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buddhism
September 2009 
ends and means
Posted on Jan 23rd, 2008
by 
jhalifax
jhalifax
Ends and means
great question
what are we doing to our world
this from wendell berry
“Once we have reached the desired end, we think, we will turn back to purify and consecrate the means. Once the war that we are fighting for peace is won, then the generals will become saints, the burned children will proclaim in the heaven that their suffering is well repaid, the poisoned forests will turn green again. Once we have peace, we say, or abundance or justice or truth, or comfort, everything will be right. Its an old dream.
It’s a vicious illusion. For the discipline of ends is no discipline at all. The end is preserved in the means; a desirable end may forever perish in the wrong means. Hope lives in the means, not in the end. Art does not survive in its revelations, or agriculture in its products, or craftsmanship in its artifacts, or civilization in its monuments, or faith in its relics.”
great question
what are we doing to our world
this from wendell berry
“Once we have reached the desired end, we think, we will turn back to purify and consecrate the means. Once the war that we are fighting for peace is won, then the generals will become saints, the burned children will proclaim in the heaven that their suffering is well repaid, the poisoned forests will turn green again. Once we have peace, we say, or abundance or justice or truth, or comfort, everything will be right. Its an old dream.
It’s a vicious illusion. For the discipline of ends is no discipline at all. The end is preserved in the means; a desirable end may forever perish in the wrong means. Hope lives in the means, not in the end. Art does not survive in its revelations, or agriculture in its products, or craftsmanship in its artifacts, or civilization in its monuments, or faith in its relics.”
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