Working on the Individual
A man was riding his bicycle one day when, all of a sudden, his brake jammed. Luckily, there was a cycle repair shop nearby, so he took his bike there to have it fixed. Thinking the mechanic would fix the brake at the point it was jammed at, the cyclist was surprised to see him tap away with a small hammer at a completely different place. Before he could even express his surprise, however, the mechanic handed the bike over. “That’s fixed. You can take it away now,” he said. And off the cyclist rode, with his bike once again running smoothly.
What was true of this bicycle is true also of human society. When there is something wrong with society, people usually jump to the conclusion that where the malaise lies, there also should lie the cure. But this is not the case. Usually, the root of the malaise is to be found in a different place, far away from the symptoms. Until the cause is removed, the malaise itself will not go away.
For instance, there could be a lack of solidarity in society. Society may be vitiated by an atmosphere of intrigue, with the result that its voice carries no weight in the world. Having detected these symptoms, one who determines to right the ills of society might well think that the remedy would be to call meetings and conventions in order to bring people together, feed them emotional speeches and pass high sounding resolutions, and so on.
But this is not the way to cure society’s ills. To do so, one has to work on the cause, not the symptoms, for usually one will find that while a problem seems to be afflicting one part of society, the solution lies elsewhere. If there is a lack of solidarity, for instance, the reason for this is surely the failure of individuals to stand together. It is the individual, then, who has to be worked on. Solidarity has to be reinstated as an ideal at the individual level before society can ever be blessed with cohesion. For it is a law of nature that for a tree to bear good fruit, it is the seed, not the fruit itself, that has to be improved. Similarly for human society to flourish, its individuals need to be worked on.
