Ubuntu

Ubuntu, by Socrates

By John Taylor; 2007 Apr 07

"We're not here to fight the Taliban. We're here to make the Taliban irrelevant." – Hans Van Griensven, a Dutch colonel serving in Afghanistan. (quoted in yesterday’s New York Times)

This soldier working on improving the infrastructure in Afghanistan sums up all that I want to talk about today. Anybody who really wants to do a job does not follow outer symptoms, she goes first to the machinery that makes the problem a problem. Twas always thus.

Right now the kids are playing a game that boggles the mind. They saw an episode in Futurama that involved falling into a box that took them to multiple universes, so now they are sending their favorite stuffed animals through a black hole that takes them into alternate realities. They pick up power packs, run into a super-villain universe, and role play the surprise as each character enters a slightly different reality. And here I remember being perfectly content with cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians at that age.

I keep around a third string computer we call "Timbo," mostly to run Windows 98, which is the only operating system that will run the only program that can access Silvie's little digicam. I have been looking around for a Linux distribution to put onto Timbo in order make it a little more useful. One of the best Linux distros at the moment is called Ubuntu. Here is the explanation as to why they called it that:

"Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I am because of who we all are'. The Ubuntu distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world."

This word then, ubuntu, seems to describe perfectly the new level of unity that Baha'u'llah set up as the purpose of justice when He said, in the sixth leaf of the Kalimat-i-Firdousiyyih,

"The light of men is Justice. Quench it not with the contrary winds of oppression and tyranny. The purpose of justice is the appearance of unity among men." (Tablets, 66-7)

Certainly if unity is the reason for being of justice, we have felt nothing like the feeling of ubuntu that will surely flash forth when Adolph Nobody is dethroned from the Metropolis of Satan. Now, as a race, humans feel nothing for the totality, a void.

An example of the pestilence being carried in Adolph's "winds of oppression and tyranny" is a new, drug resistant strain of tuberculosis. Anyone familiar at all with history up to less than a century ago will know what a scourge TB was; countless lives and brilliant careers were cut short by that wasting illness. And now, aided by Adolph and our lack of fellow feeling, this second wave of TB is about to be unleashed from the poor countries, mostly of Africa. We have neglected the advance of most of the human race and made the south into a breeding ground of disease. The new TB is about to jump on the heads of an utterly unsuspecting generation. It is predicted that the disease will first strike those with weakened immune systems, that is, those with AIDS, and then proceed to all the rest of us. End result, ubuntu is reversed, it becomes "I am who I am because of who we all are, that is, shriveled up, ugly, subhuman creatures," and this because we all are ruled by Nobody. And all we had to do to avoid falling prey to this new strain of TB was to feel good ubuntu and do a little justice.

We clearly need to raise up ubuntu, fast, and dethrone Adolph Nobody. But the question is, how? Many Baha'is through the decades have clung for hope in a dream that May Maxwell had (Gordon Naylor, in a talk at Mrs. Javid's fireside last Wednesday, reminded us of this). In her dream there was a disastrous flood and people were drowning everywhere. May was picking people out of the river when she turned to see the Master on a hill working with some others upon a strange apparatus. She begged him to come help, that souls were drowning, but Abdu'l-Baha replied, "I am working on a machine to lower the waters and end the flood." May Maxwell gave no name for this flood lowering device. Baha'is of course consider the wonderful device that the Master was working on to be the Cause of God. Myself, though, I like to think that if you looked up close at the flood-lowering device you might find somewhere a little label saying, "Ubuntu." Or maybe, "Ubuntu, by Socrates."

This is why I have begun to think over the past few months that, as well as the Baha'i teachings, the world needs to see that every child learns well the philosophy and teachings of Socrates. This in fact seems to have been suggested by Baha'u'llah Himself. Consider what He said in the Lawh-i-Hikmat about Socrates,

"... Socrates ... was indeed wise, accomplished and righteous. He practised self-denial, repressed his appetites for selfish desires and turned away from material pleasures. He withdrew to the mountains where he dwelt in a cave. He dissuaded men from worshipping idols and taught them the way of God, the Lord of Mercy, until the ignorant rose up against him. They arrested him and put him to death in prison. Thus relateth to thee this swift-moving Pen." (Tablets, 146)

It is hard to miss reading over the accounts of his life that Socrates was no satyr, that he did not indulge himself like most of the world. He was quoted as saying, "Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live." (Socrates, from Plutarch, How a Young Man Ought to Hear Poems) This is very close to Jesus saying that one should watch what comes out of the mouth, not what goes in. But by this logic of goodness, Socrates was as good a man as any who have ever lived, and he seems to been well aware of it. "Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods." (Socrates, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers) It is no small thing to be good as well as wise. I think this is an important point to remember about Socrates. We really need to be reminded of Socrates' religiosity by Baha'u'llah. Few of Socrates admirers realize how important this was to his philosophic teaching. Baha'u'llah goes on to make it absolutely unambiguous that Socrates' genius was the result of a vision that self-denial opened up before his eyes,

"What a penetrating vision into philosophy this eminent man had! He is the most distinguished of all philosophers and was highly versed in wisdom. We testify that he is one of the heroes in this field and an outstanding champion dedicated unto it."

Socrates was a hero of philosophy, a hero who asserted that he knew only this, that he knew nothing. "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance." (quoted in Diogenes Laertius) He did not react to this sense of inadequacy as most do, by denial or, worse, by denigrating the value of the knowledge that was beyond him. Quite the reverse, he held it the cornerstone of his belief that, "There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance." (Laertius, Lives) He also followed the advice that Baha'u'llah gives at the beginning of the Tablet of the Seeker, that the first thing you do when you set out on the path of search is to watch your mouth. "Remember, what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of." (Socrates) This is a silence beyond censorship, or self-censorship, it is the first response to the recognition that there are greater intelligences at work in the universe, the first step, that is, to wisdom. And wisdom is the most valuable thing in the universe.

Baha'u'llah continues in the Hikmat, the Tablet of Wisdom, laying out the center of Socrates' insight and teaching, a center that was only partly grasped, even by his most brilliant students. (Not surprisingly, really, since he wrote nothing down himself) It took a Mind of the caliber of Baha'u'llah to say exactly what this central insight was.

"He had a profound knowledge of such sciences as were current amongst men as well as of those which were veiled from their minds. Methinks he drank one draught when the Most Great Ocean overflowed with gleaming and life-giving waters. He it is who perceived a unique, a tempered, and a pervasive nature in things, bearing the closest likeness to the human spirit, and he discovered this nature to be distinct from the substance of things in their refined form. He hath a special pronouncement on this weighty theme. Wert thou to ask from the worldly wise of this generation about this exposition, thou wouldst witness their incapacity to grasp it. Verily, thy Lord speaketh the truth but most people comprehend not." (Tablets, pp. 146-147)

This, I think, is ubuntu, the human spirit in nature, a spirit that is human and divine. It is something that, like Socrates did, we can commune with if we deny the cacophony of desires and vain illusions, and we can learn to use it to bring honor to the spirit of what we all are. As Socrates is said to have said,

"The shortest and surest way to live with honour in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them."