He has a series of prescriptions for alleviating poverty and promoting education that sound like the classic liberal formula for a healthy world polity and economy. He appears to say that some of the misconduct of opposing fundamentalists should be tolerated and forgiven in the hope of ending the cycle of retaliatory violence, which does not seem to me to say much more than that we may hope to appease them, and that our own goodness will be a shield and an example.
In the wake of the 2004 elections, Americans of various political values should find his ideas very interesting. He favours free markets, but rejects the primacy of the market - the nearly religious idea that the market is sacred. He rejects humanism and liberalism as belief systems, and is a strong spokesman for his own religious tradition, but he is prepared to work within a pluralistic order.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
very interesting and important Tony - well done, thanks!
2 - Bryce Eddings
Listed at Advance