Axar.az presents an article, "Clarity" by John Samuel Tieman.

My wife and I went to the San Francisco Ballet. We saw “Eugene Onegin”, a ballet based on the long narrative poem by Alexander Pushkin. It's a 200-year-old story that is written for our time. Earlier commentaries refer to Onegin as “cynical”. Today, most would say narcissistic. Call it cynicism or call it narcissism. In either case, Onegin fails in love, kills his best friend, and his self-absorption leaves him alone and freezing. Does he realize his need for moral reconstruction? In the end, Onegin pays no heed to the snow and cold. Even now, he is frozen not by the elements but by his own self-absorption, by his own lack of moral clarity. He needs a moral reconstruction that we are left to wonder if he will ever find..

We need clarity. Consider Minneapolis. Perhaps you can argue about the justifications for killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Do the videos show this or do they show that? But that aside, the almost military occupation of an American city and its resultant chaos, the cruelty to undocumented immigrants, the cruelty to American citizens, these are not, as some argue, morally ambiguous. We don't simply need clarity. We need moral clarity.

Perhaps we need something like a second Reconstruction. The first Reconstruction tried to work through the challenges associated with the abolition of slavery. These included legal and political challenges. But underlying these was a fundamental moral reconstruction. In any case, reflection. We need reflection that removes us from a personal self-absorption that becomes a kind of communal narcissism. It isn't simply the immigration laws that are broken. It isn't simply the immigration police that's broken. Our republic is broken. We need structural reconstruction that starts with personal reconstruction.

There are a lot of things I am fit to do. Preaching isn't one of them. But I know a problem when I see a problem. So let me go old school and turn to the wise.

Mohandas Gandhi felt that peace is profoundly rooted in self-discipline, a discipline that finds itself rooted in self-awareness and non-violence. The Mahatma's approach is not simply the absence of violence. His approach is to achieve the presence of an understanding that's transformative for both the individual and ultimately for society. Self-sacrifice, non-violence, finding moral strength, working for the common good, these aren't separate considerations but one unified approach to peace.

Look at it this way. To many folks, peace is a treaty followed by a trade negotiation and a cultural exchange often involving ping-pong and dance troupes. To Gandhi, peace begins with an individual transformation. If enough people strive for such a transformation, this results in, among other things, communal justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr., adopted Gandhian methods in our Civil Rights Movement. He understood that these methods are deeply rooted in Christianity as well as the Hinduism of Gandhi. Dr. King also understood one other thing. Gandhi's ideals work.

We live in a dark time for our republic. Racism, antisemitism, homophobia, sexism and xenophobia, to name just a few of our problems. We need to renew our commitment to a pluralistic republic by asking a dozen questions, by addressing a dozen issues. These questions not only address the functioning of the republic, but also address the function of our souls. We need a renewal that begins in the individual and ends by renewing the nation. And, while some may think this “old school”, perhaps we need a renewal that incorporates ideals never fully realized. The ideals of Gandhi, the ideals of King. The ideals of a truly representative democracy. Ideals that result in a truly transformative process that fosters peace and purpose.