What Can The Purtians Teach Us?
I first came across the Puritan Gift on Peter Day’s great show on BBC Radio 4
Listen to it here
I have just finished reading the book.
Valuable Ethics For Today – Why Did We Get In This Mess
If you wanted to get a better understanding how we have managed to take 50 years of peace and bankrupt our economies, and threaten our societies, you should read it.
These two brothers explain how it possible to ruin once great companies who made great things very, very easily. They explain how and why it happened, and how company leaders – who often know little about what they are doing – continue to wreck havoc on their customers, share holders and employees.
If you want to have some clear and sensible ideas to getting ourselves out of the very large hole we are in – other than the frighteningly stupid scheme of turning the money printing presses on and bail out insolvent banks – you must read this book.
If you don’t have time to read the book here is a summary taken from the book – but you should read the book.
Core Values
How did the puritans achieve so much? Their values were key. These values included:
- A conviction that the purpose of life however vaguely conceived, was to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth;
- an aptitude for the exercise mechanical skills;
- a moral outlook subordinated the interests of the individual to the group;
- an ability to assemble galvanise and martial financial, material and human resources’ was and are not massive, or a lesser, scale.
Other Key Points
In addition to this other values, puritans shared these qualities:
- an unyielding optimism about the future of society to society,
- a belief that you should judge a man not by who he is but by what he can do – little space of royalty and the class system here
- a willingness to become involved in mechanical tasks and to get one’s hands dirty and and enjoying tinkering.
You should read a biography of Benjamin Franklin to see how one man achieved so much in so many areas by following these puritan values. They are good values to live by.