We seem, throughout human history, to have been torn by the conflict of being both proud of our nature, and yet so conscious of our failures and those of other people, that we also feel as if we are wretched. I suggested in that sermon that our modern literature seems to be replete with people who have little worth or dignity - our heroes are mostly people who are just filling in the time between birth and death. Look at Seinfeld, the most popular program on television, the impending end of which is attracting great attention. We strayed, inevitably, beyond the limits of the first principle by beginning to look at its implications for our lives, the subject of this morning's principle. In a sense, the first was easier.
Talk is cheap.
It is rather more complicated when you begin to think about translating that belief into action. Justice, equity, and compassion are all about that next step. OK, smarty, so you believe in human worth and dignity. Whenever we consider another nation our enemy, we are exposed to propaganda which tells us that they are not like us - they do not have worth and dignity. In World War II we were told, repeatedly, that the Japanese were really subhuman, and the Germans who, being Caucasian were not subhuman, were so compulsive about submitting to authority, were also not really like us.