Our society is very pyramidal. At the bottom, there are lots of persons, doing potentially thankless jobs: farmers, builders, bakers, phone operators, cashiers, maids, postmen, waiters, sweepers, cleaners, sandwich sellers, or even homeless people, the list goes on.  On the upper layers, persons are richer and richer towards the top, and also less numerous: doctors, bankers, lawyers, notaries, politicians, businessmen, rich heirs, etc.

I often wonder if things could be organized differently, not just locally, but on a global scale. Have you ever heard of eusociality? This word defines advanced society organization in animal life. For example, bees are organized in a way that individual interest is totally erased by community interest: even the queen itself, although unique in a hive, doesn't have much to enjoy from a personal point of view, since she is totally dedicated to reproduction and can't even feed herself.

Of course, imagining a new organization would imply defining a given goal. What priority should we choose? What long-term purpose could we aim at? Are we only supposed to live as comfortably as possible, reproduce ourselves, then die, without any other precise objective? As far as I'm concerned, I would love some focus on fundamental research: how the universe got created, what are his laws, and ultimately, what purpose serves our presence in there (if any). Obviously, other persons may have other various opinions on such topic. What would be yours?

In any case, I am quite convinced that some more solidarity could go a long way. People being lucky enough to live in the higher steps of the social pyramid (I include myself in here) may give some more consideration to others that are in need of help. Even from a purely ethnocentric point of view, whatever the awaiting challenges are, human beings can only be stronger as a whole if solidarity becomes the rule.

City Shadows