XXVII 8th October 2003
We took advantage of the dry weather this month and improved Babcia field in a Capability Brown fashion, moving the northern bank of our main pond, named Angielski Staw (English Pond), 13 meters, to increase the field with the earth recovered from deepening and clearing it. Further rich mud recovered was deposited on the south bank, a low lying area, which was levelled higher, and it will be exploited when it settles down by sowing the spring wheat. There is no promise that it will take and produce good crop in the first year, on soil which is mud from the depth of the pond, but we must hope, as in all things; we stocked the pond with a variety of fish, which will now have better conditions with deeper and cleaner water.
We have just lent our heavy plate-rake to a neighbour and ourselves borrowed recently an additional trailer from another - to bring in the grain from fields to silos. This lending and borrowing or offering of small services, without accounting - is part of countryside life, where all have a common aim: of making ones farming a success and all understand each otherʼs difficulties. It has always been so, same as in Montaillou, half a millennium ago - where neighbours lent one another corn, grass, hay, wood, mules, axes or pots. And a cobbler would repair shoes for a weaver, patching his tunic later. We draw a line at lending some special equipment, like a tractor, or a drill, but we are prepared to give it as a service where help is needed, with our own operative. Whilst we no longer have any mules to lend, the spirit in the countryside is as it was in Montaillou.
There are many reasons for the isolation of the individual in society today. They are explained according to your point of view: the loss of religious faith; the alienation of political principles; the Freudian interest in individual rather than community; the migrations in search of better life; the commercialism propagated ad nauseam by the media at world level. The isolated individual is exposed to indoctrination with fads of one kind or another and induced to observe functional patterns, exploring events as they happen, rather than to follow a causal structures showing why they happen. He is left confused sharing doubts rather than beliefs which deprive him of his bonds and verve.
Does this loneliness of the individual causes the development of the nefarious tendencies often referred to as human nature and allow them to assert - in this age without restraint - like never before? They raise their head everywhere and contrary to manʼs interests, robbing him in a world of plenty. A stark blueprint arising from rapacious greed of rampant capitalism is not exclusively American, but theirs is the biggest becoming a dominant philosophy of our times: I live because I compete.
It seems to us that the society is in dire need to put together a new motivating force, to replace one which is elbowing us to the edge of a precipice. It can be seen as a need to give, now, to every human being, access to physical necessities and cultural values that are offered by modern life. The denial of this to a large portion of humanity equates to an abrogation of the conditions necessary for manʼs further moral and spiritual evolution.
In a most general way, there is a need to recognise the ʻSharingʼ principle, as no longer a sop, but as a replacement of ʻStruggleʼ as that force in the human evolution, which will help man to leave behind the frenzy of his history. This utopian view becomes practical when the greed which gambles with destruction encounters for the first time today unlimited productivity and wealth, abundantly possible to be shared. When man will recognise that his sense of justice is as much part of his nature his wish to compete will no longer need to compete for the fruits of this earth. The competition will concentrate on pride in excellence, on honour and respect - not on vying with each other under the stress of fear. Naming vicious aspects or dubious justifications, as freedom, justice, or democracy - contrary to the truths these ideas - can be left behind, whilst positive forces can have a unique opportunity to embellish the planet with true meanings.
A need to bring society back to understanding of human values, associates better in smaller units as for instance European regions rather than nations; it may be mirrored in creating smaller groups integrating the individual back in society. It is said that ten people who are truly together are a power to be reckoned with, what about a hundred? If a Movement were to be started to embody these ideas, it could be called Idsanism and become a theory of social organisation, to advance the evolution of society. It could develop as a system of small communities which would embody the individual within the society again. It could present an Idealism Sans-frontieres as its modus operandi for positive forces, aiming to establish behaviour patterns of a civilized community. It would help individuals towards self-fulfilment and help them act together, rather than in conflict and to take control of their destiny. Such small communities could be Hundreds which would like old villages or poleis, germinate fruitful self expression by women and men meeting in them together.
They would contrast with ramshackle relationships missing in bloated towns, or meaningless dormitories, giving a structure in both. Each group being a company of men and women, who wished for a community which springs from natural elements of time and place. Freeing themselves from the habit of theoretical and abstract solving of problems of human existence, they would work together to develop practical rules for each person to find his being and to act.
Idsanism would take as its first principle respect for the dignity of every man in his development at whatever level he may find himself at the time. It is the respect between man and man, nation and nation that will enable the evolutionary development of spirit of man. Whether you conceive it: on creative imagination, or sheer ability to alter the world, or intellectual achievement, or a vision of hope, the spirit will fulfil. This ideology considers that the development, reflecting emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual aspects of manʼs character and personality, is best achieved working through the small locally based communities. Idsanism as a movement would re- source the philosophy of assemblies of Hundreds in their locality to help them act as both a family for its members and as a mini-polis. They would be seen as limited to one hundred members for the sake of remaining a close family, containing members of any religion, any political party, any race or nationality, coming together from a defined area and for always. For always meaning that once she or he became a member they would retain a lasting link to a “polis address for life,” like being baptised; which once you are you cannot be un-baptised.
Action in Idsanism would means an unimpeded action needed for personality. Its moral bases are the age-old human values, expressed by religions or philosophies. It recognizes that glory and dignity of man lies in the fact that it is he who chooses, that he is his own master and is not compelled to purchase security and tranquillity at a price of his principles, or of letting himself be fitted with values, contrived to rob him of responsibility. This natural humanism reflects Kantian principles: firstly that the maker of all values is man himself and therefore may not be slaughtered in the name of anything higher than himself, secondly that the laws and institutions are made by and for man and must go when they no longer serve him, thirdly that men may not be slaughtered in the name of abstract ideas however lofty or of institutions however hallowed and fourthly as asserted above, that the worst of all sins is to degrade and humiliate human beings. These principles would ally Idsanism with many causes but its essence lies in practical evolution of rules for action, on behalf of the spirit of man in todayʼs circumstances. In a movement of its own, it would need to integrate for action to resist being dismissed as disruptive, impractical or utopian.
Idsanism adopts the two liberal principles: first that no power, but only rights can be regarded as absolute, so that all men, whatever power governs them, have an absolute right to refuse to behave inhumanely; and, second, that there are frontiers, not artificially drawn, within which men should be inviolable, these frontiers being defined in terms of rules, so long and widely accepted that their observance has entered into the very conception of what it is to be a normal human being. Within the contents of these rules Idsanism is orientated to act decisively and forcefully by individual or joint social action, by non cooperation with wrongful government or official actions, by ostracism of institutions brutalising society, and by organising support for any groups sympathetic to its aims. To put it simply Idsanism will act in a decisive but idealistic way for the change of society by changing man.
Becoming a member would be a step showing willingness to act in life in a certain way. While each Hundred would retain freedom to assert its beliefs it would naturally be a unit of a movement as a whole which would assert its policy through discussion and voting of the representatives of each Hundred. To become a member she or he would sign a declaration of agreement with the ʻTen Preceptsʼ of the movement:
- You shall believe and work for the evolution of the spirit of Man.
- You should place the dignity of Man before all beliefs.
- Remember to care for the physical comfort of others.
- Remember to respect the natural human values.
- Use only argument and good will to assert your way.
- Place happiness as share of dignity of all.
- Work to share the benefits of the cosmos with others.
- Assert true values and principles open to judgement.
- Assert individuality and variety of all.
- Create to express and assert your personality.
Idsanism would not be a political movement but inevitably it would engage its influence against the hegemonic usurpation, whether by America or by favoured groups in various countries. The principles it would use for such action or agitation would conform to the precepts of Idealism Sans-frontieres and would be a free choice of every Hundred. We get some inkling that in spite of bungling in the world around us such a choice may lead to a resolution with some finality
Can we begin a discussion at large of the form that such a movement may take and to formulate proposals which introduce minimum of rules while offering every member maximum of expression and individual contribution?
Can such a movement make all the difference to bring people together and to arrest the sliding of the individual into isolation?
What is standing in its way now?
