III. Letters from Quebec: A
Philosophy for Peace and Justice.
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Preface Life
would be much easier and happier if individuals and institutions were
guided by principles of cooperation and sharing. This statement is true by
definition, according to the ordinary meanings of its words. I
will not discuss the ordinary meanings of each and every term in my first
sentence, but I will observe that "cooperation and sharing" means working
together and facilitating each other's access to resources, and, normally,
doing so for some constructive purpose, to meet some need. They mean, thus
by extension, acting in ways that make life easier and happier. It
is therefore logical to cooperate and to share. It would be logical --the
way I am using the word "logical" is not the only possible way to use it,
but it is an ancient and still defensible one-- for people to help each
other, each doing her or his part, to do those things that contribute to
making their own and others' lives easier and happier. If ideals of
cooperation and sharing guided people to do the things that need to be
done, then life would be easier and happier, because --here I
insist on the obvious because the significance of the obvious is so often
overlooked -- because the things that need to be done would be done. The
answers to questions about what is needed, and what is perhaps only wanted
but not really needed, are often neither obvious nor uncontroversial. I
want to insist that humans should not postpone cooperation and sharing
until we reach agreement on those answers, and indeed I do not believe we
ever w.111. Helping each
other and supporting each other is part of creating a respectful
atmosphere in which humanity's endless philosophical conversation about
essentially contested concepts, such as "needs, 11 "God'11 "sex," "art," "democracy," "science," "health,
"spirituality," "rights,"
and so on
and on...
can happily continue ' and I, for one, have a lot to say concerning the
themes of that endless conversation, starting, here, with "needs." I
want to say, to begin, that what needs to be done to make human life
easier and happier is to some extent the same everywhere and not a matter
of choice. The hum4an species is subject to attack by bacteria; to flu and
cold viruses, pneumonia, asthma, bronchitis; to pain, accident,
deterioration, and disease.
The body requires air, water, and food. The soul requires love and
appreciation. Nature imposes
certain species-wide tasks upon humanity, as species-wide needs. Human
life is, moreover, embedded in the living systems of the biosphere which
include the air, the waters, the sunlight, the soil, and the living plant
and animal forms. Making
human life easier and happier --indeed making it possible for human life
to continue at all-- cannot be separated from the care and nurture of the
biosphere in which our particular species lives and moves and has its
being. Maintaining the health of the earth community is another task
nature has set for humanity. It is our task because it is our'
responsibility. It is our responsibility because of our power. Today the future of any
species other than our own -- whether it will go extinct, whether it will
be bred along new lines, whether it will multiply and prosper, whether it
will
-- be genetically altered—depends far more on its interaction with
us than on natural selection. What
needs to be done, however, to some extent is not uniform and is a matter
of choice. Human needs
are not just the common needs of all living things, nor are they just the
common needs of our species.
There are varying needs of people of different cultures and
subcultures, and of different temperaments, needs of ethnicities and
faiths and groups of different sizes, down to the personally cultivated
lifestyle, the unique way of walking and talking, of thinking, of smiling;
down to each individual's practice of the art of living. To live, to be,
people need, precise, choices. Without social identity and freedom, the
type y of life characteristic of our species does not happen. If
individuals and institutions were guided by concepts of cooperation and
sharing, then energy and resources would be channeled: n
to
meeting human needs. n
to
living in harmony with the living systems of the earth. n
to
encouraging the free and creative flowering of each kind of person, and of
each person. Life
would continue to be, no doubt, hard enough, but it would@ not be as hard
as it is for most people now.
Questions about whether people really need God, or sexual
satisfaction, or children, or automobiles, or air conditioning, would
continue to be as hotly debated as they are now, but the debaters would be
happier. And there is nothing
at all in the atmosphere of the planet, nothing in the nitrogen, nothing
in the oxygen, nothing in the carbon dioxide, nothing in the rare gasses,
that prevents us human beings from changing our behavior and our
institutions in order to make life easier. There is nothing in the waters,
nothing in the seas that cover three fourths of the earth, nothing in the
fresh water lakes and rivers, nothing in the polar ice, nothing in the
clouds, nothing in the rain, which compels As to refrain from making the
world a happier place. There is nothing in the earth, nothing in igneous,
sedimentary, or metamorphic rock, which keeps us from cooperating and
sharing. Nothing in the sunlight. Nothing in plants or animals. There
is nothing in all of nature that prevents individuals and institutions
from being guided by principles of cooperation and sharing, except:
ourselves. |