And recently I heard former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, in conversation with Frank Brennan, suggest Australia might be in the post-Christian era.
It seems the prefix post is very popular these days.
I wonder what age we're actually in? Are we in the pre-something age?
Maybe we're in the pre-compassionate age. How lovely. I look forward to a time when we can be judged by how we treat the defenceless and weak amongst us.
The following quotes, collected by PamPerdue at Askville, give a history of great thoughts about compassion to humans:
Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.~Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973), My Several Worlds [1954].
The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.~Samuel Johnson, Boswell: Life of Johnson
The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.~John E. E. Dalberg, Lord Acton, The History of Freedom in Antiquity, [1877].
"...the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped. " ~ Last Speech of Hubert H. Humphrey
"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." ~ Mahatma Ghandi
"Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members -- the last, the least, the littlest." ~Cardinal Roger Mahony, In a 1998 letter, Creating a Culture of Life
The greatness of America is in how it treats its weakest members: the elderly, the infirm, the handicapped, the underprivileged, the unborn. ~Bill Federer
"A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying," ~Pope John Paul II
Are we, perhaps, approaching an age when we realise our fellow creatures also suffer if we mistreat them?
Another respondent at Askville gives a different quote from Ghandi, and this is the one I had previously heard:
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man."
I look forward to The Age of Compassion!
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