Related Link » This I Believe: All Men Are My BrothersI like James Michener. I have read and enjoyed several of his novels, including Hawaii, The Source, and Poland. I also agree that, in a larger sense, all men are my brothers, for we all trace our mtDNA to Mitochondrial Eve.
“But if I am tolerant of other men’s prejudices, I must insist that they be tolerant of me. To my home in rural Pennsylvania come brown men and yellow men and black men from around the world. In their countries I lived and ate with them. In my country they shall live and eat with me. Until the day I die, my home must be free to receive these travelers and it never seems so big a home or so much a place of love as when some man from India or Japan or Mexico or Tahiti or Fiji shares it with me. For on those happy days, it reminds me of the wonderful affection I have known throughout the world.
I believe that all men are my brothers. I know it when I see them sharing my home.”
— James A. Michener - As heard on The Bob Edwards Show, July 24, 2009
But I withdraw from Michener's pollyannish view of the brotherhood of man, in the neighborhood of Cambridge, to take a currently prominent example. If I were to see men sharing my home here in Durham, I would most likely be witnessing a burglary.
The first recorded homocide was fratricide, lest we forget. And history is replete with civil war, which tends to be the most bloody variant, as was our own. The American Civil War accounted for more American casualties than all the other wars in which America has fought, combined.
Spare me the oft-repeated platitudes about fraternity. They envision brotherhood as saints and revolutionaries would have it, not necessarily as it is by nature. Man, with or without siblings, goes through stages of rivalry, camaraderie, resentment, collegiality, animosity, and not too uncommonly plain outright hatred. Most of us wish it were otherwise. Prudence, however, dictates that we "trust, but verify".
Post #870 Eye Disbelief: All Men Are My Brothers
Prudence is one of the four cardinal virtues, all of which were commented on by no less a thinker than Mr. Plato:
ReplyDelete"Wisdom is the chief and leader: next follows [prudence]; and from the union of these two with courage springs justice."
I therefore believe - just in case the verification process fails - there is wisdom in carrying a concealed weapon and possessing the courage to use it.
"An armed society is a polite society."
-R. Heinlein