What Do Karl Marx and the Noble Savage Have in Common?

Even so, I managed scraping through my High School education with decent grades, I recall spending most of my classes in a day dream. During instructions I was able to cultivate worlds of possibilities, and impossibilities that still leave me with unanswered questions. After all, it was in those 1,140 hours, of sitting through long droning High School classes, where my Epiphany Journals were first conceived.

Mrs. Merecko* prompted the class into a debate about the effectiveness of the theories of Karl Marx. One side of the class aggressively defended the opinion that communism looked good as a theory but did not work when applied to society because power corrupts and ultimately civilizations lose their personal freedoms; their point being that it always led to unhappiness for a governed group. I began to sink back into my own thought process, drawn to conversations with my Mother, I remember her stating a difference from these opinions.

My mother was born in 1970 and lived in East Germany under the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) until the wall came down in 1989. She once told me that she had only known happiness living in a communist society, because they were oblivious to the outside world and everyone was made equal. Though we do NOT support a communist government, it was interesting to look at it from all perspectives. My mother stated that each human being's needs were met and every individual was made equal, which is something that is often missing even in the Western world. Obviously Communism is unethical but there are 200 other independent national governments on this earth, as well as subsidiary organizations. It got me thinking: What truly is the best form of governance?

Now, in looking for solutions we can compare other countries, an article called Why is Finland so happy?, from The Economist, revealed to me that:

"Finland was named the happiest country in the world [in 2018] by the UN's Sustainable Development solutions Network. Three of its Nordic cousins, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, took the next consecutive places."

The survey was called The World Happiness Report, and as the article stated they used global polling data from Gallup to measure how content all these people were with their own lives and accounted for differences using variables. Its authenticity was exemplified well, and it was leading to believe that socialism was the best form of government. All the gathered research suggested,

"... happy societies are those with supportive social systems and institutions that make it harder for people to fall through the cracks. They are also willing to accept and integrate immigrants."

This form of government is ideal in my eyes, I have even dreamed of being able to make my own living in a socialist society, maybe I will try to raise a family in Finland one day. However, for arguments sake, lets just say that it is impossible to know that Socialism would work until it has officially been tried and tested in each nation. Was this not why people argue the Communist theories are incorrect, because they look better on paper than in reality? They seem to work in one country that has adapted to the system, but what if other nations have ulterior values and morals?

I have always wondered, if someone lived in multiple nations - and by live I mean, spend enough time to learn and accept their cultures and beliefs- would they discover multiple ways that countries seek to be run themselves. Perhaps, the perfect governance is specific to each nation, because of these differences in beliefs of an idealistic society.

By the time I zoned back into the class debate, there had been a complete 180 degree flip, somehow the conversation had swung in the opposite direction to the Nobel Savage.

no·ble sav·ageˈnōbəl ˈsavij/noun

1. a representative of primitive humankind as idealized in Romantic literature, symbolizing the innate goodness of humanity when free from the corrupting influence of civilization.

How appropriate that society was considered a corrupting influence to an individuals development. Gabriel Lozano once stated, "Poverty, racism and greed drown people of the present time." Nowadays educational institutions have become profit oriented and neglect their vital function. They are supposed to provide personnal that are capable of coping with the crisis of the modern world. Instead children are fed a regulated curriculum, that is targeted at sustaining a capitalist society, based around a system that upholds social hierarchies. It is an intriguing thought that people might be more civilized without civilization.

Unfortunatly, that concludes the majority of what I remember from my high school education, that and the only other thing people seem to remember is the Mitochondria (I hope at least a few of my readers understand my sad meme reference).

And I almost forgot: What do Karl Marx and a Nobel Savage have in common? Perhaps nothing, except the remaining knowledge I have from my education, and that I used them to grab my readers attention. But I bet if Karl Marx had become one, if we had put him in a secluded space like a toddler in time out, he might have ended up with a more civilized nature. Or he might have come up with the real solutions to all these intriguing questions, so here I plant yet another left unanswered, to fester in your labouring minds!

-Alexis Halloran, The Nyctophilia Diaries

(29.04.2018)

***The teachers name was changed due to privacy reasons***

The Economist. (2018) Why is Finland so Happy?. [online] Available at:

https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2018/03/economist-explains-20 [Accessed 29 Apr. 2018].