Running For Our Lives
A high point of the holidays has been the Tuesday evening Zoom meetings of a group of friends for a discussion of ideas. I understand how unusual to recognize time spent on a Zoom virtual meeting to be agreeable, pleasurable. The past two sessions have been unusual as we’ve had nothing on the agenda, no designated topic, and no springboard essay. So, we commenced talking about “nothing” for two hours!
In fact, the free flowing discussion has been about the possibilities, the obstacles, and actions that we can take to bring about a more just, a more humane world. Backgrounds represented among our “Philosophy Bunch”: three retired engineers, a retired math virtuoso, a retired classicist professor, an electrician, a retired social worker, a retired paramedic, a retired COBOL and FOCUS programmer and limerick writer and civilizer of dogs and junior humans, a retired raconteur motor cycle racer, and two retired businessmen.
A succinct aphorism was recalled last night by one of our participants:
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
The saying was made popular by the writing of Karl Marx. In spite of the bloody excesses of Communist leaders, and the examples of failed socialism, the succinct aphorism remains as a diamond reflects light, expressing what is possible for relations between ourselves, mediated by the governments, and the histories which we’ve inherited.
Call me crazy, but I enjoy seeing the saying in its original German language:
Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen
I think it is worth mentioning that the saying originated from the language used in the Christian New Testament, from the book of Acts of the Apostles. The words describe the dynamic of the very early communities which discovered common ground in the stories of Jesus, who they called “Christ” meaning liberator.
“distribution was made unto every man according as he had need“
I read about a Persian fairy tale yesterday of Sindbad the Seafarer. You can find the story CLICK HERE should you desire to enjoy it yourself. In summary Sindbad and his fellow travelers moor their boat on an island so pleasurable that it resembled the Garden of Eden. They felt “the golden sand between their toes and enjoyed the lush and tranquil land.” Some walked around and some washed clothes, and some built fires for cooking. Suddenly they heard he captain ring the ships bell, shouting “run for your lives, – come back to the ship as fast as you can.” Some made it back to the ship and some did not. The island with a shudder disappeared beneath the waves.
The island actually was the back of a big whale. The whale, still for so long at the surface of the ocean, sand and dust settling on its back, palm trees and vegetation began to grow. The activities of Sindbad and his fellow travelers awakened the creature which thrashed about and commenced a deep dive under the waves.
The fairy tale is a parable: humankind is unable to see what we are standing on, our activities are bringing about our downfall.
…the German writer Arthur Schnitzler compares humanity to an illness. We act like bacteria or a virus on earth, ruthlessly multiplying and ultimately destroying the host itself. Growth and destruction come together. Schnitzler believes that humans can only recognize primitive orders. Humans are just as blind to higher orders as the bacteria.
— excerpt Capitalism and the death drive, COVID-19 Has reduced Us to a Society of Survival by Byung-chul Han
2 thoughts on “Running For Our Lives”
Nice philosophizing about Sinbad, Jerry.
While “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is presently denounced for its association with Marxist communism, it’s rarely observed that nearly everyone does practice its principle — in families. In fact, a family that operates any other way is dysfunctional.
That, plus your reference to Christianity, illustrate that “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is only an effective organizing principle when the people using it all know each other personally. They have to care enough about each others’ individual welfare to want to cooperate more than to compete.
In groups of relatives or small churches, that degree of personal concern is possible. But it doesn’t scale up, which is why communism failed. You can call someone tovarisch or comrade, but if you don’t really care what happens to him as much as you care about your own intimates, you won’t prioritize his needs in a crisis and the motto falls apart.
It does appear that so far we have not made any progress on the “scalability” problem.