Heroes Not Zombies

I’ve been a subscriber to Resurgence magazine for more years than I can remember. The latest issue has an editorial by Satish Kumar which eloquently talks about the interconnections between Truth, Goodness and Beauty – which he refers to as TGB.

What I particularly like the way he embodies truth, goodness and beauty…..

There is a corresponding trinity: head, heart and hands. With our head, with our thinking and intellect, we comprehend truth; with our heart we experience goodness and with our hands we create beauty

I think it’s interesting how he highlights the issue of this consumerist society promoting physical goods and shopping so highly, with a constant drive to make these physical goods as cheaply as possible. It’s not that we hold our physical objects, or those who make them, in the highest esteem

According to the prevailing ethos of our society manual work must be done by machines as far as is possible, or by cheap labour, either at home, or by immigrant workers from poorer countries. Most ‘manually manufactured’ goods are expected to be made in countries like Bangladesh by poorly paid artisan craftsmen and women; the economy of a country like England aspires to be transformed into a ‘knowledge economy’. This is a very unbalanced state of affairs.

He concludes with a classically INTEGRAL vision

Our society needs a bigger picture – a holistic vision. The hallmark of a balanced society is to honour and respect mental work and manual work equally. We need both. Only then we can develop our head, heart and hands in total harmony; science, spirituality and the arts need to be in complete coherence leading to the trinity of TGB – truth, goodness and beauty – as an integrated whole.