Ideas@TheCentre
Battery full? Save energy and remove charger from wall socket
It used to be enough that the phone’s battery was charged. Not any longer.
My new phone now tells me to unplug the charger from the wall to save energy – basically telling me to think of myself as a member of the ‘community’ of users of this particular brand, and guiding me towards more responsible use, not simply of the gadget but of the planet too.
Of course, it’s not only telecommunications companies that bombard us with moral exhortations. We also get it from governments, environmentalist groups, and corporations who want us to be, do or think in certain ways.
And for the most part, we appear not to mind too many exhortations to practise what is considered responsible living. At least, we do not mind until a religious group or leader pronounces them. Religion’s presumption to inform the way we think and live frequently inflames a sense of communal indignation and anger. The expression of moral exhortation becomes distasteful at this point. However, while it is true that religious leaders can misuse their influence and standing in society, religion itself seeks not so much to control as to strengthen communities by binding them to common sets of values, practices and beliefs.
These beliefs and practices, which find different expression in widely differing societies, all serve to build hope, alleviate anxiety, and even control the ego, as comedian John Cleese argues. It is fashionable to dismiss religion as the cultural residue of a pre-scientific age. Yet in many parts of the modern world, there is a powerful resurgence in religious affiliation and belief. Religion shows no sign of dying out.
Religion claims to make known a level or dimension of reality that is supernatural. Relationship to this dimension, through symbols and rituals, can yield powerful transformations of experience for religious believers.
The opportunity to choose to relate to a dimension of experience that transcends the immediate, binds one to a wider reality, and informs one’s deeper values is an important mark of a free society. Religion got there first.
Now the environmental and corporate exhorters are beginning to work it out too.
The Reverend Peter Kurti is a Visiting Fellow with the Religion and the Free Society Program at The Centre for Independent Studies. CIS is re-launching this program with the annual Acton Lecture by Zimbabwean Minister of Education, Sport, Art and Culture David Coltart at Parliament House in Sydney on 26 July.
