vote, and do not permit corporal punishment. They pay their full
share of public taxes and assessments and give largely in charity.
Their buildings are well built and well kept, their farms and
lands worked to the best advantage; in short, they are industrious
and thrifty.
Communism is one of those dreams that come so often to the best of
mankind and, lingering on through the waking hours, influence
conduct. The sharp distinctions and inequalities of life seem so
harsh and unjust; the wide intervals which separate those who have
from those who have not seem so unfair, that in all ages and in
all countries men have tried to devise schemes for social
equality,--equality of power, opportunity, and achievement.
Communism of some sort is one solution urged,--communism in
property, communism in effort, communism in results, everything in
common.
In 1840 Emerson wrote to Carlyle, "We are all a little wild here
with numberless projects of social reform. Not a reading man but
has a draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket. I am
gently mad myself, and am resolved to live cleanly. George Ripley
is talking up a colony of agriculturists and scholars, with whom
he threatens to take the field and book. One man renounces the use
of animal food; another of coin; and another of domestic hired
service; and another of the State; and on the whole we have a
commendable share of reason and of hope."
Ripley did found his Brook Farm, and a lot of good people went and
lived there--not Emerson; he was just a trifle too sane to be won
over completely, but even he used to go into his own garden and
dig in a socialistic way until his little boy warned him not to
dig his foot.
That is the trouble with communism, those who dig are apt to dig
their feet. It is easier to call a spade a spade than to use one.
Men may be born free and equal, but if they are, they do not show
it. From his first breath man is oppressed by the conditions of
his existence, and life is a struggle with environment. Freedom
and liberty are terms of relative not absolute value. The
absolutism of the commune is oppression refined, each man must dig
even if he digs his own foot. The plea of the anarchist for
liberty is more consistent than the plea of the communist,--the
one does demand a wild, lawless freedom for individual initiative;
the other demands the very refinement of interference with liberty
of mind and body.
Here's a piece of wisdom on driving or cute car quote to study:
Walking isn't a lost art - one must, by some means, get to the garage. ~Evan Esar
|
