the Greeks understood, far better then we do, that
to find our potential, our possibilities, we must do so
in the public sphere…………. the city exists because
that is where we can discover who we are and what
are our possibilities……………
the human story requires two different aspects…
one is the individual… we work out our own issues
and problems individually and, and we work out
who we are in the midst of other human beings…
it is in our actions and reactions with other human beings that
we find out who we are… alone, separate, isolated,
we can never find out if we are kind people or smart people
or good people or evil people… alone, separate, isolated
means we can never discover our value and the importance
of values in our lives… justice means nothing if we are alone
and isolated… love means nothing if we are alone, isolated, separate…
these values only have value in our dealings with other life forms
like humans or dogs or elephants… we can discover who we are in our
relationships with other humans and other life forms…
and that best happens in the polis, the city…
the Greeks knew this…and in large part, this is why they were the
creators of western civilization…
but part of being in the city is this aspect of the political and economic
and social, that we keep running into…we find ourselves thrown into
an everchanging dynamics that is the city……. recall your existentialists,
that said, we are thrown into a life…….the situation we find ourselves has
been going on for centuries……. a complex series of events has brought
us to here and now………
events that we cannot untangle ourselves from… our society was formed because
of events like the two world wars and the depression and the cold war
and the hippy era of the 60’s……. you cannot explain who we are today without
reference to those events and more…………
to isolate ourselves from our society like the Christians did during the later
years of the Roman Empire is to isolate ourselves from who we are………
the fact of the matter is, that Christians help bring down the Roman empire
because they did isolate themselves from the going on in their society……
and that isolation, separation from society, meant that the Roman society
collapsed because there weren’t enough people to keep the machine going……
so many people had isolated themselves that Rome couldn’t go on…………
think of it this way… we need to move a large object, say the golden gate bridge…
but we only have humans to help us, no machines of any kind… if we have
everyone help, we have enough people to move the golden gate bridge…
but if people walk away from their share of the work, a couple of things happen…
first the burden on the remaining people becomes greater… and as more people walk
away, the burden grows greater and greater until the project must stop because
there are not enough people to move the golden gate bridge… enough people
have walked away, isolated themselves, become separate from the others that
the bodies needed to complete the work wasn’t there…this is the classic
idea of what happened to Rome… so many people withdrew into themselves
and their religion that Rome didn’t have enough bodies to get the work done
that was needed to keep a society going………… too many people withdrew into
themselves and that ended that society…………… and we see the same forces
at work today…… the tax burden becomes greater and greater as
the wealthy and powerful and corporations pay less and less taxes, putting
the burden on the middle and working poor class… this is clearly evident today…
and one response people have today is to withdraw… recall that
under 50% of the eligible voters actually voted… that is a sign that
people are withdrawing, becoming isolated, growing apart from society…
and that separation is damaging society and people…… ……… we can only find ourselves
in a city, in contact with and in relationships with other human beings……
if we retreat into ourselves, we lose that necessary part of being human,
the contact we must have with other human beings that is necessary for
us to grow and develop into our possibilities…
we must have an active, engaged polis, city, for us to become who we are…
to isolate ourselves from the city/society is to limit our possibilities…
so for those of you who advocate isolation, separation, withdrawing from
society or the political sphere are the ones who are damaging society and individuals,
by even proclaiming the need for isolation, separation, withdrawal…
look to the fall of Rome as our example and we see that Rome might
have survived if enough people had become engaged in society…….
one small detail show us the truth of this………. many have commented on
the rise of mercenary soldiers in the Roman army… Rome had to engage with
people outside of Roman citizens to become soldiers because Roman citizens
didn’t want to become soldiers… they retreated/refused to becoming soldiers
and that lead to the problem of mercenary’s in the Roman army over the last 100
years of Rome’s existence…… this isolation, this withdrawal from the Roman state
is just one example of how the withdrawal of people from the Roman state
helped lead Rome to its collapse…there are plenty of other examples telling
us the same thing……. Rome fell, in part, because the Roman people
withdrew, became isolated from, separated from the state……. and we
see the exact same thing today…….
so we can see how our withdrawing, becoming isolated from, being separated
from the state can lead to the state to fail…… and we are on the exact same
journey today…… if we withdraw, if we claim that the state is rigged and
beyond our control, we are following the same path as the Roman citizens
followed the years before Rome fell……….
so if you proclaim the system is rigged and to withdraw, then
you are guilty of damaging society…you are guilty of removing support
that the state/society needs to be able to function……….
if the state falls, we fall… the formula is as simple as that……
we are connected to the state, like it or not, and for us to succeed,
the state must succeed…………. but the opposite is true also,
for the state to succeed, we must succeed and that is where the party of treason,
the republicans, have failed… their attempts to destroy the middle and working poor
class is partly to blame for our political, social, economic issues of today…
we must have a strong society and we must have strong individuals within that
society for society to succeed… for us individually to succeed and for
society to succeed, we must have a successful society and successful
individuals within that society………. one must have the other……
the path to failure lies is in isolating, withdrawing from society
and from society isolating individuals……
we need each other… individuals need society and society need individuals…
and any attempt to hurt the other, just damages ourselves…………
this is the education we have learned from the fall of Rome………
Kropotkin