She writes:
The missing ingredient of our communities
May East presented her biscuit story in remarks about what Transition in the developed North could learn from the global South. Within Transition we glibly say that we need to “build community,” but solidarity identifies specifically that element which we are lacking.
In our current culture of peak-individualism, we have lost “common responsibilities.” We outsource these to our government and nonprofits and expect them to handle it for us. Schooling our children, care of parklands, preservation of The Commons. It’s not working too well.
In some ways we even outsourced our common responsibilities to corporations, and we are dismayed to discover that the corporate interests haven’t upheld those commons. Hence the stumbling attempts to create corporate ethics.
In our culture of individualism and competition, we no longer understand community of purpose. In 4 years of activitsm in my SUV-intense neighborhood, I have so often heard the reaction “I’m glad somebody’s doing this.” They agree it’s an important cause but they’re happy to outsource it, and have someone else do the work. They don’t have the time, which really translates into they’re too busy competing in the workplace, competing for space on the freeway, competing that their children should have the best extracurricular activities and should get into the best colleges for the best future …
May East’s comments helped me to identify specifically what aspect is missing. We need to reawaken solidarity, that sense of common purpose.
Americans don’t understand solidarity. We don’t have a history in it. We don’t have many cultural stories or models. Perhaps our closest example was the Revolutionary War, where colonists banned together — but that same story is the source of our proud American independence.
And independence is perhaps solidarity’s polar opposite.
What is the common purpose of a political community? In our fragmented society and liberal culture, we may not even understand the question. If our luxurious lifestyles, founded as they are upon cheap energy, come to an end, and if our survival is at stake, we may have to cooperate in order to rebuild a more sustainable (and just) community. But we do not band together merely for survival, as important as that may be for a community to come into being. We also do it for the sake of higher goods. (I will be finishing my post on Patrick Deneen and Aristotle on civic friendship soon.) If we find that we cannot really get along because of significant differences in our belief systems, our mores, and we cannot avoid one another like we can now, will we separate? Or fight? In our society, individuals have the leisure and the capability to pursue their own goals without much concern for the consequences of their actions--someone else is there to clean up the mess (usually the government and its welfare programs). And as isolated as we are, we can choose with whom we can associate, so that we do not have to be around people with whom we disagree.
When a "proposition nation" begins to face severe difficulties, will its people have solidarity? Is it possible for the struggle to survive to require that sort of cooperation which will ignore the differences that exist between peoples? Or will these differences become even more pronounced and significant when basic goods are at stake? Even if tribalism is strongly rooted in the structure of the family, having common ancestors may not be enough to establish an identity -- family regulations (i.e. culture) shapes behavior and expectations of others. Those who do not adhere will either be expelled or punished; otherwise, the cohesiveness and safety of the family is put at risk. ("If you don't police your own, we will do it for you.")
Talk about solidarity naturally evokes Heinrich Pesch's solidarism because of the similarity of the words and their common etymology. "Social justice" is often thrown around, but without much explanation beyond "helping the poor." Is social justice a distinct virtue from legal or general justice? That question is for another post. But we can at least ask the question: before we can talk about a people having the virtue of legal justice, must not the people exist as a united group of subjects first? Otherwise, we are putting the cart before the horse. A community must identify itself as such and do so strongly, because its members can develop the virtue of legal justice and will the good of that community. If the existence of a community is called into question because of differences of identity and culture between people, then this question must be answered before solidarity or love of the common good can be cultivated.
More on Heinrich Pesch:
AD2000: Ethics and the National Economy, by Heinrich Pesch
Solidarist economics: the legacy of Heinrich Pesch.
PRINCIPLES OF HEINRICH PESCH'S SOLIDARISM Stephen M. Krason
My Journey into Solidarism by Rupert Ederer
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