Dear Marion,

More about society, socialization and association.
To my mind, in my experience, socialization entails leveling,
making equal the votes, the wealth, the opportunities, the lives,
the thoughts, the beliefs, and ultimately the religions of individuals.
Only a frivolous mind that deems religion a trivial appurtenance
of culture will argue that the State can equalize the lives of
individuals without equalizing their religions as well.
To the extent that the substance of these lives, of these votes and
opportunities is created by society, such equalization will seem fair
and rational. On the other hand, where the achievement, whatever it be,
is valid independent of the social context, the equalization is paradoxical
and destructive of the natural order. To "handicap" a cripple, i.e.,
to deny the impairments of a cripple and thereby enable him nominally to
prevail in a race although he arrives at the finish line minutes or hours
later than the competitor, is to corrupt the meaning of celerity.  The
absolute winner of the race will always be he who breaks the ribbon first.

My dilettante involvement in plumbing, my "professional" experience in the
practice of medicine, and especially my efforts at literary composition
corroborate my hypothesis that laws and regulations purporting to control
conduct are inimical to imagination, initiative, sensitivity and
intelligence. Spiritual or intellectual achievement is and has always
been the prerogative of individual endeavor.  The interaction between
tradition and spontaneity is obvious in the practice of medicine, in the
practice of plumbing, even, and perhaps especially in the practice of
literary composition.  How should tradition be implemented? Who "owns"
tradition? Who should identify, who should define it? According to our
courts, the State has the right to control individual conduct "to protect
public health and welfare," but as it exercises that right, the State
inhibits individual initiative and judgment ultimately to extinction,
as I know from my own experience.

None of us can escape from society; the existence of each is inextricably
bound to it, however much it stifles originality and ultimately extinguishes
individual identity. In consequence, the individual's experience with society
is cyclical, like the seasons. There is a springtime in which he sows the
seeds from which his integration into society sprouts and grows;
there is a summer when he harvests the fruits of his cooperation,
an autumn when the enthusiasm of summer fades and is replaced
with fear and foreboding. Ultimately, there is a winter which brings about
the dissolution of society concomitant with the extrusion, if not destruction
of its members. The understanding that in time the State itself will perish
is neither anarchistic nor treasonous, but simple truth which is almost
self-evident.

That's my Christmas sermon for 2010.

Jochen