Masonic Governance and Civil Society

This is the beginning of a work in progress ...

Each Grand Lodge being a power unto itself, the entire system required some form of communication, one Grand Lodge with the other, because, in fact, the government of every Grand Lodge is completely despotic.

-- History of Grand Lodge of British Columbia, 1871-1970, 1971 p.512

The focus of good governance is on a global scale, involving universalism and an attempt to adopt/adjust to the genius and interest of all nations. To establish good governance requires moral qualities, philanthropy and a general love of mankind.

A “failed state” is based on military aggression, the violent expansion of its territory, a striving for hegemony and an ill-understood patriotism.

“Men are not to be essentially distinguished by the difference

of tongues which they speak, of clothes which they wear, of

countries which they inhabit, nor of dignities with which they

are ornamented: the whole world is no other than one great

republic, of which each nation is a family, and each individual

a child.”9

Each individual is regarded as a child of the national family. Thus, there seem only to be three levels when moving from the local to the global: the individual, the collective, and the universal collective.

-- from: http://www.freemasonry.dept.shef.ac.uk/pdfs/crffwp3.pdf

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CRF: Cosmopolitan Foundations of Freemasonry (PDF 34 pages)

PHR 2008-07-08