Dear Vaughn,
I think it was once suggested on the old Talisman that men be excluded
from the ITC. But that wouldn't change the fact that men get the final
word.
warmest, Susan
Susan,
Except in general men don't get the final word at all. It might be true
that, even at the bottom end of the social ladder, there is likely to be
a woman, and at the top end there may be a man. But it is not true that
that woman at the bottom represents all women, nor that man at the top
represents all men.
In that old world order, the King and his entourage owned everything and
everyone. In the current world order, there is a little dispersal of
resources and power but how far has it spread in the past five hundred
years? I might suggest, not too far in consideration with here we might
visualise that from a Baha'i perspective.
Baha'u'llah, I think, is trying to teach us that we have to give up the
thought of power for the thought of service. But He has indicated that
justice is also an extremely important matter for human society. And
justice is the element that can be quickly lost in regard to people who
have servitude utmost in their mind. As I have been reminded repeatedly
in my life: Softies don't win. So Baha'u'llah institutes an
organisational framework that can impart justice relative to the state
of humanity that is going to evolve over the next thousand or more
years. Key to that function of Justice is a group of at least nine men.
Key to the election of those nine men is that the electors should elect
the greatest male servants of our society; and that the electors
themselves have gained their position through being considered among the
greatest servants of their nation.
I am not sure what that makes the individual man at the top of that
process. I am inclined to believe that we have elected the softest bunch
of fellows in the world to one of the most difficult posts. How does
this sit with getting justice? Why not elect the softest bunch of women
in the world? Would that work better for getting justice? Would a meld
work better? What criteria would you base an evaluation of that upon?
Don't we need tough for justice?
I don't know the answer to any of these questions.
Owen
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