25 Nov /15

Solidarity

Solidarity – Word of the day - EVS Translations
Solidarity – Word of the day – EVS Translations

In many ways, it seems as if modern communication technology has become a kind of Pandora’s Box. It gets us all kind of information about or from anywhere in the world and increased portability. But sometimes, this very benefit can make us, as individual people somewhat distant from events, feel very helpless and insignificant. Examining recent events of strife and tragedy in Paris – the empathy, understanding, and unity fostered by today’s word can empower everyone with an individual stake in being a part of the solution instead of being a mere distant observer. And that is why, over the course of the last days – one particular word has been commonly used. Though it is often, sadly, reserved for usage during the worst of times, solidarity can, when used correctly, reflect, as American President Abraham Lincoln stated in his inaugural address, “the better angels of our nature.”

For many of us over a certain age, the definition of solidarity is so closely associated with the independent Polish labour movement Solidarność, which translates to “Solidarity,” of the early 1980s, that it is hard to believe that it has a much longer and more varied history than this. Originating in English during the early middle 19th century from the French solidarité, the word is a derivative of the Latin solidum, meaning “whole sum.” It is precisely this “wholeness” or unity which gives the word solidarity its strength.

Expressing this strength, however, seems to fall, without delving to deeply into philosophy or reasoning, into 2 schools of thought. Taking a more universal approach, Catholic social teaching and the works of the Russian Prince Pyotr Kropotkin suggest that solidarity is a more about instinctive understanding and doing what needs to be done to assist others for the greater good of society. Presenting a somewhat less altruistic outlook, Emile Durkheim viewed solidarity as more of being in every group’s best interest-like the family or tribe would support itself, and in more complex settings, such as the Polish example with which we are all familiar, individual groups, like labour unions, would look after their own with the understanding that there was also an interdependence/reliance among all groups for the overall betterment of society.

The first known use of the word solidarity in English occurs via Hugh Doherty’s 1841 work, False Association & Its Remedy, where it is defined simply as, “Collective responsibility.” Using it in a nationalistic sense, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in English Traits (1856) of England that, “One secret of their power is their mutual good understanding… they have solidarity, or responsibleness, and trust in each other.” Understanding that there could be solidarity between any objects that work together for a common goal, George P. Marsh, speaking of writing (or, taken out of context and giving us something to collectively think about, society as a whole), noted that “The organs of speech act and react upon each other;..there is, to use a word, which if not now English soon will be, a certain solidarity between them all.”