Instead and Else

Louisiana is arguably the least educated of the 50 United States. Nearly a quarter of all high school students don't graduate, it ranks 49th in the percentage of college graduates, and education spending has been frozen for most of the past decade.

It's produced House Speaker Mike Johnson. I rest my case.

The Louisiana legislature recently passed a bill requiring all classrooms in the state to display a copy of the Ten Commandments, a Bronze Age code of ethics that doesn't even have an injunction against slavery. Short of outright murder, there is nothing prohibiting child abuse, physical or sexual. There's nothing prohibiting rape, as long as it doesn't involve outright murder or include someone else's spouse. It perpetuates social control, establishing a sole religion and the absolute rule of authority. No wonder right-wingers love it.

I could own a slave, rape that slave, then rape my neighbor's daughter, and finally beat and threaten any children that observed my actions, all without violating any of the Commandments. I would still be a godly person, a faithful servant of the lord. Ridiculous.

Since we are a pluralistic society with no state-established religion, I propose that all classrooms also include the ten Zen Buddhist precepts:   

1. Respect life – Do not kill
2. Be giving – Do not steal
3. Honor the body – Do not misuse sexuality
4. Manifest truth – Do not lie
5. Proceed clearly – Do not cloud the mind
6. See the perfection – Do not speak of others' errors and faults
7. Realize self and others as one – Do not elevate the self and blame others
8. Give generously – Do not be withholding
9. Actualize harmony – Do not engage in anger
10. Experience the intimacy of things – Do not defile the myriad things

The precepts are different from the commandments because they are presented as orders from a Supreme Being but rather simply guidance for a harmonious life. They actually started as monastic rules for monks to observe for peacefully living together. They've been adapted, pared down, and refined for everyday life, and if you violate a precept, it's not a "sin," - life is just that much less harmonious that it would have been otherwise.  

I also like that they're all expressed not merely in negative terms, e.g., "don't do this" and "don't do that," but also in positive terms. e.g., "do this" and "do that." "Respect life" goes well beyond merely not killing.

Hanging the Ten Precepts in every Louisiana classroom wouldn't even violate the First Amendment, as there's nothing explicitly "religious" in any of them - no mention of a God or injunction to worship one over another. It may come from a religious source, but there's nothing inherently "religious" about it.

Of course, it will never happen. People are stupid.