CONVENIENT VIRTUES
In the movie, “Lost Horizon,” a story by James Hilton, a few Americans were suddenly cast into a near perfect Tibetan society called, “Shangri-La.” In one of the first meetings with a local, Conway, the lead American actor said: “By the way, what religion do you follow here?” The entertaining Lama: “To put it simply I should say that our belief is in moderation. We preach the virtue of avoiding excesses of every kind. Even including excess of virtue itself.” Conway: “That’s intelligent.” Lama: “We find in the valley it makes great happiness among the natives. We rule with moderate strictness, and in return we are satisfied with moderate obedience. As a result our people are moderately honest, moderately chaste, and somewhat more than moderately happy.” Conway: “How about law and order, you have no soldiers or police?” Lama: “Ohhh, Oh good heavens no!” Conway: “How do you deal with incorrigible, criminals?” Lama: “We have no crime here. What makes a criminal?…
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