Community – Being Human 79holding) states and the northern states. At stake was slavery, which the
southern states wanted retained, and the northern states wanted abol-
ished. Although the southern states lost in war, slavery did not end in
practice. The Civil Rights movement during the 1960s, a century after
the Civil war, is indicative of the ubiquitous prevalence of inequality, in
a nation founded upon such a noble ethical ideal as the American Decla-
ration of Independence.
If “civilization” and “progress” depict the capacity of one race to an-
nihilate or subjugate others, then the English language is full of irony. If,
on the other hand “civilization” and “progress” mean the promotion of
civility, gentleness and concern, then, perhaps, “global” civilization and
progress are long in coming. What, then, prevents humans from embrac-
ing one another as brothers and sisters- as members of one “community”
irrespective of gender, race, religion or nationality? Too often religion is
invoked in justifying exclusion, exploitation and oppression. In 1848,
the year during which Karl Marx published The Communist Manifesto,
Cecil Alexander composed the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful
with one of the verses affirming:
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.
The relationship between Ethics and Morals is comparable to that be-
tween Faith and Works. The Epistle of James (2: 14-18) expresses this
relationship succinctly as follows: