(SPIRITUAL ETHICS [continued(4)][:Locality Plan])[9th April 1987]

[Redbook3:155][19870409:1345j](SPIRITUAL ETHICS [continued(4)][:Locality Plan])[9th April 1987]

19870409.1345.

[continued]

I did, many years ago, try to develop a structure* of communities** which would give to the Individual the maximum practicable independence to rule his own life without leaving those who needed help bereft of it***. I destroyed almost all of the work – except for the bare summaries – because I became convinced that it had been tainted by too much political ideology and influence arising from the circumstances of the time. I suspect that the reason why this happened was because, although I envisaged a three-tier system (if I recall correctly) as follows:

(1) Religion

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(2) Ethics

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(3) Administration

– each tier of which should depend on the one above, I also felt that each tier should be able to be justified on its own;**** and I started from the bottom, i.e. the dependent, instead of at the top, the Independent.

(I think my interim statement for Religion was: #(Remember,) “All is One”; and for Ethics was: “Be true with yourself, and to all others; and care for All.” – alright, perhaps, so far as they go; but insufficiently explored and developed to provide a basis for an entire system of Administration.)

All the same, the basic idea wasn't all bad#*; it owed something (unconsciously) to the Chinese experience, but started life as an attempt to justify the maximum possible railway network!

*'Locality Plan.' <930418>

[See [Redbook3:176-180][19870412:2137b](FREEDOM AND COMMUNITY [continued])[12th April 1987]]

**[See last previous entry.]

***{cf. I.114[[Redbook1:114-116][19700120:1605]{The Cluster}[20th January 1970]].}

****(cf. Goodison's Christian Ethics without Christianity (p148).)

#There was, I think, also an introduction to these in the [shorter, abandoned] fictions: 'Be alert#**: be aware;' – but I'm not sure that I divided the statements between Religion and Ethics then. <930418>

#*{See p176 [[Redbook3:176-180][19870412.1525](FREEDOM AND COMMUNITY)[12th April 1987]]}

#**[Can't help being reminded somehow of that spoof Army poster which I think I first saw in 2 Div HQ in Germany in the mid/late 1970s: “Be alert. The Army needs lerts.”]

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