Just One Person – Sunday, June 03, 1884
Ours is a dependent society. In fact, we are so specialized that we depend on each other for virtually everything. Some raise the food we eat; others teach our children; our milk is delivered to us each morning by someone who depends on someone else to milk the cows; our very survival is dependent upon others.
There is, of course, value in this social reality: man is by nature a social animal, and interdependency guarantees group interaction.
But there is also danger. Perhaps our modem environment of collective living has obscured the worth of the individual, the contribution just one person can make to society, and the happiness which results from self-reliance.
These days, we often hear the flimsy excuse: but I am just one man or one woman, what can I do? What was Albert Sweitzer but just one man? Yet his work relieved unmeasurable suffering for the peoples of Africa and became the model for numerous medical installations in underdeveloped countries.
What was Florence Nightingale but just one woman: one woman whose determination to nurse the wounded became the foundation for the present-day Red Cross.
Single individuals have altered the course of world history. The words “we will never surrender” were spoken by one man in the dark days prior to World War II, when the survival of the free wor1d was in doubt—words from Winston Churchill, who became the living symbol of defiance to the advancing war machines.
History has proven that the value and strength of society depend less on what men have in common than upon what men hold apart. In truth, where uniformity has been the rule, stagnation has been the result.
We march too often in platoons. Our individuality is enslaved by fads and fashions; is bought and sold by the auctioneers of the daily marketplace; lays spoiled by the decaying forces of social pressure; and bows before the false god of uniformity.
Every identity has his or her own beauty—sublime uniqueness which is the essence of individuality. And every person has a personal contribution to make which he alone can offer—to neighbors, to society, and to the world.
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June 03, 1984
Broadcast Number 2,859