Last Friday night I got a short opportunity to speak to a group of men about the essence of reading Proverbs. Guessing something about their familiarity with political ideological cultures in America, I decided to use three Libertarian concepts as gateways into Solomon’s understanding of life.
They were Anarchism, Self-Ownership, Individualism
1. Anarchism
“Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.”
Edward Abbey
I began with this quotation… because I saw it on my twitter feed awhile back from an account that seemed Libertarian. I had no idea who Abbey was and whether he was an individualist anarchist or an anarcho-syndicalist (which I honestly don’t understand as really an alternative to statism). I found out from the organizer of the evening that he was an author of Westerns. One of his books was the basis for a movie staring Kirk Douglas.
There have been of stateless Christian societies in history. A debate over whether or not they were inherently flawed and in need of a tax-supported government would be interesting to me. Predictably, the best-known (or only?) two were located on islands. But a discussion of what the Bible says about the philosophy of anarchism is outside the scope of this post and of my intentions at that talk. I just want to point out that Solomon, as I understand him, would have a ready response to Abbey’s argument.
Whatever might be an ideal way to organize society, Proverbs argues that, if you’re not wise enough to rule yourself you will be ruled by someone else. Maybe that person will be wise or maybe he won’t. Proverbs does give us hope the wise will have the upper hand–“the fool will be servant to the wise of heart” (Proverbs 11:29). But plenty of Proverbs warn us about rich and powerful fools. “A rich man is wise in his own eyes, but a poor man who has understanding will find him out” (Proverbs 28:11 ESV).
So Proverbs is exhorting everyone to seek, pray for, and gain the wisdom to govern their own lives.
2. Self-Ownership
Some Libertarians like to talk about how each person is a “self-owner” and then derive political (or anti-political) conclusions.
I don’t agree with that method of deriving political ethics, but the model of self-ownership can be useful. Consider another piece of Libertarian theory: homesteading. The idea is that a territory becomes your personal property once you “mix your labor” with it. When you have transformed a field by working it, then anyone who tries to take over that field is a robber violating your rights.
There is a lot of gray area in that concept that must be filled in by social convention or (if you’re not an anarchist or a government prevents you from operating as one) public policy. Is throwing a fence around a piece a land enough labor to count? Or are you taking the land from other people who would be willing to truly transform it—effectively hoarding land to sell later when property values rise?
In history, some homesteading has taken place under the jurisdiction of a civil government that sets and arbitrates the rules. So, a difference has arisen between having legal title to property and actually taking possession of the property by working it. Sometimes, people have been allowed to claim property but are given a time limit for working it. Otherwise, they lose their legal title to the property and it goes to someone else who wants to make it productive.
This links the idea of self-ownership into the realm of Biblical wisdom. According to Genesis 2, people were originally made from the ground. Throughout the Bible, people are compared to what grows out of the ground. I won’t bore you with the copious evidence (I wrote a recent column that touched on some of it). What is not as well-known is that the Bible also compares people to cultivated ground. That is the foundation of Apostle Paul for describing the church (i.e. the people who are the church, the people) as a Temple. “You are God’s field. God’s building” (1 Corinthians 3:9 ESV). Another example is Isaiah 58:11 –“…and you shall be like a watered garden, Like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”
Also, the author of Hebrews warns against apostacy using the image of productive and unproductive land:
For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.”
Hebrews 6:7-8
If your primary property is yourself, then you have a challenge: Will your ownership amount to mere legal title or will you take possession of yourself to make yourself a productive asset?
When God gave Adam and Eve, as the representatives of humanity, the whole earth, he charged them to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). A primary way in which that general mandate has been fulfilled by particular people is through homesteading. People settled in territory and transformed the land.
But if people are of the dust of the earth, then they also need to subdue themselves. Human beings, after all, are versatile creatures. They are made to deal with many circumstances and excel at various tasks. So, each person has to examine himself and his circumstances and learn to deal with the situation in which God has placed him. As self-owners, we have to develop ourselves through practice and dedication. Otherwise, we will be vulnerable to exploitation. “The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor” (Proverbs 12:24 ESV).
3. Individualism
“An “individual” literally means a unit that can’t be subdivided. America has always been relatively “individualistic.”
Though many of the Founding Fathers were not orthodox Christians, they realized that a populace needed to be governed by “morality and religion” to be free from tyranny.
But we can go further. People ruled by vices wouldn’t just make the Constitutional order unworkable; they make us truncated characters. It’s not just society that is ruined by unbridled passions; human personality gets warped and smothered as well.
In the New Testament the book of James indicates that a war among members of society is driven by a war within one’s own body and soul. “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war in your members?” (James 4:1 ESV) James means the members of one’s body, as his earlier description of the human tongue as a member of the body shows. He says that speech must be domesticated like animals are tamed.
People dominated by passions are weak and feeble as persons. They may be anti-authority, but they can’t promote individualism—because each person is divided against oneself. “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls” (Proverbs 25:28 ESV). “Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city” (Proverbs 16:32 ESV).
People who can govern themselves don’t need much government from an external institution. Until they take their situation for granted and stop transmitting to the next generation.
Then comes the zombie apocalypse.