The best way to read this blog entry is to go back and read A Gift and An Easter Miracle and the Basis of Socialism, and then read this one. However, it should be possible to read this essay alone without too much confusion.
Let’s state some postulates:
First, that we are entirely free to re-work socialism to meet our needs and the crises of this century, and in fact this is our duty and our joy. There is no standard definition of socialism; there is a history, which we should learn from, but which we are by no means obligated to follow.
Second, that capitalism has a split personality. It is often deadly. It destroys human lives and the natural world; it is a threat to the survival of both.
And yet, the wealth it creates pays for education, healthcare, music and museums—in short, for civilization. Can we learn to use capitalism safely?
Third, that a realistic and humane socialism could save our planet, and millions or even billions of human lives. This is about making the future something other than a series of catastrophes: pandemics, droughts, wildfires, crop failures, massive storms, coastlines flooded, wars, dictatorships, the loss of human rights and democracy.
So yes, this game is worth the candle. It is worth your time reading and my time writing.
The basis of socialism is the intuition that human life is sacred. And because human life arose from nature and depends upon it, the natural world is also sacred.
“Sacred” is what our spirit can encompass, but which our mind can never fully grasp. Its value is not expressed in units of something else.
I do not define socialism as opposition to the existing distribution of property; this is a break with historical socialism. Not that inequality should be ignored in governing, but rather to put the focus on the potential beauty and grace of our lives.
When we say human life is sacred, we cannot sentimentalize the conditions of life. Death is an inevitable part of life. The belief that life is sacred cannot imply a denial or evasion of death.
Human life often involves severe conflict, including war. While working and hoping for peace, we must be realistic about war. And our understanding of war cannot be facile; for example, dialogue cannot solve every problem.
Jung wrote that growth requires sacrifice. Sometimes people sacrifice their lives for the well-being of others, but this is an act of devotion, not a negation of the sacredness of life.
More importantly, human beings sometimes live as if life were not sacred. They may do this because they value something else more than life itself. For example, they may value money, power, tobacco, drugs or alcohol more than life. Since these are all part of life, there’s an inherent imbalance, a kind of contradiction; do people die of cancer wishing that they could smoke for another few years, even just for a day? They might indeed. People who live as if life were not sacred have lost something important. Perhaps this was what Christ meant about the salt of the earth.
Addiction is a standing challenge to the sacredness of human life. And there are repetitive patterns of behavior and thought that resemble addiction, such as nationalism—there’s a sort of intoxication, and a loss of realism and empathy. There’s no actual substance abused, but the effect is similar.
Capitalist socialization is also a repetitive pattern of thought (and resulting behavior) that resembles an addiction. There may not be a high involved, but people are absolutely unable to imagine another way of thinking and behaving. And the loss of empathy is pronounced.
A full understanding of the sacredness of human life, and of nature, implies acceptance of the conditions of life, including suffering, addiction and death. This acceptance is not passive or grudging, nor is it tainted with cynicism or pessimism.
The conditions of life also include all the joy and fascination that the “pursuit of happiness” can capture. People cannot thrive without joy and fascination, and the goal of Survival Socialism is to enable them to thrive.
But what conditions foster joy and fascination? For socialism, that question is the key to governing. Ultimately, the people must work out the conditions that allow them to thrive for themselves. But one area is obviously education. Northrop Frye, the literary critic, observed that all utopian writing is ultimately about education—-and that sounds just about right.
Under Survival Socialism, education will mean real education, not just career training—not that job skills aren’t also important. First, the humanities, and particularly the history of the West, are critical subjects. Western history leads directly to an understanding of the modern world, with its dynamism, its alienation, and its tragedy. Second, scientific education needs to be re-vamped to give all high school and university graduates an understanding of basic concepts, of statistics, astronomy and ecology. We must all know enough science to understand the world around us. And students must know that science and math are not just for a minority of specialists but are the common property of all humanity.
I went to a university where “Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free,” was carved in stone above the entrance. And the inverse: without the truth, without knowledge and science, we are easily confused and enslaved—and if we forget that, Putin is always at hand to remind us.
The Socialist Investor 