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One might argue that too many of us are keeping up with the Joneses by working 40-plus hours a week to keep some corporation or other profitable. This leaves less time for the practice of compassion beyond feeding the hungry mouths of the nuclear family.
There is a grain of truth in this.
Yet people find time for all manner of activities, from Ashtanga yoga to political canvassing, video-gaming to Zen meditation. Most of these activities are supposed to quell the anxieties of modern life.
We'll return to the question of what a renaissance in mutual aid might look like in the twenty-first century. For now, it's enough to urge that if the federal government's financial collapse is imminent, we will have no choice but to reconstitute the mutual aid and civil society sector. The silver lining is that we can revive our shriveled souls and restore our moral balance.
We will welcome the return of "fraternal individualism."
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