Reflecting the Reflection of Reflections

Just saying

Asking a student to include a bibliography for their term paper is deemed by some to be an act of cruelty.  Some of us compile bibliographies for fun (and the advancement of knowledge).  To each his own, right?  I am compiling a Bibliography of Ethical Culture and having way more fun than a woman of my age ought to be having (according to some younger folks who may be somewhat clueless in the joys of living and dinking around in the library).  All of this is to say that another moment of serendipity has led me to further appreciation for the words of Felix Adler and one of those religious experiences that sometimes catch us by surprise.

Here's my story.  I have a more or less organized plan for approaching the Bibliography so that I can document the literature of Ethical Culture over its first 150 years.  (Well, that's the goal.)  There are, however, occasional opportunities to depart from that plan as a source points to more publications that should be documented as well.  In the past, this has led me down side trails to find such hidden gems as the early involvement of Albert Einstein in Ethical Culture in Europe.  This time I found a list of books by Felix Adler and wanted to make sure that I had documented them all in the Bibliography.  One that I had missed earlier was The Essentials of Spirituality, published in 1905.  While trying to find a copy online (out of copyright books are frequently available thanks to Google and Microsoft), I had to check out the full text to make sure that I was linking to a complete scan and not one with missing or blurred pages.  That led me (I said it was a trail) to the last pages of the book where I found this summary of the text:

The leading thoughts I have endeavored to state in these addresses are the following : Spirituality is morality carried out to the finish. It depends on always keeping the ultimate end of existence in view, and on not resting in the partial ends. Intervals set aside for self-recollection and the facing of the thought of death are useful aids. The ultimate end itself is to elicit worth in others, and, by so doing, in one's self. The indispensable condition of this attitude is to ascribe worth to every human being before even we observe it, to cast as it were a mantle of glory over him, to take toward every fellow human being the expectant attitude, to seek the worth in him until we find it. Even toward oppressors we should take the same attitude. Furthermore, our true self resides neither in our poorer nor in our better natural endowments, but in the will that suppresses the one and alone gives moral significance to the other. Finally, we must testify to our respect for principle by treating the small occasions of life as great if they involve a moral issue, and the great prizes of life as small if they are offered at the price of moral integrity. These are thoughts which I have found helpful in my own experience ; I submit them to you, in the hope that they may be of use to you also. [Emphasis added]

Not many days ago, I presented a platform for the Ethical Society of Austin based on the first issue of the journal Reflections published by the AEU in 2017.  My platform was called "Reflections on Difficult People" since that first issue of Reflections focused on responses to a central question:  How should an Ethical treat people that they do not like or who are socially destructive?  Almost all of the responses to that question made reference--direct or indirect--to Adler's An Ethical Philosophy of Life, published in 1918.  For my platform, I summarized the six responses to the question and then summarized my summary with these key takeaways from the discussion:

1. All humans have worth.  It is inherent and cannot be taken away, nor should it be abused.  Worth is not the same as value.
2. All humans are connected.  Without belaboring the concept, if we can accept Carl Sagan’s assertion that “We are made of starstuff,” we can grasp the ultimate basis of the connection.
3. We are bound by our commitments to Ethical Culture to respect the worth of all human beings.  Respect is not the same as love, nor are we required to love all humans.  Respect includes reverence for the best in others.
4. All humans are unique, and that is okay.
5. Respect for others includes protecting their worth and dignity from harm, including harm from our own actions.  When we must challenge someone’s actions or words, we must do so with respect.
6. Human progress includes the development of public norms for protecting the worth and dignity of humans.  Respecting the dignity of others compels us to protect, preserve, and improve those norms.
7. The practice of Ethical Culture is that which helps us grow or develop as Ethicals (moral beings, ethical units, humane humans).  Such practice may include eliciting the best in others.  It may include treating someone we dislike with respect.  It may include defending the dignity of others while showing all due respect to those who are themselves harming the dignity of those we defend.
8. Showing respect is not the same as feeling respect.  Sometimes we have to present a facade in order to protect the dignity of the person with whom we are dealing.
9. Failure is a growing experience.  Use it to become a better Ethical.

I was pretty pleased with my takeaways and felt that I had done a good job of catching the gist of the discussion published in that issue of Reflections.  Imagine, then, my delight in discovering Adler's own summary--a prequel, if you will--to these key features of Ethical Culture.  Imagine, too, the overwhelming sense of wonder that his delightful phrase--"cast . . . a mantle of glory over" the person to whom we are attributing worth and giving respect, with an "expectant attitude" as we seek to bring out the worth that we have already attributed to that person.  The power of these phrases make even more meaningful the words and concepts that I am still seeking to understand, incorporate into my thinking, and embody in my actions.  It doesn't hurt that the words delight me and lift my heart to another plane.