Building a Peaceful World and the Calling of Practical Spirituality:

Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Schweitzer

Predrag Cicovacki

I. Introductory Remarks

The twentieth century was by far the bloodiest and most destructive century in the history of the human

race. According to some UN statistics, there were only twenty-eight days in this entire century of genocide and

destruction without a war of some kind, in some part of the globe. According to some other estimates, in the

same period 231 million people were killed or allowed to die by human decisions (Knaebel 2006: 106). In this

atmosphere of unrestrained violence and contempt for life, people are understandably preoccupied with a

negative aspect of peace – the immediate goal in this type of situation must be to bring the warring side to the

cessation of hostilities. Yet great peacemakers always look beyond the immediate goals and hope to establish

the conditions of genuine and stable peace, even while the hostilities are still raging.

While it is clear what is meant by cessation of hostilities and peace in the negative sense, it is far from

obvious how peace in the positive sense should be understood. I will understand it in terms of what has been

called “practical spirituality” – an approach that combines theory and practice, science and religion,

transcendence and immanence. This is the approach that, as Swami Vivekananda (1991:354) puts it succinctly,

urges us to realize that “the highest idea of morality and unselfishness goes hand in hand with the highest idea

of metaphysical conception.”

To be more precise, my goal in this paper is to propose a vision of peace in the positive sense, based on

a specific understanding of the “triangular model of society.” To comprehend this model, imagine an arbitrary

triangle and suppose that in each of its angles there is one of the fundamental forces of any society: economy,

politics, and culture. Economy refers to the force which allows us to satisfy the basic needs for food, shelter,

work, and similar. Politics deals with the force which establishes laws and the governance of every society and

enables it to function as one political unit. Culture refers to the force which deals with the satisfaction of our

specifically human needs for meaning in life, morals, an object of devotion, and so on.

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Since these forces correspond to genuine human needs, every society will have these three represented

and developed to a certain extent. What distinguishes one society from another is the respective hierarchy of

these three forces. In one typically modern pattern, politics is on the top, economy right behind it, while culture

is at the bottom. In another pattern, increasingly spreading under the umbrella of “globalization,” economy has

become the dominant force of the triangle, politics is in the service of economy, and culture is again lingering

way behind.

While it is possible to consider many variations of the mutual relations of these forces, this will not be

done here. The objective of my paper is to scrutinize three claims. First, the dominance of politics and economy

in the great majority of countries is the main reason that there were so many wars and so much violence in the

twentieth century. Second, although the forces of politics and economy are indispensable for normal functioning

of every society, there seems to be something inherent in them that leads to abuses of power and unjust

exploitation when they assume the dominant role. Third, the conditions of peace in the positive sense can be

established only when culture is the leading force in the social triangle. To develop and support these claims, I

will rely on two distinguished peacemakers and practitioners of practical spirituality, Mahatma Gandhi and

Albert Schweitzer. I will follow their lead in arguing against politics and economy dominating our lives, and in

favor of the primary role of culture or, as they both called it, “soul force.” Only this soul force can create the

conditions for peace within people, which – both Gandhi and Schweitzer were convinced – will then unfold and

become peace among people.

II. Satyagraha and Reverence for Life

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) and Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) were contemporaries who never met

personally, but who had profound respect for each other. They corresponded briefly through a common friend,

Charles Freer Andrews, the Christian missionary, whom Gandhi met in South Africa and Schweitzer in

England. They had other correspondence friends in common, including Albert Einstein, who had the portraits of

both friends hanging on his wall: “‘The greatest man of our age,’ was how Einstein described Gandhi; and, of

Schweitzer, whose name was mentioned: ‘Yes, he too is a very great man’” (Clark, 1984: 753-4).

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My purpose is not to establish whether Gandhi and Schweitzer were equally great human beings, or

whether one of them was greater than the other. I want to emphasize that, despite their differences, Gandhi and

Schweitzer were united in their fundamental conviction that the only path to a stable and genuine peace in the

world is the path of spiritual development. They both conceived this development in terms of the simplicity of

life-style, the dedication to the pursuit of truth, and the unity of theory and practice. Schweitzer was famous for

saying: “My life is my argument,” while Gandhi entitled his autobiography: “My experiments with truth.”

When thinking about Gandhi and Schweitzer, we should always keep in mind this interconnectedness of theory

and practice, of life and thought. Since this interconnectedness is the foundation of their visions of peace, we

will begin by reminding ourselves of their lives and thought.

Of Gandhi, who is better known of the two, I wrote more extensively elsewhere (Cicovacki, 2015) and

will say here only a few words. Although born in India, he was educated as a lawyer in England. Yet he quickly

abandoned his legal practice in order to fight for social justice, first in South Africa and later in India. Gandhi’s

influence was enormous, and he is usually credited as the person who was most responsible for India’s success

in her struggle for independence. Gandhi developed a new conception of non-violence, which became an

inspiration and a model for the liberation movements in many other parts of the world.

One of the central insights of Gandhi’s “experiments with truth” was his novel concept of satyagraha,

which he introduced as “soul force pure and simple.” Satya means “truth,” and it derives from sat, which means

“to be.” The literal meaning of satyagraha is “adherence to truth,” “insistence on truth,” or simply “the vow of

truth.” By satyagraha Gandhi wanted to emphasize a denunciation of physical force, coercion, and violence; a

denunciation, in other words, of the attempts to change the world by external means. Satyagraha is the force of

non-violence, love, and truth, the use of which requires fearlessness, self-purification, and complete spiritual

commitment. The objective of satyagraha is not to defeat one’s opponent but to reach an inner transformation

and accord by peaceful means: “The only real liberation is that which liberates both the oppressor and the

oppressed at the same time from the same tyrannical automatism of the violent process which contains in itself

the curse of irreversibility” (Merton, 1965: 14). Satyagraha presupposes not only that it is possible for our

opponents to have a change of heart and mind, but also that we ourselves keep our hearts and minds open, that 3

we are willing to sacrifice even the things that are dearest to us. Satyagraha can be practiced by anyone and is

applicable to every aspect of life – private or public. How exactly satyagraha is to be practiced, that depends on

the specific context and the individuals involved. Regardless of such variables, in all cases satyagraha should

stand for the dignity of every living being. In its essence, satyagraha is a manifestation of the inner freedom

which aims at triumph of spirit over body, non-violence over violence, love over hatred, truth over deception.

Let us now turn to Schweitzer’s life and his “experiments with truth.” He was born in Kaysersberg,

Alsace, on January 14, 1875, which was then part of Germany and nowadays belongs to France. Schweitzer was

raised bilingual, in a tight community in which the local Protestants and Catholics sometimes had their church

services together. At an early age Schweitzer learned to play piano, and soon afterwards organ as well. In 1893

Schweitzer went to Strasbourg to study theology and philosophy, but also made frequent visits to Paris, where

he studied organ. After graduating from the University of Strasbourg in 1898, Schweitzer made a firm decision

to dedicate his life to humanity when he turns thirty. Since at that time he did not have any concrete plan as to

how to pursue this calling, for the time-being he continued his studies of philosophy, theology, and music in

Strasbourg, Paris, and Berlin. In 1889 he obtained his Ph. D. with the thesis on Kant’s religious philosophy

(published in English as The Religious Philosophy of Kant) and began preaching at St. Nicholas Church in

Strasbourg. A year later, he received his licentiate in theology with the thesis on the Last Supper and the

messianic consciousness of Jesus (published in English as The Mystery of the Kingdom of God). In 1905 he

published a monumental book on the German composer Johann Sebastian Bach (J. S. Bach), and a year after

The Quest of the Historical Jesus and The Art of Organ Building and Organ Playing in Germany and France.

Having already published major works in three different fields, and having been appointed the Chair of

the Protestant Theological Seminary in Strasbourg, at the age of thirty Schweitzer decided to abandon his

academic and musical career in order to study medicine; he wanted to devote the rest of his life to the natives of

Africa as a physician.

Schweitzer’s plan encountered a powerful resistance. Among his family and friends there was only one

person who fully supported Schweitzer’s decision: Hélène Bresslau. Inspired by him, she qualified as a nurse

and decided to tie her fate to that of Schweitzer. They were married in 1912, and left together for Africa in 4

1913. They settled in Lambaréné, in the equatorial Africa, which presently belongs to Gabon. What Schweitzer

found there surpassed his worst fears:

At the time he arrived there, he was the only medical doctor in a thousand-square-mile area between the Congo and the Gold Coast, in malaria-infested West Equatorial Africa, serving a few miles south of the equator in the world’s most uncomfortable tropical climate. It was from this area in West Africa that most of the slave sold into bondage in the New World had been shipped. Libreville, in the Gulf of Guinea, was named after those liberated slaves returned by the English and French men-of-war. Unfortunately, their campaign was a losing battle against slave traders in the early nineteenth century. Schweitzer knew this local history, and it reinforced his commitments to devote himself … to Africa and the reparations he felt the white man owed the black (Marshall/Poling, 1975: 292).

Schweitzer was overwhelmed by work in the hospital but, by the sheer determination of will, he managed to

dedicate an hour or two to practicing music and to his intellectual work almost every evening. The plan for his

most important work, The Philosophy of Civilization, was conceived already in 1900, but was carried out only

during his stay in Africa. In fact, what in 1923 finally appeared under the title The Philosophy of Civilization is

only the first two parts of the conceived four-part work. The first part, “The Decay and the Restoration of

Civilization” is relatively short, and it deals with the destructive shift toward the material aspect of civilization

and away from its spiritual counterpart. The second and much longer part, “Civilization and Ethics,” outlines

Schweitzer’s understanding of the history of western ethics, and then develops his antidote to the decay of

civilization: the ethics of reverence for life. The third part was to deal in detail with the ideology of reverence

for life, and the fourth with the state. These volumes would have analyzed a history of European social and

political movements and the life of society from the standpoint of reverence for life. Despite writing hundreds

of pages of notes, Schweitzer never completed the last two parts. Instead, he offered numerous popular

expositions of his philosophy of reverence for life (e.g., On the Edge of the Primeval Forest, Christianity and

the Religions of the World, Out of My Life and Thought).

When he needed rest and more funding for the hospital, Schweitzer would return to Europe to give

concerts and lecture tours. In 1949, he also came to the US, where he enjoyed enormous popularity and support

after the WWII. In 1950, opinion polls revealed that Americans believed him to be the greatest non-American

who had ever lived, and countless magazine articles about him were published with outrageous titles, such as

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“God’s Own Man,” “The Greatest Christian,” “Man of God,” “Man of Our Century,” “The Thirteenth

Disciple,” “The Greatest Man in the World,” and “The Great Men’s Greatest Man.” Throughout 1950s,

honorary degrees and awards were pouring from all parts of Europe: election to the French Academy of Moral

and Political Sciences, King Gustav Adolf’s Prince Charles Medal for his great humanitarian achievements, the

Nobel Peace Prize, the British Empire’s Order of Merit, and the West German order Pour le Mérite (to mention

a few). Like Gandhi, Schweitzer was perturbed by all this publicity, for when he first went to Africa he had

nothing else in mind but to alleviate pain anonymously in some place where no medical help was previously

available.

What disturbed Schweitzer even more than his sudden prominence was the flocks of journalists who

started chasing him not only through Europe, but even when he was in Lambaréné. They all wanted to know

what Schweitzer was thinking about the current political problems, such as the nuclear arms race and the

decolonization of Africa. When Schweitzer accepted the challenge, the audience did not like what he had to say.

He accused the governments of the nuclear powers of an irresponsible arms race, not only because of the danger

of radioactive fallout, but because of the potential destruction of all human life. With Jean Rostand, Schweitzer

argued that the continuation of nuclear testing is “the crime projected in the future” (Marshall/Poling, 1975:

282). In the West, his insistence that the superpowers must renounce nuclear testing, as well as his calls for US

government to do so unilaterally, were perceived as signs of sympathizing with the communists. He provoked

even more outrage with his views on the future of Africa. Schweitzer warned that most African nations are

tribally divided and are not ready for full independence. He predicted that, without further economic and

cultural development, many newly formed countries will end up entangled in vicious civil wars for decades to

come. Several government and public figures in Africa accused him of “white-hat imperialism” and demanded

that he leave Africa for good. These critical sentiments were soon echoed in the Northern hemisphere. In June

1963, Time magazine published the most derogatory article to date, full of inaccurate information regarding

Schweitzer’s hospital and his opinions. Under the title, “Albert Schweitzer: An Anachronism,” the author of the

article concluded that Schweitzer lives in the Africa of 1913, hardly knowing or caring that a continent and a

century have passed him by.6

Since he was not interested in fame but in alleviating the pain of those around him, Schweitzer

continued to live according to the same principles – simplicity in personal life-style, passion for truth, and

reverence for all life – that he had followed long before he became “the greatest man in the world” and then

“the worst public enemy of progress and democracy.” The last several years of his life Schweitzer did not

travel. He lived in the seclusion of the African jungle, healing his patients during the day and playing music and

writing at night. On January 14 of 1965, Schweitzer celebrated his 90th birthday in Lambaréné, and stopped

working in the hospital only a month before he died, on September 4.

As Gandhi summed up his spiritual and political attitude through the coined phrase of satyagraha,

Schweitzer also succeeded in compressing his entire philosophical outlook into one phrase: “reverence for life.”

In its original German form, Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben, it already contains a sense of awe which we cannot

translate into a suitable English phrase. The word Ehrfurcht means literally “fear before an overwhelming

force.” This word suggests respect carried to an ultimate degree, as well as the acknowledgement of immensity

and awesome power. The whole phrase, Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben, thus means respect for life which is

understood as being far more than sheer existence. Religious and mystical elements are already implied in this

phrase.

By insisting on reverence for life, Schweitzer wanted to make three points. First, this phrase captures the

most basic insight about ourselves and our relationship to others: “I am life which wants to live, and all around

me is life that wants to live.” Second, reverence for life is the appreciation of what may be called the greatest

mystery of the world – life itself. We everywhere perceive life as different from ourselves in external

experience, yet inwardly recognize that it is the same life, driven by the same desire to live. Reverence for life is

the recognition of the fundamental similarity of all life, which removes the distance and the strangeness

between our lives and the life of any other living creature. Third, our recognition of the universal desire to live

is not a mere instinct, but a cornerstone of our ethical and spiritual orientation, of our soul force. For

Schweitzer, good consists in preserving life, in enhancing it, and in wishing to raise it to its highest potential.

Evil, by contrast, consists in the destruction of life, in the injury to life, or in the obstruction of its development.

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Reverence for life imposes on us a moral and spiritual obligation to treat every other being with dignity and

lovingly, regardless of the actual political and economic circumstances.

III. Criticism of Modern Civilization

Gandhi and Schweitzer traveled different paths toward their positive conceptions of peace: Gandhi

moved from practice to theory, while Schweitzer advanced mostly from theory to practice. More important for

our purpose is that their destinations were the same: both aimed at creating the conditions for a lasting peace in

the world. The first obvious point of the convergence of their paths is their criticism of modern civilization. As

Gandhi expressed it in Hind Swaraj (Home Rule), “The predominant character of modern civilization is to

dethrone God and enthrone Materialism” (Johnson, 2006: 90). In The Philosophy of Civilization, Schweitzer

summed it up in a similar manner (1987: 86): “The disastrous feature of our civilization is that it is far more

developed materially than spiritually. Its balance is disturbed.” But before we consider their criticisms in detail,

we must remind ourselves of two fundamental events, which occurred in 1648 and 1651, and which established

of two leading political (and indirectly economic) principles of modernity.

The idea of a secular sovereign state was firmly enthroned in European political thought and practice

after the Treaty of Westphalia, in 1648. The Treaty marked the end of an epoch which had been plagued by

religious wars. With this Treaty, the secular state established itself as the only protector of its citizens, and for

the next several centuries no other authority – religious or secular – could bring Europe (or any other portion of

the globe) under its control or protection.

Only three years after the Treaty of Westphalia, Thomas Hobbes published his Leviathan. In this

seminal work Hobbes argued that self-interest and the desire for power are the basic motivational forces in

human life. To avoid “war of every man against every other man,” each person must enter into a social contract

with others and irrevocably give up a portion of the individual power to a sovereign, whose power in turn has

no limitation. It is in people’s best interest to get under the protection of the state and support the interest of its

sovereign; no other man can be trusted to behave without subscribing to such a contract and only an absolute

authority can keep human beings in check. In the decades and centuries to come, the authority of one single

man has been partially relegated to the government as a whole, but the basic mistrust of human nature and the 8

belief in indispensability of a sovereign secular state have not yet been seriously undermined. It is the

acceptance of these two principles which, more than any other, pushed politics to the top of the social triangle.

They also inaugurated economy as the right hand of politics and later led to the industrial revolution,

colonization, and, in our time, globalization.

Gandhi and Schweitzer rejected both of these fundamental principles of modern civilization. They

argued that human beings are not isolated, violent creatures who could have secure and fulfilled lives only

under a watchful protection of the state. On the contrary, they maintained that the state undermines the security

of individuals and brings the very dignity and existence of human beings in danger. Let us consider their

criticisms of the state first.

Under the influence of Tolstoy and Thoreau, Gandhi was especially harsh in his condemnation of the

modern secular state: he called it “satanic.” His central contention was that, while every individual has a soul,

the state is a soulless machine which manages to exert unjustified power over individuals and consistently erode

their morality and spirituality. For Gandhi, the state is an organization conceived in violence, maintained by

violence, and subsisting on violence; it is an institution which never acts for purely humanitarian reasons. In his

view, “In an ideal State there will be no political institution and therefore no political power. That is why

Thoreau has said in his classic statement that that government is the best which governs the least” (Johnson,

2006:134).

Wars and aggressions allegedly waged for self-defense, or because of humanitarian interventions, almost

without exception occur because of some short-term political or economic interests. Although destructive for

the majority of human beings, wars are extremely profitable for a minority which controls the state’s military-

industrial complex. The increasing number of military engagements of modern states, and the evils committed

during those campaigns, are not the episodes of criminal excess by some agents of those states, but rather the

manifestations of the violent nature and criminality of the state itself. The manipulation of one’s fellow human

beings appears to be built into the very structure of modern states and modern civilization; violence allows the

state to carry on in a legalized manner an exploitation of its citizens, sometimes of the citizens of other countries

as well. 9

It frequently happens that, while the king is the ruler of a country, he himself is ruled by the queen.

Gandhi believed that a similar relationship exists between politics and economy: in most modern states the real

ruling power belongs to their economic elites. This, as Gandhi points out (1926: 13), does not make our

predicament brighter: “An armed conflict between nations horrifies us. But the economic war is no better than

an armed conflict. This [armed conflict] is like a surgical operation. An economic war is a prolonged torture.”

As the real center of power, economy is driven by greed and ruthless competition. The goal of that

competition is to make profit, and only means for doing so consists in producing goods that satisfy people’s

ever increasing wants. The mechanisms allowing this continually mounting production and consumerism to

blossom are industry and trade. From the eighteenth century on, the mass production which we call industry is

constantly expanding in order to produce cheap products and maximize profit. Imperialism, colonialism, and

neo-colonialism are the natural expression of the aggressive and exploitative impulse lying at the heart of

modern civilization. In a civilization organized by greed and by systematic oppression, the industrialization and

modern technology destroy the old ways of life; they enslave humanity with an alienating life-style and their

ever increasing artificial needs. Yet, as Gandhi argued, “Civilization, in the real sense of the term, consists not

in the multiplication, but in the deliberate and voluntary reduction of wants” (Johnson 2006: 118). He insisted

that a truly non-violent man (satyagrahi) cannot ignore this systematic oppression and inner falsity of modern

civilization. His human and moral duty is to confront the untruth and dehumanization of that violent society, so

that its falsity and harmful effects may become evident to everyone.

Schweitzer may have been less harsh, yet he was also unequivocally critical of modern civilization and

modern state (1987: 88):

Our spiritual dependence increases at the same rate as our material dependence. In every direction we are the victims of conditions of dependence which in former times were never known in such universality and such strength. Economic, social, and political organizations, which are steadily becoming more and more complete, are getting us more and more into their power. The state, with its increasingly rigid organization holds us under a control which is growing more and more decisive and inclusive. In every respect, therefore, our individual existence is depreciated. It is becoming ever more difficult to be a personality.

Schweitzer maintained that modern civilization leads to an un-free economic position of the modern man,

whose work consists increasingly of being a helper of a machine, rather than the other way around. The growing 10

economic dependence of man also means the increase of superficiality and indifference with regard to the

spread of violence and destruction, both in peaceful times and in times of war: “If we go down to rock-bottom,

it was machinery and world commerce which brought about the world war, and the inventions which put into

our hands such mighty power of destruction made the war of such a devastating character that conquered and

conquerors alike are ruined for a period of which no one can see the end” (1987: 88).

Schweitzer had a very “Gandhian” explanation of this state of affairs: “If the spirit is strong, it creates

world history. If it is weak, it suffers world history” (Cicovacki, 2009: 77). We live in the age of weak spirit; we

suffer world history. Perhaps the surest indication of this weakness is the declining significance of religion in

our time. Instead of being the pillar of spirituality and endorsing the highest moral standards and the ideals of

peace, religion regularly joined forces with politics and economy during the recent wars; religion put itself in

the service of short-sighted goals of the so-called “practical realism.”

Besides religion’s betrayal of its spiritual and ethical calling, Schweitzer argued that the spirit of our age

is weak because modern civilization has squandered its moral capital. The developed West, for example, has

wasted its moral credibility both in its own lands, and in its dealings with the rest of the world. In addition to the

never ceasing battles for political power and economic gain, the history of the West includes the two most

brutal wars the world had ever witnessed. The moral credibility of the West is further ruined by the centuries of

attempts to colonize and exploit the rest of the world. The usual ways of colonization do not lead to the

development of the natives but to their devastation. The colonizers are oblivious to the tradition, the interests,

and the well-being of the natives. Their ruthless imperial ambitions have inflicted serious damage on the rest of

the world.

Schweitzer was convinced that we are morally responsible for the evils of colonization and need to

establish a “brotherhood of those who bear the mark of pain.” This “brotherhood” can be prepared and

maintained by what Schweitzer called a “constructive colonization,” which would consist in educating the

locals in such a way that they develop agriculture and crafts suitable for their natural environment. The

education and cultivation of the natives have to protect their rights, which are common for all humanity. He

listed seven of them as the most fundamental: the right to habitation, the right to circulate freely, the right to soil 11

and to its development and use, the right to free work and free exchange, the right to justice, the right to native

organization, and the right to education.

These rights are not primarily of the political kind. Instead they deal with the creation of conditions

which would allow for the maintenance and enhancement of every human life. These are the ideals that

Schweitzer did not only propose in theory but tried to promote in the everyday dealings of his hospital. They are

also the ideals which should be implemented on a much larger scale. Schweitzer insisted that the goal of the

colonizers must be to help the natives to create a new civilization on their own soil and then establish

partnership with it on the basis of justice, reciprocity, and reverence for the natural human dignity of its people.

As if the evils of colonization and the insanity of the two world-wars were not enough, modern

civilization then involved itself in a maddening – morally unjustified, economically counterproductive, and

potentially self-destructive – nuclear arms race. In the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s, Schweitzer led a

campaign against nuclear testing and demanded the renouncement of all nuclear weapons. He wrote open letters

to the Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, as well as to the Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet

Union, Nikita Khrushchev. Their false promises, the manipulation of the UN, the deception of their own and the

international public with regard to the danger of nuclear weapons, and their lack of concern for the future fate of

humanity brought numerous disappointments to Schweitzer. In the first of the three appeals radio-broadcasted

from Oslo, Norway, in 1958, Schweitzer publicly expressed his outrage at the lack of moral and political

responsibility of the so-called “world leaders”: “It is strange that so far nobody has stressed that the question of

whether nuclear tests should be stopped or continued is not one which concerns the nuclear powers extensively.

Who is giving these countries the right to experiment … with weapons involving the most serious risks for the

whole world?” (Jack, 1988: 75). In his private correspondence Schweitzer voiced his fury even more vividly:

the governments of modern states constitute the greatest danger for mankind.

Like Gandhi, Schweitzer also insisted (1987: 45) that “the ethical comes into existence only in

individuals,” nor in institutions and organizations. As the greatest “enemy” of the ethics of reverence for life,

Schweitzer singled out the “ethics of society,” which he believed has dominated our civilization since at least

the middle of the eighteenth century. The ethics of society imposes certain “supra-personal” obligations on 12

individuals (e.g., patriotism, the common good, greatest happiness of the largest possible number of people,

etc.) and demands that, whenever such supra-personal obligations clash with our personal recognition of what

we ought to do, the preference should be given to supra-personal obligations. Schweitzer argued that the ethics

of society is pseudo-ethics, for we must serve society without abandoning ourselves to it. In his words (1987:

327-8): “The conception of good and evil which are put in circulation by society are paper money…. The

collapse of civilization has come about through ethics being left to society. Previous generations have made a

terrible mistake of idealizing society as ethical.” The only valid test of spirituality and morality is whether or

not our actions and attitudes promote humanity and life: “The noble element on which everything depends [is]

the spiritual and moral worthiness of the individual.” (1987: 45).

IV. Means and Ends

Hobbes postulated that, in the natural state of affairs, human beings are isolated, violent, and primitive

creatures. For the sake of their own interest they must seek protection from the beastly impulses of other human

beings. This state of affairs is that of perpetual war of all against all, and even the civilizing and progressive

political organizations are not fully capable of averting those aggressive tendencies of individual human beings.

Hobbes’ view has gradually become an accepted part of the tradition of western political thought.

Gandhi and Schweitzer could not have disagreed more with Hobbes. While they did not explicitly discus

the question of whether human nature is essentially good or evil, they left us enough remarks to reconstruct

their alternative vision of an individual and society. Gandhi and Schweitzer pointed out that historical evidence

does not justify the view that human beings are naturally violent, nor does it offer any proof that wars are

inevitable. Organized in political communities or not, we normally do not see individuals rushing to make war

on others. Instead, it is governments and states that make strenuous efforts to mobilize their populations for war.

It is only after their powerful propaganda machineries do their work that the enthusiasm for war spreads over

the population like an unstoppable epidemic. Eventually, however, people come to their senses and regret their

war-mongering.

If we consider our usual daily behavior, we notice that, in the vast majority of cases, people behave

nonviolently toward each other. Hundreds of nations also live in peace, insisted Gandhi, but history ignores 13

these facts and records only wars and quarrels, the deviations of the course of nature: “Soul force, being natural,

is not noted in history” (Johnson, 2006:86). As Gandhi also remarked (1948: 198; vol. 1), “All society is held

together by non-violence, even as the earth is held in her position by gravitation.”

Like crime, violence is a deviation form the norm: “Crime is a disease like any other malady and is a

product of the prevalent social system. Therefore [in the independent India] all crime including murder will be

treated as a disease.” (Gandhi, 1948: 123; vol. 2). Violence is also a manifestation of the personal weakness and

confusion. A weak man inclines toward violence because he is mislead, or because his moral principles are

obscured to him. Yet such violence is accidental and reversible; by no means does it prove Hobbes’ view that

human beings are like wolfs to each other: “Had violence … ruled us, we should have become extinct long ago.

And yet the tragedy of it is that the so-called civilized men and nations conduct themselves as if the basis of

society was violence” (Gandhi, 1948: 266; vol. 1).

Unlike Tolstoy, Gandhi hesitated to reverse Hobbes’ position completely and to claim that human

beings are naturally and intrinsically good. Instead, he merely pointed out that, since human beings have a soul,

they therefore have a natural capacity to recognize and pursue the good. Human beings act on it if this capacity

is not distorted or blocked, if it is sufficiently awaken and developed.

Schweitzer similarly argued that all human beings have a capacity for sympathy and compassion. This

sympathy, which lies at the bottom of reverence for life, is part of our psychological makeup. He tried to show

that even higher animals display the rudiments of such sympathy. While it is given to us naturally, we need to

develop this capacity in the direction of highest spirituality.

It is similar with compassion in human beings. Schweitzer’s personal example opened many eyes for the

distress and suffering of human beings not only in Africa, but all over the world. In every unspoiled soul such

awareness creates a desire to render active assistance to those in need. Yet in most us this desire results in

nothing but a quickly suppressed or forgotten impulse. Modern civilization constantly bombards us with new

stories and creates new heroes, so that the old ones fade away. Like Gandhi, Schweitzer himself was different

than most of us because in him that desire to serve others led to a changed life-style and a life-long

commitment. He knew well what was at stake: “I have given up the ambition to become a great scholar. I want 14

to be more – simply a human” (Cicovacki, 2009: 28-9). This imperative: to be human, to become more human

than one already is, forms the central motivation of Gandhi and Schweitzer’s thought and lives.

Hobbes and many other modern political and ethical theorists insist that self-interest is the principal

motivator of all human actions. In other to avoid brute egoism, this self-interest must be cultivated and

enlightened. According to Hobbes, this precisely is the role of the state and, more generally, the role of

civilization. The theoretical formulation of the enlightened self-interest is “utilitarianism,” understood as a

pursuit of “greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.” While this may be so in theory, Gandhi and

Schweitzer argued that in practice utilitarianism quickly loses sight of “the greatest number of people” and

focuses on the well-being of a minority or, in more extreme cases, of one single individual. If the use of

violence and deception leads to “greatest possible happiness,” then they are morally justified as means for the

pursuit of this highest end.

Gandhi and Schweitzer both rejected such utilitarian “political realism” as a moral standpoint because

they denied the view that self-interest is the central motivator of human behavior. While it certainly moves

people to do many things, self-interest cannot be accepted as foundation for ethical principles. Not even a

cultivated and enlightened self-interest has much to do with ethics, for morality consists precisely in our

unselfish attitudes toward others. For both Gandhi and Schweitzer, ethics consists in serving others and helping

them realize their potential. This is why Schweitzer insisted that even compassion, which in its nature is

opposed to self-interest, is insufficient as the only ethical principle (1987: 311): “Compassion is too narrow to

rank as the total essence of the ethical. It denotes, of course, only interest in the suffering of will-to-live. But

ethics include also feeling as one’s own all the circumstances and all the aspirations of the will-to-live, its

pleasure, too, and its longing to live itself out to the full, as well as its urge to self-perfecting.”

Gandhi and Schweitzer agreed that the final goal is not “greatest happiness for the greatest number of

people,” but a full moral and spiritual development of every individual. They also had a different understanding

of the relationship of ends and means. One of the central debates among modern political and ethical theorists

deals with the question of whether valuable ends may justify all means. Utilitarians generally believe that to be

the case, and they thus assume that even the use of violence and war could be morally justified in the pursuit of 15

admirable ends. Gandhi and Schweitzer opposed the view that such ends justify all means, because they came to

the realization that means and ends cannot be completely separated. “Means and end are convertible terms in

my philosophy of life,” claimed Gandhi (Johnson, 2006: 118). The use of immoral means, such as violence,

bombing, assassination, and capital punishment, cannot be justified for they contaminate the ends they are

supposed to serve. The use of such means stains those who use them and reveals their cowardice. “They say

‘means are after all means’. I [Gandhi] would say, ‘means are after all everything’. As the means so the end”

(Johnson, 2006: 118).

Instead of approaching moral and political issues in terms of the relation of ends and means, Gandhi and

Schweitzer followed a different strategy: they thought of human behavior holistically, it terms of the

relationship between parts and the whole. They emphasized, against Hobbes and other proponents of modern

individualism, that we are never isolated individuals. We owe our lives to others, we are “born debtors,” as

Gandhi expressed it. Human beings are dependent on other human beings, and ultimately also on their

interconnectedness with all other living creatures and the cosmos as a whole. Satyagraha and reverence for life

are both means and ends. They direct us to serve others and thereby to participate in that whole which involves

not only humans but everything that exists.

V. Spiritual Advance of Mankind

We are now in a better position to understand why Gandhi and Schweitzer advocated that in every

society culture should be at the top of the triangle. They had convincingly shown why politics is incapable of

this role, and they had also said enough to convince us that the leading role should not be played by economy

either. Of course, Gandhi and Schweitzer could not have quite anticipated the sweep of globalization that has

been storming over the world in the last two decades, but they would not have been caught by surprise.

Driven by self-interest, globalization is focused on the material and economic aspects of human

existence, and its purpose is to eliminate barriers to worldwide access to investments and products. As a modern

social and economic phenomenon, globalization is “a multilayered process of investment, trade, and

technological change in an expanding market, with continuously expanding mass communications and

homogenization and standardization of production and consumption” (Eide, 2000:11). According to the 16

proponents of globalization, the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of communism have opened the

possibility for “creating one borderless world of victorious market-driven capitalism in which the role of the

state would be fully reduced to serving the needs of the abstract self-governing market that acted on behalf of

human freedom, world economic growth, individual independence, and opportunity” (Kolb, 2000: 9). As the

free market expends, people all over the planet are becoming more extensively connected to each other in a

world that has been turned into a huge “global village.”

As Gandhi and Schweitzer could have anticipated, such a global village can be anything but just, as long

as freedom, growth, independence, and opportunity for a few means unfreedom, impoverishment, dependence,

and lack of opportunity for billions of others. In Gandhi’s words, “There can be no living harmony between

races and nations unless the main cause [of tension] is removed, namely, exploitation of the weak by the strong”

(Johnson, 2006: 134). And more dramatically: “God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the

manner of the West. The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom (England) is today keeping the

world in chains” (Johnson, 2006: 134).

India did not turn into a new England, but many of its deep problems persist. In the words of S. K.

Bandopadhaya, the Secretary of Delhi’s Gandhi Memorial Trust, “While our leaders are talking about nuclear

bombs as a deliverance, 350 million of our people remain below the poverty line, nearly 50 percent of our

population is illiterate, and 100,000 of our villages don’t even have safe drinking water” (Wolpert, 2001: 262).

Gandhi would not have considered this state of affairs as peaceful, just as if he were alive in today’s United

States of America, he would not have treated as peace the state of affairs in which, in one of the richest

countries in the world, over 40 million people live below the poverty level, one-sixth of its population (of 300

million) has no form of health insurance, and over 2 million individuals are in jails. Nor would have Gandhi

accepted as peaceful the current state of affairs in the world in which every day about 24,000 people die from

hunger and hunger-related causes. Globalization has promoted not only the ideology of the free market but,

even more importantly, the deceptive promise of free trade which rapidly widens the gap between those who are

becoming obscenely rich and those who are so poor that they are dying of starvation and easily preventable

diseases.17

According to one of the leading critics of globalization, Zygmunt Bauman, throughout the modern era

we have grown used to the idea that social order is tantamount to “being in control” (1998:57). This is precisely

what Gandhi and Schweitzer urged that we need to change. They taught us that there are two archetypal patterns

in which human beings can relate to each other. The more prominent of them concerns power relationships –

those of rank, status, discipline, order, and possession. The other pattern deals not with “being in control,” but

with respect and emotional attachments, care-giving and care-receiving, compassion and admiration, love and

reverence. According to the first pattern, the more powerful dominate over those who are weaker or powerless.

In the case of economy, the power relationships are driven by greed, and greed is a close ally of manipulation

and violence. For the economic elites and the military-industrial complexes, the de facto governments of most

countries, the state of declared and undeclared war and the atmosphere of fear and insecurity are easier to

manipulate and more profitable than peace, for which most people of the world hope.

Instead of someone always trying to “be in control” and master others, what human beings really need

for the implementation of peace in the positive sense is an atmosphere of mutual cooperation and trust. Gandhi

confessed that he has “been convinced more than ever that human nature is much the same … and that if you

approached people with trust and affection, you would have ten-fold trust and thousand-fold affection returned

to you” (Fischer, 1997: 107). Schweitzer similarly pointed out that “the establishment of mutual trust is

something spiritual, an ethical relationship between human beings and nations characterized by truthfulness and

a deeply felt responsibility” (Bentley, 1992: 196). Thus, what is needed for the establishment of genuine peace

is the acceptance of a new system of values, quite different from the one that has been dominating modern

civilization for the past few centuries. The values that have been dominant are long- and short-term political

gains and, more recently, even more shifty exchange values of the market. Schweitzer and Gandhi maintained

that in the past few centuries mankind has been continually lowering its values and its ideals, so that, according

to Schweitzer (1987: 40), “our generation, though so proud of its many achievements, no longer believes in the

one thing which is all-essential: the spiritual advance of mankind.”

This “spiritual advance of mankind” was what Gandhi and Schweitzer meant by “culture,” which has to

be on the top of the social triangle. They understood culture as a-historical, universal, and absolute. The noun 18

“culture” derives from the verb “to cultivate”; thus, culture is not a set of formal rules which govern human

behavior and speech, but an expression of the developing spirituality and inner freedom. Culture is the

manifestation of our striving for eternal and universal values, and of our attempts to face every day’s issues in

light of such values. Striving toward such universal, eternal, and absolute values was for Gandhi the essence of

culture and the marrowbone of his satyagraha: “To say that perfection is not attainable on this Earth is to deny

God. We do see men becoming better under effort and discipline. There is no occasion for limiting one’s

capacity for improvement. Life to me would lose all interest if I felt that I could not attain perfect [truth] on

earth” (Johnson, 2006: 133) Schweitzer (1987: 62) similarly emphasized our duty to improve ourselves and

strive toward the highest ideals: “The beginning of all spiritual life of any real value is courageous faith in truth

and open confession of the same.” Culture consists in fostering the attitude of “reverence for truth” (1987: 53).

How are reverence for truth and peace in the positive sense to be pursued? The answer is simple in one

respect, complex in another. “We must be the change we wish to see,” was Gandhi’s short answer (Knaebel,

2006: 28) Unfolded into a program for individual and social change, it includes many layers, which Gandhi

elaborated as a “Constructive Program:” education of children and adults, improvements in sanitation, hygiene

and health, elimination of poverty, removal of untouchability, development of agriculture and village industry,

development of communal unity, development of service to others, and so on. The trademarks of such a

“Constructive Program” are the practice of nonviolence, the loving attitude toward others, and the devotion to

truth.

As Gandhi tried to implement this “Constructive Program” in his ashram, Schweitzer similarly insisted

on a holistic type of medicine and shared living in his hospital. Although primarily a healing ground for a

variety of diseases, the hospital was a place for cultivation which was to have a transformative effect on the

lives of the natives. Schweitzer allowed his patients to come and stay in the hospital with their family members,

in some cases even their pet animals. The site of the hospital became thereby a place of communal living, in

which the doctors and nurses were trying to teach everyone present about hygiene, healthy food, and healthy

life-style. Every evening Schweitzer practiced music in the open, and every Sunday morning he delivered a

sermon for all. He treated reverence for life not as an efficient political strategy in the world bent on violence, 19

but as a spiritual and moral orientation for living one’s life. To create a peaceful world, we need to change the

way people live and what they value. Reverence for life is a spiritual attitude which increases our

responsiveness toward all living being. It is an attitude which changes how we treat ourselves, other human

beings, and the world as a whole.

Like Gandhi’s satyagraha, Schweitzer’s reverence for life does not imply that the greatest tragedy of life

consist in experiencing suffering, hunger, and death. “The real tragedy of life is in what dies inside a man while

he lives – the death of genuine feeling, the death of inspired response, the death of the awareness that makes it

possible to feel the pain or the glory of other men in oneself” (Cousins, 1960: 220). What we need to fear the

most is not physical death. We should fear far more that we may die without having known our greatest gift –

the power to put our lives in the service of others. We should fear the most that we are not doing enough for the

implementation of peace in the genuine sense.

Gandhi and Schweitzer’s lives show that they did not believe in the implementation of peace by

revolutionary means. Yet the gradual changes with which they experimented need to be extended outside

the narrow confines of an ashram and of a hospital ground. The implementation of peace in the positive

sense requires that such changes in values and attitudes be expanded to all people and the entire globe. In

Gandhi’s words (Johnson, 2006: 154), “The cry of peace will be a cry in the wilderness, so long as the

spirit of non-violence does not dominate millions of men and women.”

Schweitzer’s program for the restoration of civilization and the development of a peaceful world

consists of three crucial points: (1) Spiritual transformation of the individual. (2) Establishing healthy co-

operation between the material and the spiritual aspects of life. (3) Renewing faith in humanity and in the

power of truth. These points suggest that the difficulty in establishing the positive conception of peace

consists not so much in the absence of fighting among people, but more importantly in the presence of

peace within people. These two aspects are interrelated, but our duty is primarily to develop peace within

ourselves. This is the task of spirit, of the spiritual development of every individual. Gandhi and Schweitzer

hoped that from a spiritual individual the spirit of peace will then spread toward the entire community and

toward the world as a whole. 20

VI. Concluding Remarks

Gandhi and Schweitzer had a virtually identical understanding of peace in the positive sense. They

envisioned it in terms of practical spirituality, in terms of spiritual development that brings peace within people,

which will then unfold and become peace among people. Peace in the positive sense is based on the inner soul

force and its outer manifestations in the world. The power to which such a soul force is opposed is threefold: the

power of violence, the power of money, and the power of deception. If there is any power that individuals can

rely on in their attempts to enhance the future of humanity, they have to depend on their opposites: the force of

non-violence, the force of love, and the force of truth.

Gandhi and Schweitzer had no illusion that the peace they were envisioning is extremely demanding of

people, that it requires extraordinary commitment and sacrifice. Gandhi warned the future satyagrahi that,

“there are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all – the voice of conscience – even

though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more separation from friends, from family, from

the state to which you may belong, from all you have held as dear as life itself” (Knaebel, 2006: 15).

Schweitzer’s best biographer, James Brabazon, delivered a similar warning with regard to our

commitment to reverence for life (2002:15): “Let us note here how dangerous the idea of reverence for life is. It

takes away our excuses. It says that nothing – no faith, no political or theological or economic theory, no sense

of revenge for historical wrongs – can justify cruelty and inhumanity. On the other hand, it gives us leave to do

something that a great many … secretly longed to do – to be human.”

This, indeed, is what practical spirituality and peace in the positive sense are about – being human. A

truly peaceful world is one in which all human beings – all living beings – can live together and pursue their

highest potentials. To give peace a chance, politics and economy must follow the lead of culture, the lead of the

soul force.

21

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