When our borders betray our values

I find borders somewhat perplexing constructions. 

By this I mean not only the metal and concrete that separates people, but more so the mental constructions of separation. 

Before a wall is built someone envisions it in their mind. Their ability to build separation in thought stems from a set of values that assumes that they, and what they have or are, is worth protecting from ‘others’. 

This is not a Christian way to think - in my opinion. When I make points such as these, people often argue back that we need such constructions to protect ourselves from others who have ill intent. 

When such an argument is presented it displays that their horizon of values is the self and what they own, rather than the other and what they may need. Such arguments (which are pragmatically based on economic or political logic) betray where a person’s primary values lie. They also show a lack of historical consciousness - borders are fickle human constructions. We should never make the mistake of thinking that they have ontological significance. God does not care more for Europeans than Africans, or Mexicans than Americans, or the Israeli than the Palestinian.

I made a little video in which I discussed some of these points from the perspective of a ‘theory of justice’ as proposed by the philosopher John Rawls.

You can watch it here. https://youtu.be/KRzwK4hD31I

Justice, economics and historical consciousness - on a trip to Belgium

You may have noticed that I have not been posting to my BLOG as regularly in recent months. In part this is because Squarespace no longer supports posting to version 5 sites from their iOS apps. I mostly posted to my BLOG from my iPad or iPhone. So, if anyone has a solution for this please let me know! I would love to be able to post more regularly but need to be able to do so from my iPhone or iPad.

Well, here is a post that I prepared about two weeks ago when I was in Belgium.

In today’s VLOG I travel to Leuven in Belgium for a conference with my friend Prof Kobus Kok. It is a wonderful journey, and so much fun with my Brompton bicycle (cycle, train, bus, cycle!) It is awesome. But, I notice that the demographics of the Netherlands and Belgium differ somewhat. This got me thinking about the current concerns in Europe, the USA and elsewhere about refugees, ‘closing’ one’s borders, BREXIT and of course Turkey, France and Trump’s USA.

I discuss John Rawls’ Theory of Justice as one way of viewing how we might structure our societies economically and politically if we have a concern for our past history and our future shared wellbeing.

See John Rawls’ ‘A theory of justice’ here: http://amzn.to/2qg83OI

Thanks for watching! As always, I would love to hear your comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback and questions!

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