4 - Sunday, July 7, 1985 - North Shore News

All for a good cause

y hile we all know they are necessary
somehow, and certainly it is impossible to
imagine a world where they didn’t exist,

causes frequently strike me as being mainly cause

for alarm.

All causes, of course, are
‘*good"', although the
goodness of the cause is ob-
viously in the eye of the
beholder.

The shame, maybe even
the tragedy, is that causes
have a perverse way, no
matter how ‘‘good"', of
twisting the believers into
something that is often not
quite truly human.

It requires no effort at all
to find causes that cause
mostly pain. Most terrifying
among these, notably, are
religion and politics. Both
amount to a kind of Jihad, a
holy war, whether under a
secular banner like Com-
munism, or, for that matter,
Republicanism.

There have been a few
Teligious sects that never
harmed anybody, like the
Janns in ancient India, who
literally wouldn’t hurt a fly,
since it, too, had an eternal
soul. Or the Baha'is, cur-
rently being persecuted in
Tran. But at the very least,
all religions do the violence
of inflicting their world-view
on their members’. kids and
playing powei games with
each other, whether based

Drinking,
driving —
offences

RECENT CONVICTIONS

in North Shore courts have
resulted .in
fines and penalties. for-drink--
ing-driving related offences.
Mandatory license suspen-
sion is in addition to
published penalty.
WEST VAN COURTS:
Richard North Nutall,
3175 Benbow Rd., West Van
(Over .08, $425); William
Alexander. Lord, 6343
Chatam St., West Van (Over
.08, $300); John Michael
Neely; 607, 4001 Mr,
Seymour Parkway (Over .08,
$700); Vernon William
Wright, 4110 Burkeridge
Rd., West Van (Over .08,
$1,000); John Michael
Blades, 75 Isleview Pl,
Lions Bay (Refuse breath
test, $500)...
NORTH VAN COURTS:
James Richard Shannon,
8355 Victoria Dr.; Van
(Over .08, 14 day jail term);
Eldon Earl Moerike, 779
Lynn Valley Rd., North Van
(Over .08, $750); Marilyn D.
Black, 1398 Frederick Rd.,
West ‘Van (Over .08, $500);
Kevin Michael Rusk, 18, 394
Keenleyside St., Winnipeg
(Impaired driving, $500);
Clifford James Helps, 323
W. 25th St., North Van
(impaired driving, refuse
breath test, 16 day jail term);
John Stewart Groundwater,
3556 Panorama Dr., North
Van (Over .08, 30 day jail
term).

the. . following |

strictly
personal

Bob Hunter

on piety or purity, the two
not always being the same.

This is not to say that
religious stirrings aren't
often the highest human im-
pulse. Every once in a while,
one gets a glimpse of the
workings of God or Allah or
the Atman or the Pool of
Consciousness Beyond Time
and Space of Which The
Universe Is A Holographic
Projection, as some would
say.

And a glimpse alone is
enough to make you weep
with joy. or tremble with

. awe. But should it ever be a

‘cause’? Here we are, the
effects of the primary cause,
making up causes of our
own. -

“Sure, all religions are
based no doubt on some-
body’s peek behind the
scenes of physical reality,
and who can argue with a
saint or Enlightened Being?

It’s their followers who
always make me edgy. And

therein lies the trouble with
causes,

By definition, causes have
to have followers. | mean,
what is the sound of one fol-
lower clapping? Not much.
Without the apostles,
especially Peter, Jt is
arguable that Christ's mar-
tyrdom would have been in
vain -- if, in fact, it wasn't
anyway.

Since then, what have we
seen but a string of am-
bitious, fallible men, taking
up Christ's cause under any
number of qualifying
‘isms'', gaining power,
often wealth, for themselves
in the process, Some even
going so far as to claim in-
fallibility?

The same goes for Bud-
dhism, by the way. In Tibet,
the theocratic bureacracy
that grew up over the
millenia chanting ‘‘om’’,
succeeded in creating a
bloated brotherhood of
lamas who lived on the
backs of the peasants.

In the modern era, good
causes have become legion.
God: knows I’ve been in-
volved in enough of them
over the years. Yet all of
them have almost what
amounis to a fundamental
flaw in their basic structure.

First of all, they tend to
encourage fanaticism, or at
least dishonesty. 1 mean,
whoever heard of a union
boss who got to the top by
preaching a philosophy of
doing unto employers what
you would have them dounto
you?

Are political parties led by
men or women who urge
compassion and understan-
ding for the opposition?

Do animal rights or anti-
abortion zealots. care about
jobs for seal hunters or the
unhappy fate of pregnant
teenagers?

It's not their problem,
they’H tell you. In the’
process of pushing one’s
cause, you sooner or later
bump up = against other
causes. You can’t quit just
because of somebody else’s

Stongs Rupert
22nd Ave. at Rupert St.
Vancouver

etroneous belief system, can
you? Or even their perceived
needs.

The cause always requires
that you act. That's one of
the structural problems with
causes per se. Even conser-
vation, plainly the most
legitimate, practical cause of
all, free as it should be of
ideological and theological
bias, has been politicized to

an appalling degree and ex-
treme positions have become
the norm.

It is not that we can live
without causes. Just getting
by, after all, is a cause. Your
cause. My cause.
Everybody’s cause. Beyond
thay, there is the cause of
helping others, starting with
your family and tribe, to
sutvive, 100.

Yet, beyond bare survival,
causes demand that people
pick positions and stick
stubbornly to them, bending
information to suit their
fantasies, hyping themselves
into absoiute certainty about
their cause’s rightness.
That’s where it inevitably
begins to get a bit weird.

Why do we have causes?
Just because, I guess.

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