Crisis “enlivens the capacity of goodness in people to connect with each other and collectively to realize a much greater power.” (OI, Parhuli, 316) Indeed, awakening comes of suffering – “the lessons we most need.” (OI, Forest, 237) Now, “we absolutely have to begin that journey on a grand scale because we are running out of time.”(OI, Adamson, 27) That may sound dire, but as Melissa K. Nelson put it, “Urgent messages are needed for urgent times. Humanity and life on this planet currently face an unprecedented ecological crisis. (OI, Nelson, 6)
“But this is the end of the road – the turning point is at hand.”(I Ching, p. 381) “like the dark before the dawn.”(I Ching, p. 496) “Where there is an ending there is also a beginning.”(I Ching, p. 488) Understanding this, “The sage accepts every situation with faith and ease,” knowing that even “an extremely exhausting situation bears the seeds of great regeneration.”(I Ching, p. 375) tipping points work for good too – example when people put their efforts together, they can “eventually reach a tipping point and then it just can’t be stopped; they take on a life of their own.” (OI, Martinez, et.al., 110) “What humanity most needs now to slip through this epochal keyhole of history where the stakes are the very survival of our species and countless other beings in the web of life. It’s a journey to retrieve the Original Instructions for how to live on earth in a good way, in a way that lasts.” (OI, Nelson, xxi) “To get through this keyhole, we’re going to need the enduring knowledge of Indigenous Science, as well as the best of leading edge Western science…and in many cases modern science is affirming what the keen empiricism of First Peoples has long known. “(OI, Nelson, xxii) We are going to need both, “It’s high-tech meets high-TEK.”(OI, Nelson, xxii) Today “human folk are treating the planet as if a better one is coming on the market soon.” (OI, Ross, 202-203) “cure the cause, instead of dealing with the symptoms.”(I Ching, p.176)
“after darkness there will be light.”(I Ching, p.499)
Lucky for us, the truth stays true. It waits…and waits…as long as necessary, until, perhaps in an age in crisis, we finally asks the question to which 'it' is the answer. We cannot presume to put 'it' into words for others, mind you, but must trust that people will find the truth when they need it, if they are free to search.
Human Ecology: A Revolution in Education? “The ancient Maya prophesized that there will come a time…when the dark times will be over, the humble will win over the arrogant.” (OI, Forest, 236) Another common prophesy was that there would be two signs when the earth was in trouble: “When you see that acceleration of the winds are growing, then you are in dangerous times. They said the other way to tell that the earth was in degradation was how people treated their children.” (OI, Lyons, 23) In his now legendary TED Talks, Sir Ken Robinson makes a powerful (and rather hilarious) case for why we need a revolution in education. Robinson, who is a specialist in creativity, says that rather than enhance this highest of our potentials, schools actually kill creativity and diminish the love of learning we were born with. We have been obsessed with this “linear narrative” because it was once suited to the conditions of the industrial revolution. The problem is, “life is not linear, it’s organic.” We do not follow straight lines from start to finish, rather “we create our lives symbiotically as we explore our talents in relation to circumstances they help to create for us.” In this sense, all of life, and especially the learning process, is more of a non-linear dance than a linear march through pre-organized curriculum. For this reason, he makes clear in short order – we need more than school reform -- we need is an a actual revolution in education, one that moves us away from institutionalized pedagogy, and toward personalized forms of individuated learning. What we need is an entirely new model of learning, because one size does not fit all.
And toward that end, we must think like revolutionaries, as Steve Jobs once put it, and use business methods to our noblest ends - but the bottom line has to be, are we doing right by kids?
Challenge for us now is “to define an education process that is going to work for us. Not for the institutions, not for the government,” and not for big business, but “one that is going to work for us,” for people.” (OI, Rivera, 256)
“Following the will of Heaven and acting in accord with the wishes of people…is to care for and nourish the people.”(I Ching, p.393) But revolution is right when the people are not nourished well. “Revolution does not happen by accident. There is always a reason. One can never create a revolution. On the other hand, if a revolution is on the road, no one can stop it. Only by following the will of Heaven and acting in accord with the wishes of people, can revolution be made unnecessary.”(I Ching, pp. 392-393) (*Ironic, considering how often in the so-called ‘will of Heaven’ has opposed ‘the wishes of people’ in our western world.)
“The purpose of revolution is not merely to overthrow the old but, more important, to establish a new situation and a better order. Abolishing the old is difficult; establishing the new is even more so.”(I Ching, p. 400) This is when it is most important to “respect wise and virtuous persons and rely on them to establish the new order.”(I Ching, p. 401) In times of change, “correctness of purpose, sincerity, and truthfulness of the leadership” is more critical than ever.(I Ching, p. 395) Must learn “how a sage makes a fresh start in accord with the change of time.”(I Ching, p. 395) And at such a time of change is when healthy communication is most important. (I Ching, p.394) “It is an immense action, a revolution; as such, it will take time; hasty correction should not be expected.”(I Ching, p. 304) In the spirit of wu wei, we must “stop being concerned over whether plans will fail or succeed,” and simply do what is right.(I Ching, p. 297) “One should not live in anticipation.”(I Ching, p.221) “When one acts in accord with the right way, one should ignore whether good fortune or misfortune will result. This is the proper attitude.”(I Ching, p. 218) “Don’t worry; it is certain that the central and correct [path] will bring good fortune,” eventually.(I Ching, p. 297) “With this attitude of pursuing the truth, there will be advantage in any direction.”(I Ching, p. 225) “what is considered first is not the reward one will attain, but whether the work is really good.”(I Ching, p.224)
Suppose we imagine a state coming into being before our eyes, Socrates says. We might then be able to watch the growth of justice or of injustice within it. When that is done, we may hope it will be easier to find what we are looking for…”(p.55) “a state comes into existence because no individual is self-sufficing; we all have many needs.”(p.55) “And having these needs, we call on one another’s help to satisfy our various requirements; and when we have collected a number of helpers and associates to live together in one place, we call that settlement a state… So if one man gives another what he has to give in exchange for what he can get, it is because each finds that to do so is for his own advantage.”(p.56) Agreeing that “there are no two people born exactly alike, there are innate differences which fit them for different occupations,” that men do better specializing and sharing the fruits of their labors, and that the right work must be done at the right time, they conclude that: “more things will be produced and the work be more easily and better done, when every man is set free from all other occupations to do, at the right time, the one thing for which he is naturally fitted.”(p.57) This is what Socrates calls ‘the healthy community’ – in which freedoms and responsibilities are shared by all, and individuality flourishes where each does what he or she is good at.
nothing could be further from Socrates’ point. Indeed, in as much as the authoritarian utopia they come up with is subject to injustice, it is anything but ideal. It is important to see and keep in mind that Socrates brings these different conceptions of an ideal community to the table for the sake of argument -- as if to say, what is wrong with this picture? Where does injustice set in?
So they start out with what Socrates calls his ideal community – one that appears to be the perfect combination of a market economy and communism. The just economy, he reasons, arises from human needs, because “needs are the mother of invention”. This community has as its primary function the protection and nurturance of children from harm. They imagine a community in which each is free from all other labors to do that which he or she is best capable of doing. Trade plays an important part, and just as a farmer doesn’t have time to make his own shovels, so we must all do what we are best fit for, and divide labor according to natural aptitudes. In such an economy, it stands to reason that labor would be divided according to who is best capable of doing a given job well. Creativity (he argues in other dialogues) is critical to a healthy and growing community and is also a means for individuals to reach their own divine potential and achieve immortality in the process, by creating something that will live on after them and continue to do good. In this way, he bypasses the argument that there is no incentive to work if there is no private property and individual wealth, with the argument that both wealth and poverty are subversive to true art. Doing something for it’s own sake, its intrinsic worth, will enable excellence, they conclude, in both the individual and the state.
So a healthy community will find and distribute talents by allowing children to play at what comes most naturally to them, and from youth upwards allow them to explore their intrinsic interests. We will discover if we do this, Socrates says, that there are no two individuals who are alike. And if you allow all citizens to do what comes most naturally to them in this way, then work will take on the character of play, and all things that need doing in a community will get done as well as possible.
And, yes, some will choose to take out the garbage, because there will always be those who prefer to let others do the dirty work in exchange for more free time and less responsibility. (Aristotle calls these ‘natural slaves,’ a term that is easy to misunderstand because we use the word ‘slave’ differently than he did…but more on this later.)
At any rate, does this sound like an enemy of individuality? A recipe for a totalitarian state?
Obviously, much depends here on who chooses work for the citizens. Can a ruler, from his vantage, know what is truly best for individuals? Even if you start with a perfectly just ruler, those who sit on high are ignorant of the critical details which are known only to the workers themselves, so there is the danger that, once routine sets in and administration and license are passed on, rulers will begin to make mistakes in putting individuals into the work that isn’t proper to them.
This is where the proper limit of the authority of the state over individuals begins to show up. In fact, justice requires that decisions must be made at the proper scale of activity. (Which is why Aristotle argues that a just community must have a ‘mixed constitution’, so that every voice can have its proper say.) People must choose their work for themselves.
Much regulation can be omitted, Socrates argues, because well educated people don’t need regulation. But this assumes a collective allegiance to the proper form of education so that people can become their better selves, and won’t need to be told what to do or not to do -- just as artists don’t need to be forced to be creative. It is an intrinsic interest in the joys and even the agonies of creativity that are its intrinsic reward.
So "Our principle that the born shoemaker or carpenter had better stick to his trade turns out to have been an adumbration of justice; and that is why it has helped us. But in reality justice, thought evidently analogous to this principle, is not a matter of external behavior, but of the inward self and of attending to all that is, in the fullest sense, a man's proper concern."[RepC p.142]
This is how to insure, Socrates says, a fair balance of diversity in unity, which will allow the community to be healthy and harmonious. And the origin of trade will thus be ruled by freedom of choice and promotion by merit, and remain free of too much wealth or too much poverty in the process, both of which are subversive to work for its own sake – for its intrinsic value. Which is to say, they take the real fun out of it. Or as Marx put it, they alienate the worker from his work and its products.
Class and Justice: The Few and the Many*: Plato is criticized for what looks like an acceptance of inequalities, but as Cairns points out, "In Plato's hands aristocracy meant the rule of the best, from whatever class they came. The able were to receive special training for the responsibilities requiring great ability; the less able were to perform the tasks suitable to their ability. Plato's political theory is an implication of the system of nature, and to call this philosophy aristocratic is meaningful only in the sense that nature is itself aristocratic. But to call any philosophy aristocratic in the sense of class interest is meaningless; preoccupation with the interests of one class to the detriment of others is not philosophy. Philosophy is disinterested or it is not philosophy. When ideas are manipulated for personal ends, for class or group interests, the name for this in Plato's day was sophistry. It was against this that all the dialogues were directed. To accuse Plato of being in league with the sophistic forces that undermined the classical world is an instance of the more subtle misrepresentation of his position." (Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. xvi)
Remember Socrates explanation of the healthy community. When Glaucon says, but “some people will not be satisfied to live in this fair and simple way. What about luxuries?”(p.61) Socrates replies, “Oh, I see, you don’t want to talk about the healthy community, you want to see what the inflamed and diseased state looks like! I really think we should be happy with this, and stay clear of talk of too much wealth and the nagging appetites it creates. But if you want to see what a state looks like once one class is not satisfied with their fair share, then we can, if you like, look closer at the state in which the ruling class is made up of those not satisfied with well enough, but takes from the shares of its neighbors instead.” This he calls, the state in heat. “There’s probably no harm in talking about what this hungry state might look like; indeed, it is sure to help us discover how injustice takes root.[C2.372] But “the community I have described seems to me the ideal one, in sound health as it were; but if you want to see one diseased and suffering from inflammation, there is nothing to hinder us.”
A diligent reader will readily notice that wanting more than our fair shares leads them within a single page from a healthy coexistence between all participant to the origin of war! And as for injustice: “We seem to have discovered already its origin in desires which are the most fruitful source of evils both to individuals and to states.”[p.62] And for the next five of six books they explore the so-called ‘Guardian State,’ which is founded on growth by means of invading its neighbor’s share. They ask how the unhealthy community functions, and what happens when the word ‘mine’ becomes the dominant motivation and states grow up around the ideal of ownership and class accumulation, all the while still wondering (though apparently too subtly for most scholars to notice), where does injustice set in? As Socrates clarifies in the dialogue Timeaus, he doesn’t endorse this community they imagine in the Republic. There, he says that static ideals of supposedly perfect communities obscure the injustice that is required to support them. To see how they go wrong, you have to set them into motion, to see how they behave and misbehave in times of war and peace. “The real test of her will be to see how she stands against enemies. Will she be wirey, while others are fat? Will she stand united in each individual, while others are divided in themselves? Will she know her enemies from her friends, and keep her hands off her friends? Or will she have as much internal civil discord as external foreign? And when this happens, will she remember that domestic critics are correctors, not enemies?” (Timaeus)
As they discover in this process, it is the use of the term ‘mine’ that turns out to be the origin of evil and sets people and classes against one another. Private property and the lust for luxury leads some inevitably to create war and tyranny. And the truth is, “essentially war makes people crazy. When people are at war, they are not thinking clearly…”(OI, Mohawk, 55) And “injustice is the big disturber of peace.” (OI, Mohawk, 57)
Mind you, there is nothing wrong with earned wealth. What matters is that one “not reap without sowing. His work deserves his earnings.”(I Ching, p.432) “The way to gain relies on doing something substantial.”(I Ching, p.343) As Socrates said, “virtue is not given by money, but from virtue come money and every other good of man…This is my teaching.”
But when the craving for private property is implanted in the hearts in our youth at an early age, this is something children never forget. By contrast, if we get the form of education right, then the craving for private property will minimize itself, and they will grow up with a better understanding of a truer form of wealth. For "If a man's person is his only private possession...these men will live in complete peace with one another....disunion comes about when the words 'mine' and 'not mine,' 'another's' and 'not another's' are not applied to the same things throughout the community. The best ordered state will be the one in which the largest number of persons use these terms in the same sense, and which accordingly most nearly resembles a single person...all sharing as a whole in the pain of the suffering part."[C5.461] “In our community, then, above all others, when things go well or ill with any individual everyone will use that word 'mine' in the same sense and say that all is going well or ill with him and his... And...this way of speaking and thinking goes with fellow-feeling."[C5.463]
Like the ancient Greeks, “We’re living in a period of warfare between the rich and poor.” (OI, Mohawk, 57) In the name of ideologies based on injustice, too many “rich people do things that have no virtue at all…”(OI, Mohawk, 57) At least, “there’s no virtue in any sense that Socrates would have understood, no virtue at all in any sense that the Peacemaker would have understood.” (OI, Mohawk, 57)
“The way to teach respect, of course,” Manitonquat says, “is to show it and give it.”(OI, p.12) Unfortunately, in most modern cultures, “The only thing that can be seen to be afforded respect is material wealth. So the moral message of this society is only that you must get rich, however you may do it, and then you will be sure to get respect.”(OI, p.12)
By contrast, what truly matters, as Smith says, are "the realms of gold…hidden in the depth of our being," (p.25). Hence the question we must all ask -- "What am I worth,' not 'how much have I got?'"
“The pursuit of peace is not merely the pursuit of the absence of violence, because peace is never achieved until justice is achieved. And justice is not achieved until everyone’s interests are addressed. You can’t achieve peace unless it’s accompanied by a constant striving to address the issues of justice. This means that your job will never end.” (OI, Mohawk, 56) So the ongoing challenge is to “Be fair. Be fair to the people. You can’t have justice without equity.”(OI, Lyons, 63) And, as bell hooks says, “you can’t have love without justice.” So we must understand the process, and the process must be continuous. Like keeping good health, to have peace, justice, or love, we must keep an ongoing vigil, and be aware how slippery the rhetoric of injustice can be. As with the ‘Green Revolution’ – “The goal to expanded food production is used to justify the wholesale displacement of Indigenous peoples. This is reported at the very root of ethnic cleansing taking place in Guatemala, Peru, Brazil, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia, Irian Jaya, Timor, and in Moluccas.” (OI, Adamson, 30) In many parts of the world, such as in Papau New Guinea, economic elites are attempting “to pass legislation making it criminal offense for any Indigenous Peoples to research, organic, or challenge any multi-national operation.” (OI, Adamson, 32) In effect, some are called “terrorists for simply wanting to live.”(OI, Forest, 235) But true terrorism = greed, racism, hate, and war. So we need to hear those who live downstream (OI, Thomas-Muller, 244) on “the River of Destruction,” (oil industry terms: upstream = extraction, midstream = transport and refining, down stream = consumers…so all of us!) These are the voices who need access to the dialogues that form public policy. They need a seat at the table “to put a face to the oppression.”(OI, Thomas-Muller, 246) As John Rawls makes clear in his Theory of Justice, it’s easy enough to see what we would not want others to do to us if the tables were turned, and we found ourselves in the position of least advantaged. Would that the powerful would make laws, rules, and procedures according to this golden rule logic, rather than, as Martin Luther King laments in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, to suit the interests of those who have the advantage of making them. A law is just when it follows moral law, and those who enforce it are willing to be bound by it. By contrast, a law is unjust when it is made to bind others only. This is the golden rule at work on an institutional level. Plato ultimately proclaimed, "Truth compels me to declare…in praise of true philosophy, that…the human race would never see the end of trouble until true lovers of wisdom should come to hold political power, OR the holders of political power should, by some divine appointment, become true lovers of wisdom."(p.xxv) “If either alternative or both were impossible, we might justly be laughed at as idle dreamers; but, as I maintain, there is no ground for saying so. Accordingly, if ever in the infinity of time, past or future...people of the highest gifts for philosophy are encouraged to take charge of a commonwealth, we are ready to maintain that, then and there, the constitution we have described will have been realized, or will be realized when once the philosophic muse becomes mistress of a state. For that might happen. Our plan is difficult – we have admitted – but not impossible."[Republic, Book 6.499]
Ending slavery was difficult; getting the British out of India, ending Apartied, and stopping Hitler’s armies was difficult; surviving ignorance and changing values has always been difficult. And slowing climate change will be very difficult…but not impossible! We must not let ourselves be discouraged by difficulty.
Gloria Steinum once said that, "Perhaps when you and I are feeling discouraged, we can think of…Mahatma Gandhi trying to fox-trot in a Bond Street suit, and know that we can find a true strength too."(Gloria Steinem, Revolution From Within, p.53) We, personally, must “be the change we want to see in the world.” That may be difficult, but not impossible.
On Enlightened Self-Interest and Sustainable Capitalism: As Al Gore puts it, we are "running the world like a business in liquidation,"[1] consuming the very future of our species and many others in the process of a single lifetime. And it takes only a bit of empathy for our children and theirs to see that our apparent willingness to let this continue amounts to a sin against the future of humanity, and in fact, all life on earth. Only “If our thinking changes from the question of how to enrich the rich to the question of how to obtain the sustainability of our species on the planet…[then] we would be engaging ourselves in an enormous revolution.” (OI, Mohawk, 58) With any luck, “Humans will survive the next climate change.” But “Corporations won’t.” (OI, Mohawk, p.136) Intrinsic Goods and an Individual Excellence Economy:
This ancient understanding of how the mind works could revolutionize our conception of learning, and in the process, provide meaningful alternatives for those many young minds who are falling through the cracks of our educational system. We might dream, for instance, of community generated creativity workshops (art, music, dance, sports, theatre, etc.) to regenerate dying malls and host new healthier, more dialogic, teaching and learning relationships - centers of workshops where intrinsic goods might be enjoyed and sustainable skills can be regenerated. It’s not too late to do right by our grandchildren by offering them what they are unlikely to get anywhere else in their education. “Working to regain that equilibrium,” not only for us, but “for those who are yet to be born.”(OI, Ross, 205)
While appetites and wants can blur our vision when we are young and hungry, age can help us learn and in turn, teach others. For as all who have come before, “I have a duty to try to do what my ancestors did for me to survive, for me to be alive.”(OI, Gilbert, 38)
We grandparents may be the only means by which our grandchildren will come upon this ancient wisdom about how to be happy in old age. So retirement can be a time of ho’ponopono, making things right, talking things out, resolving conflict, miscommunication, and reconcile misunderstandings, repairing relationships, reestablishing trust, mutual-respect, and harmony - whatever it takes to recover the happiness we want to be able to enjoy at life’s end, and owe to our children as well.
[1] (Gore, *)
“But this is the end of the road – the turning point is at hand.”(I Ching, p. 381) “like the dark before the dawn.”(I Ching, p. 496) “Where there is an ending there is also a beginning.”(I Ching, p. 488) Understanding this, “The sage accepts every situation with faith and ease,” knowing that even “an extremely exhausting situation bears the seeds of great regeneration.”(I Ching, p. 375) tipping points work for good too – example when people put their efforts together, they can “eventually reach a tipping point and then it just can’t be stopped; they take on a life of their own.” (OI, Martinez, et.al., 110) “What humanity most needs now to slip through this epochal keyhole of history where the stakes are the very survival of our species and countless other beings in the web of life. It’s a journey to retrieve the Original Instructions for how to live on earth in a good way, in a way that lasts.” (OI, Nelson, xxi) “To get through this keyhole, we’re going to need the enduring knowledge of Indigenous Science, as well as the best of leading edge Western science…and in many cases modern science is affirming what the keen empiricism of First Peoples has long known. “(OI, Nelson, xxii) We are going to need both, “It’s high-tech meets high-TEK.”(OI, Nelson, xxii) Today “human folk are treating the planet as if a better one is coming on the market soon.” (OI, Ross, 202-203) “cure the cause, instead of dealing with the symptoms.”(I Ching, p.176)
“after darkness there will be light.”(I Ching, p.499)
Lucky for us, the truth stays true. It waits…and waits…as long as necessary, until, perhaps in an age in crisis, we finally asks the question to which 'it' is the answer. We cannot presume to put 'it' into words for others, mind you, but must trust that people will find the truth when they need it, if they are free to search.
Human Ecology: A Revolution in Education? “The ancient Maya prophesized that there will come a time…when the dark times will be over, the humble will win over the arrogant.” (OI, Forest, 236) Another common prophesy was that there would be two signs when the earth was in trouble: “When you see that acceleration of the winds are growing, then you are in dangerous times. They said the other way to tell that the earth was in degradation was how people treated their children.” (OI, Lyons, 23) In his now legendary TED Talks, Sir Ken Robinson makes a powerful (and rather hilarious) case for why we need a revolution in education. Robinson, who is a specialist in creativity, says that rather than enhance this highest of our potentials, schools actually kill creativity and diminish the love of learning we were born with. We have been obsessed with this “linear narrative” because it was once suited to the conditions of the industrial revolution. The problem is, “life is not linear, it’s organic.” We do not follow straight lines from start to finish, rather “we create our lives symbiotically as we explore our talents in relation to circumstances they help to create for us.” In this sense, all of life, and especially the learning process, is more of a non-linear dance than a linear march through pre-organized curriculum. For this reason, he makes clear in short order – we need more than school reform -- we need is an a actual revolution in education, one that moves us away from institutionalized pedagogy, and toward personalized forms of individuated learning. What we need is an entirely new model of learning, because one size does not fit all.
And toward that end, we must think like revolutionaries, as Steve Jobs once put it, and use business methods to our noblest ends - but the bottom line has to be, are we doing right by kids?
Challenge for us now is “to define an education process that is going to work for us. Not for the institutions, not for the government,” and not for big business, but “one that is going to work for us,” for people.” (OI, Rivera, 256)
“Following the will of Heaven and acting in accord with the wishes of people…is to care for and nourish the people.”(I Ching, p.393) But revolution is right when the people are not nourished well. “Revolution does not happen by accident. There is always a reason. One can never create a revolution. On the other hand, if a revolution is on the road, no one can stop it. Only by following the will of Heaven and acting in accord with the wishes of people, can revolution be made unnecessary.”(I Ching, pp. 392-393) (*Ironic, considering how often in the so-called ‘will of Heaven’ has opposed ‘the wishes of people’ in our western world.)
“The purpose of revolution is not merely to overthrow the old but, more important, to establish a new situation and a better order. Abolishing the old is difficult; establishing the new is even more so.”(I Ching, p. 400) This is when it is most important to “respect wise and virtuous persons and rely on them to establish the new order.”(I Ching, p. 401) In times of change, “correctness of purpose, sincerity, and truthfulness of the leadership” is more critical than ever.(I Ching, p. 395) Must learn “how a sage makes a fresh start in accord with the change of time.”(I Ching, p. 395) And at such a time of change is when healthy communication is most important. (I Ching, p.394) “It is an immense action, a revolution; as such, it will take time; hasty correction should not be expected.”(I Ching, p. 304) In the spirit of wu wei, we must “stop being concerned over whether plans will fail or succeed,” and simply do what is right.(I Ching, p. 297) “One should not live in anticipation.”(I Ching, p.221) “When one acts in accord with the right way, one should ignore whether good fortune or misfortune will result. This is the proper attitude.”(I Ching, p. 218) “Don’t worry; it is certain that the central and correct [path] will bring good fortune,” eventually.(I Ching, p. 297) “With this attitude of pursuing the truth, there will be advantage in any direction.”(I Ching, p. 225) “what is considered first is not the reward one will attain, but whether the work is really good.”(I Ching, p.224)
Suppose we imagine a state coming into being before our eyes, Socrates says. We might then be able to watch the growth of justice or of injustice within it. When that is done, we may hope it will be easier to find what we are looking for…”(p.55) “a state comes into existence because no individual is self-sufficing; we all have many needs.”(p.55) “And having these needs, we call on one another’s help to satisfy our various requirements; and when we have collected a number of helpers and associates to live together in one place, we call that settlement a state… So if one man gives another what he has to give in exchange for what he can get, it is because each finds that to do so is for his own advantage.”(p.56) Agreeing that “there are no two people born exactly alike, there are innate differences which fit them for different occupations,” that men do better specializing and sharing the fruits of their labors, and that the right work must be done at the right time, they conclude that: “more things will be produced and the work be more easily and better done, when every man is set free from all other occupations to do, at the right time, the one thing for which he is naturally fitted.”(p.57) This is what Socrates calls ‘the healthy community’ – in which freedoms and responsibilities are shared by all, and individuality flourishes where each does what he or she is good at.
nothing could be further from Socrates’ point. Indeed, in as much as the authoritarian utopia they come up with is subject to injustice, it is anything but ideal. It is important to see and keep in mind that Socrates brings these different conceptions of an ideal community to the table for the sake of argument -- as if to say, what is wrong with this picture? Where does injustice set in?
So they start out with what Socrates calls his ideal community – one that appears to be the perfect combination of a market economy and communism. The just economy, he reasons, arises from human needs, because “needs are the mother of invention”. This community has as its primary function the protection and nurturance of children from harm. They imagine a community in which each is free from all other labors to do that which he or she is best capable of doing. Trade plays an important part, and just as a farmer doesn’t have time to make his own shovels, so we must all do what we are best fit for, and divide labor according to natural aptitudes. In such an economy, it stands to reason that labor would be divided according to who is best capable of doing a given job well. Creativity (he argues in other dialogues) is critical to a healthy and growing community and is also a means for individuals to reach their own divine potential and achieve immortality in the process, by creating something that will live on after them and continue to do good. In this way, he bypasses the argument that there is no incentive to work if there is no private property and individual wealth, with the argument that both wealth and poverty are subversive to true art. Doing something for it’s own sake, its intrinsic worth, will enable excellence, they conclude, in both the individual and the state.
So a healthy community will find and distribute talents by allowing children to play at what comes most naturally to them, and from youth upwards allow them to explore their intrinsic interests. We will discover if we do this, Socrates says, that there are no two individuals who are alike. And if you allow all citizens to do what comes most naturally to them in this way, then work will take on the character of play, and all things that need doing in a community will get done as well as possible.
And, yes, some will choose to take out the garbage, because there will always be those who prefer to let others do the dirty work in exchange for more free time and less responsibility. (Aristotle calls these ‘natural slaves,’ a term that is easy to misunderstand because we use the word ‘slave’ differently than he did…but more on this later.)
At any rate, does this sound like an enemy of individuality? A recipe for a totalitarian state?
Obviously, much depends here on who chooses work for the citizens. Can a ruler, from his vantage, know what is truly best for individuals? Even if you start with a perfectly just ruler, those who sit on high are ignorant of the critical details which are known only to the workers themselves, so there is the danger that, once routine sets in and administration and license are passed on, rulers will begin to make mistakes in putting individuals into the work that isn’t proper to them.
This is where the proper limit of the authority of the state over individuals begins to show up. In fact, justice requires that decisions must be made at the proper scale of activity. (Which is why Aristotle argues that a just community must have a ‘mixed constitution’, so that every voice can have its proper say.) People must choose their work for themselves.
Much regulation can be omitted, Socrates argues, because well educated people don’t need regulation. But this assumes a collective allegiance to the proper form of education so that people can become their better selves, and won’t need to be told what to do or not to do -- just as artists don’t need to be forced to be creative. It is an intrinsic interest in the joys and even the agonies of creativity that are its intrinsic reward.
So "Our principle that the born shoemaker or carpenter had better stick to his trade turns out to have been an adumbration of justice; and that is why it has helped us. But in reality justice, thought evidently analogous to this principle, is not a matter of external behavior, but of the inward self and of attending to all that is, in the fullest sense, a man's proper concern."[RepC p.142]
This is how to insure, Socrates says, a fair balance of diversity in unity, which will allow the community to be healthy and harmonious. And the origin of trade will thus be ruled by freedom of choice and promotion by merit, and remain free of too much wealth or too much poverty in the process, both of which are subversive to work for its own sake – for its intrinsic value. Which is to say, they take the real fun out of it. Or as Marx put it, they alienate the worker from his work and its products.
Class and Justice: The Few and the Many*: Plato is criticized for what looks like an acceptance of inequalities, but as Cairns points out, "In Plato's hands aristocracy meant the rule of the best, from whatever class they came. The able were to receive special training for the responsibilities requiring great ability; the less able were to perform the tasks suitable to their ability. Plato's political theory is an implication of the system of nature, and to call this philosophy aristocratic is meaningful only in the sense that nature is itself aristocratic. But to call any philosophy aristocratic in the sense of class interest is meaningless; preoccupation with the interests of one class to the detriment of others is not philosophy. Philosophy is disinterested or it is not philosophy. When ideas are manipulated for personal ends, for class or group interests, the name for this in Plato's day was sophistry. It was against this that all the dialogues were directed. To accuse Plato of being in league with the sophistic forces that undermined the classical world is an instance of the more subtle misrepresentation of his position." (Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. xvi)
Remember Socrates explanation of the healthy community. When Glaucon says, but “some people will not be satisfied to live in this fair and simple way. What about luxuries?”(p.61) Socrates replies, “Oh, I see, you don’t want to talk about the healthy community, you want to see what the inflamed and diseased state looks like! I really think we should be happy with this, and stay clear of talk of too much wealth and the nagging appetites it creates. But if you want to see what a state looks like once one class is not satisfied with their fair share, then we can, if you like, look closer at the state in which the ruling class is made up of those not satisfied with well enough, but takes from the shares of its neighbors instead.” This he calls, the state in heat. “There’s probably no harm in talking about what this hungry state might look like; indeed, it is sure to help us discover how injustice takes root.[C2.372] But “the community I have described seems to me the ideal one, in sound health as it were; but if you want to see one diseased and suffering from inflammation, there is nothing to hinder us.”
A diligent reader will readily notice that wanting more than our fair shares leads them within a single page from a healthy coexistence between all participant to the origin of war! And as for injustice: “We seem to have discovered already its origin in desires which are the most fruitful source of evils both to individuals and to states.”[p.62] And for the next five of six books they explore the so-called ‘Guardian State,’ which is founded on growth by means of invading its neighbor’s share. They ask how the unhealthy community functions, and what happens when the word ‘mine’ becomes the dominant motivation and states grow up around the ideal of ownership and class accumulation, all the while still wondering (though apparently too subtly for most scholars to notice), where does injustice set in? As Socrates clarifies in the dialogue Timeaus, he doesn’t endorse this community they imagine in the Republic. There, he says that static ideals of supposedly perfect communities obscure the injustice that is required to support them. To see how they go wrong, you have to set them into motion, to see how they behave and misbehave in times of war and peace. “The real test of her will be to see how she stands against enemies. Will she be wirey, while others are fat? Will she stand united in each individual, while others are divided in themselves? Will she know her enemies from her friends, and keep her hands off her friends? Or will she have as much internal civil discord as external foreign? And when this happens, will she remember that domestic critics are correctors, not enemies?” (Timaeus)
As they discover in this process, it is the use of the term ‘mine’ that turns out to be the origin of evil and sets people and classes against one another. Private property and the lust for luxury leads some inevitably to create war and tyranny. And the truth is, “essentially war makes people crazy. When people are at war, they are not thinking clearly…”(OI, Mohawk, 55) And “injustice is the big disturber of peace.” (OI, Mohawk, 57)
Mind you, there is nothing wrong with earned wealth. What matters is that one “not reap without sowing. His work deserves his earnings.”(I Ching, p.432) “The way to gain relies on doing something substantial.”(I Ching, p.343) As Socrates said, “virtue is not given by money, but from virtue come money and every other good of man…This is my teaching.”
But when the craving for private property is implanted in the hearts in our youth at an early age, this is something children never forget. By contrast, if we get the form of education right, then the craving for private property will minimize itself, and they will grow up with a better understanding of a truer form of wealth. For "If a man's person is his only private possession...these men will live in complete peace with one another....disunion comes about when the words 'mine' and 'not mine,' 'another's' and 'not another's' are not applied to the same things throughout the community. The best ordered state will be the one in which the largest number of persons use these terms in the same sense, and which accordingly most nearly resembles a single person...all sharing as a whole in the pain of the suffering part."[C5.461] “In our community, then, above all others, when things go well or ill with any individual everyone will use that word 'mine' in the same sense and say that all is going well or ill with him and his... And...this way of speaking and thinking goes with fellow-feeling."[C5.463]
Like the ancient Greeks, “We’re living in a period of warfare between the rich and poor.” (OI, Mohawk, 57) In the name of ideologies based on injustice, too many “rich people do things that have no virtue at all…”(OI, Mohawk, 57) At least, “there’s no virtue in any sense that Socrates would have understood, no virtue at all in any sense that the Peacemaker would have understood.” (OI, Mohawk, 57)
“The way to teach respect, of course,” Manitonquat says, “is to show it and give it.”(OI, p.12) Unfortunately, in most modern cultures, “The only thing that can be seen to be afforded respect is material wealth. So the moral message of this society is only that you must get rich, however you may do it, and then you will be sure to get respect.”(OI, p.12)
By contrast, what truly matters, as Smith says, are "the realms of gold…hidden in the depth of our being," (p.25). Hence the question we must all ask -- "What am I worth,' not 'how much have I got?'"
“The pursuit of peace is not merely the pursuit of the absence of violence, because peace is never achieved until justice is achieved. And justice is not achieved until everyone’s interests are addressed. You can’t achieve peace unless it’s accompanied by a constant striving to address the issues of justice. This means that your job will never end.” (OI, Mohawk, 56) So the ongoing challenge is to “Be fair. Be fair to the people. You can’t have justice without equity.”(OI, Lyons, 63) And, as bell hooks says, “you can’t have love without justice.” So we must understand the process, and the process must be continuous. Like keeping good health, to have peace, justice, or love, we must keep an ongoing vigil, and be aware how slippery the rhetoric of injustice can be. As with the ‘Green Revolution’ – “The goal to expanded food production is used to justify the wholesale displacement of Indigenous peoples. This is reported at the very root of ethnic cleansing taking place in Guatemala, Peru, Brazil, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia, Irian Jaya, Timor, and in Moluccas.” (OI, Adamson, 30) In many parts of the world, such as in Papau New Guinea, economic elites are attempting “to pass legislation making it criminal offense for any Indigenous Peoples to research, organic, or challenge any multi-national operation.” (OI, Adamson, 32) In effect, some are called “terrorists for simply wanting to live.”(OI, Forest, 235) But true terrorism = greed, racism, hate, and war. So we need to hear those who live downstream (OI, Thomas-Muller, 244) on “the River of Destruction,” (oil industry terms: upstream = extraction, midstream = transport and refining, down stream = consumers…so all of us!) These are the voices who need access to the dialogues that form public policy. They need a seat at the table “to put a face to the oppression.”(OI, Thomas-Muller, 246) As John Rawls makes clear in his Theory of Justice, it’s easy enough to see what we would not want others to do to us if the tables were turned, and we found ourselves in the position of least advantaged. Would that the powerful would make laws, rules, and procedures according to this golden rule logic, rather than, as Martin Luther King laments in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, to suit the interests of those who have the advantage of making them. A law is just when it follows moral law, and those who enforce it are willing to be bound by it. By contrast, a law is unjust when it is made to bind others only. This is the golden rule at work on an institutional level. Plato ultimately proclaimed, "Truth compels me to declare…in praise of true philosophy, that…the human race would never see the end of trouble until true lovers of wisdom should come to hold political power, OR the holders of political power should, by some divine appointment, become true lovers of wisdom."(p.xxv) “If either alternative or both were impossible, we might justly be laughed at as idle dreamers; but, as I maintain, there is no ground for saying so. Accordingly, if ever in the infinity of time, past or future...people of the highest gifts for philosophy are encouraged to take charge of a commonwealth, we are ready to maintain that, then and there, the constitution we have described will have been realized, or will be realized when once the philosophic muse becomes mistress of a state. For that might happen. Our plan is difficult – we have admitted – but not impossible."[Republic, Book 6.499]
Ending slavery was difficult; getting the British out of India, ending Apartied, and stopping Hitler’s armies was difficult; surviving ignorance and changing values has always been difficult. And slowing climate change will be very difficult…but not impossible! We must not let ourselves be discouraged by difficulty.
Gloria Steinum once said that, "Perhaps when you and I are feeling discouraged, we can think of…Mahatma Gandhi trying to fox-trot in a Bond Street suit, and know that we can find a true strength too."(Gloria Steinem, Revolution From Within, p.53) We, personally, must “be the change we want to see in the world.” That may be difficult, but not impossible.
On Enlightened Self-Interest and Sustainable Capitalism: As Al Gore puts it, we are "running the world like a business in liquidation,"[1] consuming the very future of our species and many others in the process of a single lifetime. And it takes only a bit of empathy for our children and theirs to see that our apparent willingness to let this continue amounts to a sin against the future of humanity, and in fact, all life on earth. Only “If our thinking changes from the question of how to enrich the rich to the question of how to obtain the sustainability of our species on the planet…[then] we would be engaging ourselves in an enormous revolution.” (OI, Mohawk, 58) With any luck, “Humans will survive the next climate change.” But “Corporations won’t.” (OI, Mohawk, p.136) Intrinsic Goods and an Individual Excellence Economy:
This ancient understanding of how the mind works could revolutionize our conception of learning, and in the process, provide meaningful alternatives for those many young minds who are falling through the cracks of our educational system. We might dream, for instance, of community generated creativity workshops (art, music, dance, sports, theatre, etc.) to regenerate dying malls and host new healthier, more dialogic, teaching and learning relationships - centers of workshops where intrinsic goods might be enjoyed and sustainable skills can be regenerated. It’s not too late to do right by our grandchildren by offering them what they are unlikely to get anywhere else in their education. “Working to regain that equilibrium,” not only for us, but “for those who are yet to be born.”(OI, Ross, 205)
While appetites and wants can blur our vision when we are young and hungry, age can help us learn and in turn, teach others. For as all who have come before, “I have a duty to try to do what my ancestors did for me to survive, for me to be alive.”(OI, Gilbert, 38)
We grandparents may be the only means by which our grandchildren will come upon this ancient wisdom about how to be happy in old age. So retirement can be a time of ho’ponopono, making things right, talking things out, resolving conflict, miscommunication, and reconcile misunderstandings, repairing relationships, reestablishing trust, mutual-respect, and harmony - whatever it takes to recover the happiness we want to be able to enjoy at life’s end, and owe to our children as well.
[1] (Gore, *)