THE ONE AND THE MANY

THE ONE AND THE MANY

The ancient Greeks pondered the relationship between ‘the one and the many.’ We are many but there is one thing that unifies us: our humanity. Though we are different there are qualities in each of us which are common to all of us. Realising this, the Greeks and others throughout history have sensed there must be some unifying principle behind every person and indeed everything that exists. People of faith call this principle God.

If we are all related to God then we are also related to each other. And indeed, though I experience myself as an individual, I know I cannot exist without other people. In fact, other people are so essential that I cannot conceive of myself as existing alone. I suppose, if I was shipwrecked and found refuge on a deserted island, I could survive for a time but what kind of existence would it be? Even the monks of the Egyptian desert, who sought solitude, knew that they had to seek out human company from time to time. “No man is an island.”

Yet there is always a tension – and it is a healthy one - between the one and the many. A child growing up identifies totally with her family at first. Gradually she detaches herself and discovers her own individuality. If she is not allowed to do that, and is constrained to conform to traditional behaviour which she feels she has outgrown, she becomes frustrated. Her happiness depends on her becoming a healthy individual who finds a balance between her own needs and those of others.  

I have always been uncomfortable with the interpretation of Ubuntu that rejects a founding axiom of the sages of the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment: “I think therefore I am.” This maxim is said to stress the individual to the detriment of the group and, as such, it is unacceptable in Africa where a more suitable statement would be: “I am because we are; and since we are, therefore I am.” I do not doubt the value of the community in Africa but I have a sense that when people stress it they are simply saying, ‘we (in Africa) still have it. You, in Europe or wherever, have lost it.’ My point is, it does not matter who we are; we all had it once and we are all losing it now.     

While it is legitimate to criticise the headlong rush of our modern culture towards a stress on the individual, and its amnesia concerning all the values of community, it does not make sense to stress that Africa is somehow different from the rest of the world in its emphasis on the one and obliviousness of the many. I do not see any difference between the pursuit of wealth and power in Africa, with its ignoring the poor, and what goes on in other continents. The sense of community bonds and obligations is no more alive in Africa than it is anywhere else. If illustrations are needed they are not hard to find.  In the Congo and South Sudan there is a blatant and cruel pursuit of individual goals, completely ignoring the plight of the many.

“I try to be helpful to everyone at all times, not anxious for my own advantage but for the advantage of everyone else.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

11 February 2018      Sunday 6 B     Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46     1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1     Mark1:40-45