From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   On Sat, 20 Jan 2024 16:42:50 -0800 (PST), Ilya Shambat   
    wrote:   
      
   I have seen conservative commentators describing hippies as a bunch of   
   retards who did not understand the need for morality.   
      
   What hippies actually believed is that if people love one another they   
   will do the right thing by one another, and there will be no need for   
   morality.   
      
   Is that workable? I have seen it work in some situations. At   
   Burningman, there are over 20000 people, many of them naked, living in   
   total anarchy, and everyone is good to everyone else. People I met   
   there said that people weren’t ready for that much freedom. I   
   responded that the way to become ready for something is by trying it   
   out in small doses, and as ability to handle it improves increase the   
   dose.   
      
   A Christian priest told me that the substance of the Biblical law is   
   to teach us to love other people, and that commandments are rules by   
   which this love can be accomplished. The question here to ask is, What   
   do you mean by love? There are many different things that are   
   considered to be love. With universal love we see compassion and   
   understanding. With personal love we see passion and partiality. It is   
   valid to extend universal love to everyone; it is valid to extend   
   personal love to some.   
      
   Is morality necessary to that effect? I have definitely seen people do   
   good things when they didn’t have traditional values, and I have seen   
   people being hideously abusive in the name of morality. For as long as   
   morality is practiced in a cruel way, that will alienate people who   
   are against cruelty from morality. This will create a paradoxical   
   situation in which the better people do not believe in morality and   
   the worse people do.   
      
   My thought on this is as follows. If you can be trusted to do the   
   right thing by the next person then you do not need morality; if you   
   cannot then you do. An anarchist once told me that the options are   
   either to treat people with respect or to submit to the law. It   
   appears that there is a place for both love and morality, with   
   different approaches appropriate to different people and at different   
   times in their lives.   
      
   So no, the hippies weren’t retards. They had some quite profound   
   ideas, and these are ideas that can be instructive for the rest of us.   
   These ideas had a transformative effect on the way in which   
   Christianity was practiced, enriching people’s experience and   
   understanding of the faith. They provided love in a faith that was   
   meant to preach it but forgot it. And that is a significant   
   contribution and one that deserves respect.   
      
      
   (Reformatted for legibility)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)