Are we blundering forward... ?

"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:

1. ·   Wealth without work.
2. ·    Pleasure without conscience.
3. ·    Knowledge without character.
4. ·    Commerce without morality.
5. ·   Science without humanity.
6. ·   Worship without sacrifice.
7. ·    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?