AREOMAGAZINE.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah: "[Muslims] admit that there were similar Divinely inspired messengers in other countries -- Gautama Buddha, Shri Krishna and Shri Ram in India, Socrates in Greece, ..."] ARTICLE: When Socrates was awaiting execution, his wealthy friend, Crito, offers to help him escape. Despite the unjust charges against him and an easy escape, Socrates refuses, arguing that it is worse to commit injustice by violating the law than to suffer injustice oneself. It is better to maintain one's own virtue, even if it means accepting an unjust outcome. Being a just person matters more than injustice generated by institutions. Indeed, for Socrates, it matters more than life itself. Socrates' uncompromising claim about virtue and justice has gone unheeded in our times. Instead, social justice dominates public discussion. Social justice is concerned with outcomes. Whether intentionally or not, social justice tends to destroy what in earlier ages was called natural justice. Natural justice refers ...

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AMERICANMIND.ORG -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah: "[Muslims] admit that there were similar Divinely inspired messengers in other countries -- Gautama Buddha, Shri Krishna and Shri Ram in India, Socrates in Greece, ..."] ARTICLE: As Plato (Socrates' greatest pupil) describes it, democracy is basically what American society has become in the twenty-first century -- so much so that one wonders whether he had access to a time machine. Recognizing Plato's profound prescience begins with understanding his psychology, which formed the basis of his political philosophy. Specifically, Plato's four stages by which minds can become progressively disordered, and the ways in which four increasingly corrupt types of society parallel these disorders. The tendency toward disorder and tyranny, that Plato attributes to democracies, is a consequence of their egalitarianism, moral relativism, and sexual license. Plato distinguishes three main parts of the psyche: reason, spirit, and appetite. Naturally, appetite encompasses desires for ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- OFF-GUARDIAN.ORG -- At a Quaker Meeting, occasionally someone will say, "Could we have some silence please?" when the discussion becomes too contentious and not progressing towards resolution. We wait and listen. What are we listening for? As corny and old-fashioned as it may sound, we are waiting for guidance from God. I have felt increasing awe and reverence for this process by which Quakers have conducted meetings for hundreds of years. No shouting. No interrupting. Instead of voting, we try to discern the "sense of the Meeting" before acting. Just one voice can be the one to heed, even if the whole group is going another way -- because we believe that all have direct access to God's guidance, no one person more than another. In this contentious time of lockdowns, isolations, staggering ...

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