"Seven blunders
of the world that lead to violence" is a list that Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi published in his weekly newspaper Young India on October 22,
1925. Later he gave this same list to his grandson, Arun Gandhi, written on a
piece of paper on their final day together shortly before his assassination.
The Seven Blunders, also known as Social Sins, as he listed them are:
- · Wealth without work.
- · Pleasure without conscience.
- · Knowledge without character.
- · Commerce without morality.
- · Science without humanity.
- · Worship without sacrifice.
- · Politics without principle.
Stephen Covey devoted the entirety of a chapter (Chapter 7: Seven
Deadly Sins) to them in his book "Principle-Centered Leadership." Introducing
them he wrote: "Mahatma Gandhi said that seven things will destroy us.
Notice that all of them have to do with social and political conditions. Note
also that the antidote of each of these 'deadly sins' is an explicit external
standard or something that is based on natural principles and laws, not on
social values." And in one of the concluding paragraphs he wrote: "The
key to a healthy society is to get the social will, the value system, aligned
with correct principles. You then have the compass needle pointing to true
north—true north representing the external or the natural law—and the indicator
says that is what we are building our value system on: they are aligned."
All of this reminds me of a quote from a 1785 letter written by Thomas
Jefferson to Peter Carr, an American educator and politician who served several
terms in the Virginia House of Delegates:
"If ever you
find yourself environed with difficulties and perplexing circumstances out of
which you are at a loss how to extricate yourself, do what is right, and be
assured that that will extricate you the best out of the worst situations.
Though you cannot see when you take one step what will be the next, yet follow
truth, justice and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the
labyrinth in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian
one will untie itself before you. Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition
that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty by intrigue, by
chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This
increases the difficulties tenfold; and those who pursue these methods get
themselves so involved at length that they can turn no way but their infamy
becomes more exposed."
However, we as a people have
progressed to the point that instead of being adherents of common sense and
plain speaking we get our information from spin doctors and public relations groups
whose job it is to forestall negative publicity by publicizing a favorable
interpretation of the words or actions of a company or political party or
famous person rather than openly dealing with facts and truth. And perhaps not
surprisingly there are contentious exchanges between "News Agencies"
whose job it should be to report events but instead find it necessary to
explain and interpret them. We aren't even allowed to listen to a politician's
speech without a follow-up explanation.
How has this happened? And it's only
taken eight generations. What is the difference between our founding fathers
and those persons who would lead us today?
