Love all always

Biden’s USA: united? divided? loving?

Love all always

Kindness despite difference

Unkindness(?) in the presence of difference

Shunning? mingling?

Positive value, love: Israel and Palestine

Positive value, love: Ukraine

Biden’s USA: united? divided? loving?

On the campaign trail four years ago, Joe Biden offered a vision of the country as united, not divided:

“I'm running as a Democrat but I will govern as an American president," Biden said. "No red states, no blue states, just the United States.”

[Obama said the same thing when he and Biden were running for a second term in 2012.]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-channels-obama-in-declaring-there-are-no-red-states-no-blue-states-just-the-united-states

On losing the presidency a few weeks ago, Joe Biden sought to bring the country together after a divisive election:

“Biden called for unity after Tuesday’s fractious contest. ‘You can’t love your country only when you win,’ he said, ‘You can’t love your neighbour only when you agree. Something I hope we can do, no matter who you voted for, [is] to see each other not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans. Bring down the temperature.’ ”

“Bring down the temperature, urges Biden as he is blamed for defeat.” The Times, November 8 2024 6-7.

Love All Always

It is worth highlighting the ideas in Biden’s remarks. It is about loving others – without exception. Others are fellows rather than adversaries. It is about ‘Love All’. It is about loving at all times – without exception. Even when there is disagreement. It is about ‘Love Always’. Putting these two thoughts together we obtain “Love All Always”.

Kindness despite difference

“And we will all have to be kind to one another about our unavoidable difference of opinion.”

Daniel Finkelstein was discussing the assisted dying bill being debated in the UK parliament. What interests me here is his general remarks about situations like this where there are fundamental differences of opinion - in other words the same problem as that addressed by Joe Biden in his remarks above.

“Most of us have a strong view of whether we favour [assisted dying] or not … we then reason in defence of [our] instincts and find the instincts of others unfathomable. It makes the debate hard to conduct in any useful way. …

… I have the greatest possible respect for those who oppose [the bill], though I very strongly support it myself. I appreciate that such opposition comes from attitudes … that are different from mine but are comprehensible, widely shared and completely valid. … [Finkelstein acknowledges that his thinking has the same characteristics as those of his opponents – he is not claiming that his thinking alone is rational.]”

Note that this general framework stands alongside his views about the arguments in this specific case:

“All this having been said, I cannot say that I am hugely impressed by the arguments that have been made since [the publication of the bill]”.

“There’s no slippery slope’ to assisted dying. We have spent a decade talking about change and the terms of this bill are tightly defined with exhaustive safeguards. … Arguments against are attempts to rationalise an instinctive view … the proposal will allow terminally ill people to die with greater dignity.”

The Times, November 20 2024: 21. Daniel Finkelstein.

Unkindness(?) in the presence of difference

The USA is not alone in having fractiousness in the party political arena. In the UK Kemi Badenoch was recently elected leader of the Conservative party. Prior to the vote, Daniel Finkelstein expressed his support for her, noting her as a “clearly intelligent and thoughtful person”. But it didn’t stop him having “some concerns”. Her argument was “too sweeping”, “too negative … and [an] attack … not just on ideas but on people” and she may “appear abrasive or even rude to those she needs to woo.”

“Badenoch’s vision for growth dates from 1688. Tory candidate’s loathing of wokeness and the ‘bureaucratic class’ draws on Nobel Laureate’s work, but is too sweeping.” The Times, October 30, 2024, 23. Daniel Finkelstein.

Shunning? mingling?

“Better for all sides to mingle rather than shun. Campus Cromwells are excluding students who express views that don’t fit an agenda, with sometimes devastating effect. Zero tolerance may be useful in policing but not sane relationships. ... I flinch at those whose precious virtue makes them noisily flee X.” The Times, November 18 2024: 25.

Libby Purves is concerned about students shunning their fellow students because of their words or actions. She cites Milton’s Areopagitica. A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing (1644), and Stevenson’s character of Utterson in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in support of her argument in favour of free engagement with all people and all opinions; and in favour of having “an approved tolerance of others”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areopagitica

Positive value, love: Israel and Palestine

Love all always. What else can one say when faced with the conflict in Israel and Palestine? I have written a short online book …

Israel and Palestine: self and other, positive and negative; 2023.

… and in the five-page second chapter …

2 Values

… I provide the following sections:

Hate … choosing not to hate

Holocaust and Palestine

A little candle burning in the night

Goodwill towards the other

…