I sleep well, for awhile, each night, with little thought for either my small problems or those of the world at large. But almost every night, I awaken to find my mind filled with some behavior I performed, at some time in the remote past, and which I regret to some degree, and I wonder how much of this is obsessive and how much is normal to the aging process, placing one’s life on the balance, so to speak.
These thoughts don’t exactly torment me, as I am similar to most people and can, to some degree, justify most of my actions, but I do recognize certain instances of my own being an outright jerk. When these are isolated, they loom rather large in my experience and take on much significance, but when I step back and try to gain some objectivity (or perhaps gain some justification?) they usually shrink back to little more than youthful ignorance or lapses of judgment.
That simple act, of stepping back to gain perspective, invariably leads me into looking at society and how I have, or have not, managed to fit in, and to attempt to evaluate, sometimes belatedly in the extreme, that process. Certain things I’ve read struck resounding chords in my psyche, as I was moving into the adult world, that seemed to fit into my particular (peculiar?) logic as to how the world should operate. And questions always arise as to how much can be expected of the world that I personally did not manage to achieve until later in life, if at all.
Against the small town backdrop of knowing (and being known by) the entire community, having parents who expected a certain amount of work and a perfection of honesty, and the apparent simplicity of life lived by small town rules, Socrates’ arguments as to the value of truth, Robert Fulghum’s “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”, Maria Montessori’s writings on education, and James Kavanaugh’s “There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves” all rang true. And I ended up with an outlook on life that said things like “money is not the highest achievement…or even all that important”, and “honesty and hard work will win out in the end”. It is a tribute to my innate bull-headedness that it took half a century to disavow myself of the efficacy of these notions.
But, I find, I am not really disavowed at all. In the face of having my ideas on social order being considered godless socialism, I still cling to ideas such as:
1. A man can choose to work for the good of his fellow man, and does not necessarily need the possibility of unlimited monetary reward to contribute to society.
2. Honesty, hard work, and a devotion to the betterment of humanity are the ’highest good”.
3. Somewhere along the way, our educational system is failing to instill a ’logic of life” that promotes things which, to me, seem logical.
4. A promise of everlasting life should not be necessary as the motivational currency of living a good life.
I could probably come up with a few more, but these will take enough time to discuss and will make my points quite readily.

Take 1. A Man can choose to work….. This has so many aspects, I hesitate to tackle this at all, but it is crucial that society should face the alternatives head on as it encompasses ideas such as the wisdom of unlimited capitalism, the facts of increasing population and decreasing work load, and the goals we hold for all mankind.
I, and many like myself, have chosen to work for less monetary gain than what we might have chosen. When one actually gives this some tiny amount of thought, we realize that we are not soon to be elected to sainthood for our selflessness because this category encompasses nearly all of us, with the exception of those who have centered their lives on making money. What is scary here is that those who DO place money at the center of their lives DO seem to have secured a nomination for a place in heaven, and this by the general population, who have increasingly less money as time moves on.
It is amazing to me that so much of the population defends unlimited capitalism when that system has repeatedly shown itself to be totally self absorbed. Yes, businesses provide necessary jobs,….yes, businesses do sometimes contribute to the good of society,….yes, businesses do provide necessary goods and services…all of which the defenders are quick to point out.
I will grant (you’re welcome) that jobs are necessary to some kind of economy, but does that economy necessarily need to be based totally on monetary gain, and do the people who choose to be satisfied with the less desirable jobs always need to be paid the least possible wages, given the least possible benefits, and have the least chance to better their lives?
I will question, too, the contributions to the good of society. Certainly a donation to the arts looks good on paper and is a fine thing, but I must contend that real contributions to society follow some kind of plan whereby a society is moved closer to some specific set of goals. I would contend that we do not even possess such a set of goals, and that the business world cares nothing for any goals beyond maintaining profit, power, and a positive public opinion. Social goals are not deemed necessary, and as long as we ride the tides of what we can sell, the social order will take care of itself. This attitude renders most contributions cosmetic.
The backers of capitalism love to point out the failure of communism in the Soviet Union as conclusive proof that socialism cannot work, that men need to make money in order to work and to care about their work. A closer look at this is less a condemnation of socialism than its detractors would have it.
Humanity has always worked for an infinite variety of rewards, some personal, some social, and, of course, some monetary….monetary being the most concrete and measurable, but which certainly does not stand alone. People, from all walks of life, work where they feel they fit in best, if they can achieve this, and within their ability. Most would like to have a greater monetary gain, but if this were the basic driving force in their choices, far fewer would choose to be teachers, construction workers, policemen,….name the profession, and the major motivating factor is likely NOT money….other than as it applies to acquiring the necessities of life.
Where communism/socialism has failed is probably on multiple fronts….failure to provide an adequate standard of living, failure to provide options for the population, failure to provide personal fulfillment, and failure to police itself adequately. It likely wasn’t just about the money. Fill basic human needs reasonably above a poverty level, enough extra resources to choose to travel or recreate with some variety, and hope for our future….and governmental style will become moot, as long as it is benevolent, something capitalism is, as yet, unable to guarantee.
Take 2. Honesty, hard work,….etc. are the highest good. OK, many of you will want to jump into this and demand that religion is the highest good. If there is life after death, an idea on which the jury is still out (not to mention it’s a bit of an oxymoron), then you are correct…so let’s compromise and say these are the highest secular good things…..which, of course, almost begs the question as they still imply some set of morals. Without morals, you can claim self-satisfaction as the highest good… period.
At any rate, I contend that the majority of people raised in a supportive society, educated to the best of that society’s ability, and allowed freedom within that society, will almost invariably choose to be honest, hard-working, contributing members of that society whose primary goal is sense of self-fulfillment through contribution of time, work, and ideas. Where I find problems is in that our American society, by using capitalism as it base, is giving huge monetary rewards for behaviors that do not meet the criteria of honesty, hard work, or devotion to the betterment of man.
Where honesty is concerned, the monetary rewards have been un-naturally skewed towards the person who manages to represent his product as better than it actually exists. From used horses to derivative stocks the biggest carrot seems to always go to the best liar. Explain to me again how this is right, or better yet, tell me what is being done to correct it.
When the question becomes hard work, it opens a huge can of worms as the issues are incredibly complex thanks to the intermingling of wages, profit, expenses, stock market, international issues, government regulations ….on and on go the debates. Wage and salary discrepancies, profit limitations, environmental issues, national interests, all important issues….perhaps too important to be left to the vagaries of a system whose bottom line is, literally, survival of the fittest.
Now there’s an interesting concept….survival of the fittest. This concept is loved by proponents of unlimited capitalism, and it is difficult to argue against the idea that man has reached the top of the food chain, thanks, at least in part, to the effects of competition. It does, however, tend to conveniently ignore the flip side of that coin….which is cooperation. While the strongest, fastest, and most intelligent have a definite advantage in the survival game, if they don’t learn to cooperate, in the long run, they don’t stand a chance.
But what does the definition of ‘fittest’ amount to in the modern world. From biggest and strongest, we have progressed to biggest, strongest, and smartest. From there, it seems we did work cooperation into the equation, from inter-family to inter-tribal, to inter-national cooperation. As technology has grown more important, so has intelligence, and with it, the importance of cooperation. The ability to destroy each other with increasing efficiency brings with it the responsibility to learn to cooperate.
But, being based on capitalism does not lend itself naturally to cooperation. Compete or die is the battle cry,…. grow, sell, consume, and WIN. There seems, in this system, nowhere to work in questions of ethics that are not related to increasing profit. Pay equity, environment, product reliability and longevity, global cooperation….giving back to the world a part of what is taken….automatically, without reserve. Bringing more, if not all, humanity to a higher level of existence seems the best possible form of cooperation.

Arguments come from owners, from management, from office people….all claiming to be worth more for their brain power than those who do the physical labor of actually producing something. Arguments come from foreign companies offering to do the work at a fraction of the labor cost. Arguments come from proponents of the stock market claiming people deserve a return on their money. These arguments are truly something to detest as they all hinge on a single question….”Is there such a thing as ’enough money’?”….and a single answer,…”No.”
It is truly not worth arguing who is worth more…perhaps the ‘upper class educated’ do deserve more for continuing their education, or taking larger risks, but there ought to be some point at which this ‘upper class’ realizes they are still dependent upon those workers and show them some appreciation, without their hand being forced by a union, a government, high employee turnover, or God forbid, a moral justification. It simply should be obvious that neither management nor workers exist in a vacuum. They are interdependent, and neither deserves rewards at the expense of the other.
The choice to do physical labor for a lifetime should no more sentence a person to severe limitations in their options than any other job. If you keep an employee for no other reason than they cannot afford to leave, you are holding them prisoner (wage slave), and are only marginally better than the communists who assign their people where they must work. It becomes only a matter of degree.
There is also a concept not mentioned often in polite circles….what do we do when the work is all done? The combination of increasing population and technological progress is creating a world in which there simply is not enough work to keep everyone busy for eight hours a day. I could spell this out in detail, but it should be obvious that labor-saving devices do just that, and that we will, to some extent, need to pay people, or support them, simply because they exist. This, obviously, goes against the grain of a society that prides itself on work…to have too little work to fit the population.
If we don’t want these people idle, we need to provide them with options, apparently options with little cost and high availability. At this point, sex, drugs, and television are the options most readily available. The ideal, in a proper, caring society, would be to offer healthy choices such as recreation, exercise, education, and even travel. Think of the personal empowerment offered by having options that now are beyond the reach of the poor, much of the lower middle class, and the unemployed. A quality of life un-dreamed of and, in time, a population better educated by choice, healthier by choice, and a population better psychologically adjusted without resentment for people who work no harder but have immeasurably more would be the long-term goal.
One final aspect of work might be to question whether having your money work for you actually classifies as ‘you contributing to society’. Yes, a willingness to risk money to further an admirable goal is, in itself, admirable. But is it a contribution to society to sit in an office manipulating the buying and selling of stocks, bonds, and securities and making a profit from the rising and falling of the market. Certainly it is legal, and may be difficult to regulate effectively, but is it valuable work, …is it to be admired simply because it is effective? If that is the case, we should admire strong laxatives more than we do.
If you remember nothing else from this ’shotgun’ approach to social order, try to grasp…
1. There is such a thing as ’enough’ money.
2. Cooperation is the future.
3. There is NOT enough work, and likely never will be.
Take 3...Our educational system is failing. Note, it is not our teachers who are failing, or if they are, it is because they are struggling within a failing system. Even as I write, I can see that education, like the teachers, are a part of a larger system, which also is failing those it is meant to serve. And the solutions are getting ever more difficult as we sink deeper into the mire.
What good to educate well when the leisure skills modeled in the home center around very poor television, alcohol, and cheap toys rather than conversation, reading, education, and physical exercise? What good to preach these values to the parents when they don’t have the time or money to buy membership to a sports club, can’t afford classes to improve, and have no real means to break out of their circle of boredom? It is so easy to say “It takes a village to raise a child”, but very difficult to implement.

There needs to be a wedge driven into the system that breaks it out of the downward spiral. It has always seemed to me that education is the real hope for being that wedge. As the economy weakens, extra programs are dropped, opportunities for students to learn to use their time constructively are cut, and those students end up walking the streets or plunking down in front of a TV at home. We are cutting our own throats when we let the school infrastructure weaken.
Since I mentioned Montessori earlier, I will explain it, just a bit. It is a system which surrounds a child with learning opportunities and allows each child to choose his/her activities virtually all the time. It does not expect the children to perform to an average level, either up or down. It allows children to work independently, or together. It groups children of different ages together so older can help younger, skilled can help unskilled, and learners can easily see where they will be going when they master what they are learning. They can repeat what is difficult, and quickly pass what is easy, for them. It is, or nearly so, the ultimate in individualized and socialized education. Why we persist in grouping children together and teaching to the ’norm’ is a complete mystery of inertia.
There will, of course, need to be more highly structured, or more loosely structured environments for special needs. The right to succeed and the right to fail are both as important as the right to an education. Education is a right of citizenship, but attendance in the optimal programs must be considered a privilege, although all programs must strive for effectiveness.

The final point of this essay, that the promise of eternal life need not be the motivational currency of physical life, could, and certainly does, encompass a multitude of volumes. I’ll try to hold it to a few sentences by simply saying, “Let’s keep it simple.” To quote Socrates, “He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.“ As Mr. Fulghum said, “Share everything, play fair, don’t hit….” As Maria Montessori said, “Learn at your own speed.” As James Kavanaugh said, “There are men too gentle to live among wolves.” Let’s leave room for the gentle people.
Even as I conclude this rather scattered piece, I am aware of a multitude of efforts by a wide variety of people to combat world-wide problems. Social entrepreneurs seem to be making some great contributions within the framework of capitalism in ways that earn a profit, contribute, and gain satisfaction from a finite profit. Governments wrestle daily with keeping themselves in power by keeping the populations satisfied, and corporations constantly seek ways to maximize profit while maintaining appearance fo social consciousness. BUT….socially conscious businesspeople are still a niche industry against a background of governmental and corporate mismanagement where nearly infinite amounts of money are spent maintaining the status quo. It causes me to wonder if, in the world at large, there are too few people who worry if they are making mistakes.

In the beginning, there was Mrs. D, quite possibly the largest kindergarten teacher ever. My strongest memory of this class actually belongs to someone else (thanks, Linda) who, for some un-named misbehavior, had to sit under Mrs. D's desk, while it was occupied by the owner. Her description of the horror of this discipline far exceeds anything I can recall, and unfortuanately, pretty much dominates the memory of the sinner in question, regarding that grade in school.

I actually don't remember a lot about kindergarten, except for 'art' class. I learned there how to draw a squirrel. I could reproduce it here, but the real point is that it was a 'copy me' exercise, which is, perhaps (or perhaps not), a good way to begin an art career. I lean towards 'perhaps not' as, if you are successful, which I wasn't, particularly, you are off and running...and if you're not, art is a closed door. A bit too early in one's career for closed doors....perhaps. All I really remember is being disappointed in my squirrel, and the fact that there was little, if any, feedback. More or less, just 'do this'....and move on.

I did find out, years later, that Mrs. D did not enjoy teaching, and was trapped by circumstances, in a dead end job. She was not a bad person, but was just putting in her time, sometimes with less that desirable effects. She did, however, set the tone for what passed for education in the 1950s and 60s.

With only one exception, we were pretty much taught 'do as I do' method. The encouragement was that if you work hard and are honest, you will succeed. Although this IS good advice, generally, I eventually came to find out that it was not the whole story. It is probably my own failing that it took so long to figure this out. And before signing off for now, I must give credit to Mrs. Young, as the only teacher to try to break the mold.