A spoonful of idealism helps the commercialism go down
My recent post What would you do if your homeland was invaded? which questioned Benjamin Britten's pacifist position of "I believe in letting an invader in and then setting a good example" generated a healthy debate. In the main the responses supported Britten's position and my personal ambivalence on the subject was reflected in another post about the Buddhist precept of not taking the life of any living creature. But the difficulty of adopting a consistent position was underlined by my visit last week to the scene of the Allied invasion of Normandy . The obscenity of taking the life of any living creature notwithstanding, it was impossible not to be deeply moved by the ultimate sacrifice made by so many young combatants to protect the personal freedom that we now take for granted. How to protect freedom threatened by a demonic autocracy while also protecting human life may well be an insoluble koan. But there is no doubt that an important contribution can be ma