peace, love & happiness?

“Values are principles or norms that guide behavior, decision-making, and perceptions of what is meaningful or important in life. They can be deeply personal or shared by a group, culture, or society,” ChatGPT answers my request for a definition.

Values lead to questions: How should I act? Which position should I cultivate? What do I believe in? What has led to these beliefs? What kind of life do I want, individually and collectively?

When asked about an overarching value, a highest good, many think of peace: harming no one, including nature. Showing one’s human, caring side. Compassion, understanding, willingness to compromise. Concomitantly, many believe in love. They devote themselves to others, without redeeming themselves with promises or gifts, and love everything and everyone unconditionally. The third component of the old hippie motto, happiness, goes beyond hedonism. To be happy is to influence the happiness of the world with one’s sunny disposition. An entire industry lives off our wish to be part of the chosen few.

Good intentions are not enough. We need to come out. For freedom, against oppression and against the “whole defective humanity” that, as I write, is taking hold in real time on our screens and displays. Thomas Mann, the German refugee and Nobel Laureate whose Villa Aurora in the Pacific Palisades partially escaped the flames of the recent fires in L.A. had a weekly radio program, in which he reminded people of what it means to be human. If you read German I warmly recommend you apply yourself to an article in Republik by author Melly Kylak.

The wheat is being separated from the chaff. Stay on board!

Yours,
Susanne G. Seiler

P.S. We can only staff our lounge and library at Hochstrasse by appointment. Please contact the editorial team if you’d like to come and visit.