”. We can respond to them by drawing their attention to the fact that we have a unique delivery system, designed to provide the means to bring these high ideals into practice. It’s a realistic mechanism which takes account of the deficiencies of human nature, the capacity of individuals to be destructive and malicious and divisive – which accommodates those negative elements of human nature as well as the positive ones."
Peter Khan, talk given in Brisbane, Austrailia, 14 August 2005
1 comment:
It is good to have a vision, or a goal for humanity, because then mankind's suffering can become dimminished as these goals are met. Just languishing from day to day without a plan, drifting, is not a responsible way to get things done. Vision, process, accomplishment...then consolidation and possible revision, as life changes...it always does.
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