Comenius and the Principle of Universal Peace, Part I
By John Taylor; 2009 Jan 09, 10 Sharaf, 165 BE
Peace is the inevitable, natural goal and outcome of human nature and the nature of things. All creatures are happiest when they do what nature has prepared them to do. Pigs love to root in the mud for food. Cats are happiest doing catty things. Humans are happy when we learn, when we decide and when we act. This is only possible when there is peace.
Jan Amos Comenius taught that the purpose of politics is peace, and the purpose of peace is to inaugurate what he calls an Age of Happiness. The peace he envisions is one that we have to plan, deliberate upon and work out for ourselves, but that is just what we were made for. A do-it-yourself peace has to be far more fulfilling than one that falls in our laps. This Baha'u'llah said: "Blessed and happy is he that ariseth to promote the best interests of the peoples and kindreds of the earth." (Tablets, 167) To know, will and act together for the good of all sets in motion the machineries of joy. Even if we fail, even if the path leads through centuries of travail, it is worth it, for that is why we are here and what we are designed for.
Comenius sees an age of happiness coming out of a world order based upon the three main areas of human endeavour, science, religion and politics. Each of these is tied to the three faculties of knowing, willing and acting. All are basic to our makeup; we each have a deep need to learn, to worship and to serve. As a result of these three basic drives, we are happiest when we learn, worship and serve in the most universal ways possible. Specialists and experts in these three areas can take humanity closer to the age of happiness by competing with one another to be the most useful. This Comenius calls "holy rivalry,"
"When human affairs are so reformed that our Philosophy, Religion, and Politics are all truly universal, it will be the task of scholars to collect and purify essential truths and transplant them into the minds of men, of churchmen to attract men's souls away from the world in the direction of God, and of politicians to maintain peace and tranquillity everywhere, competing with each other, as it were, in holy rivalry to make an outstanding contribution in their respective spheres to the salvation of mankind." (Panorthosia, Ch. 15, para 1, p. 216)
I want to comment on what he says about the learned "transplanting" essential truths into the minds of men. Here we see the crucial difference between the Comenian peace program and the "isms" and ideologies of today. The dogmatist or ideologue uses propaganda to push a limited truth for limited ends. Here is a definition of propaganda that I found lately,
"Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda>
Propaganda, then, treats humans as objects, as means to ends. The Comenian peace plan does not propagandize, it educates. It treats humans as ends in themselves. Such an educational goal is inimical to ideology, fundamentalism or dogma. Educators have higher, nobler objects. For example, here is a typical definition of education:
"The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think - rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men." (Bill Beattie)
Education, is like propaganda in that it spreads information. But it differs in that it does not manipulate. An educator informs (knowledge), encourages (will) and strengthens (action) the learner. Both teacher and learner abide in the faith that the nature of things will steer us away from error and in the right direction towards an age of happiness.
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