The Perfect Social Fabric

The cellula mater of the organic social fabric is the family. It has within it the fullness of organicity, and because of warmth and vigour radiating from it, a certain organicity is communicated to the rest of society. In fact, this organicity of the family and the ensemble of inter-personal relationships in accordance with the Commandments of the Law of God, in other words, reciprocal charity, are the elements that constitute the organicity of society.

When I refer to the family, I am obviously not referring to the deteriorated family as seen today, but to the ideal family, which is not a chimera, since it existed to a large extent in the Middle Ages, albeit with the defects inherent to humanity.

The family bond, in a normal family, is established by a series of instinctive tendencies that are organic par excellence, as they result from the human organism itself. There are affinities between parents and their offspring and between siblings that derive from having similar temperaments and ways of being, which largely arise from more or less biological, ethnic and hereditary circumstances, and which form very precious similarities for two reasons: first, because they are very intimate; second, because they greatly differentiate that family unit from others. In this way, each family constitutes a small world distinct from other families. Exaggerating a little, we could say that each family has its own culture and civilization.

When I was little, visiting the homes of families that were not related to mine, I had the impression of taking a trip to another world, because I noticed dissimilarities in some points, insignificant to the perception of an adult, but great in the eyes of a child. The child does not understand, but instinctively relates the unique aspects that he notices in that family and implicitly observes that such characteristics come from a common psychological root, which is one particular way in his family and another in each of the other families. In the houses of a city, each residence corresponds to a family and has its own unity, and this is even noticeable in their way of cooking.

Visiting another family

Let us consider two houses of absolutely the same social level, of families who esteem each other and get along well with one another. A child belonging to family “a” is having lunch for the first time at the residence of family “b”. It may even happen – although not necessarily – that they say to him:

“I see you have a good appetite, but hold back a bit because the best is yet to come: a turkey prepared by the lady of the house herself, which is marvellous!”

The boy immediately thinks of a turkey identical to the one he eats at home. When the dish arrives, it looks completely different. When he tastes it to see if it is actually marvellous, he does not find it so, because it is not the same as the turkey served at home.

This leads to a kind of rejection of the family: “What strange people, look at their idea of a well-made turkey! How odd! That is not how turkey should be, it should be prepared differently…”

Let us suppose that, while playing in the sand, the child gets his hands dirty and has to wash them. Next to the sink is a soap that is entirely different from the one used at home. It may be as high-quality a soap as the English brand Pears, but it is in the shape of a black ball. The boy, used to pink or light blue Brazilian soap, thinks: “I have to wash my hands with this black ball? What strange people! Their turkey and their soap are different… At lunch, one of their cousins, who they consider funny, told jokes that I did not find amusing. May God deliver me from having to come back to this person’s house!”

Exchange of impressions between equals

The child returns home, and his mother asks:

“How was it at so-and-so’s house?”

The boy looks at his mother and instinctively realizes that she will not give the slightest importance to the different characteristics he noticed; so he does not tell her his impressions and answers in a very vague way:

“It was fine…”

As if to say: “Do not ask me because I do not want to tell you.”

The child builds up a storehouse of his own impressions that he will only pass on to people his own age. When the siblings are alone among themselves, he says:

“You have no idea what their house is like! It is like this and that…”

“But that is nothing” – answers an older sibling.

The older siblings give an opinion that is somewhat close to their parents’ opinion; therefore, they are more open. The younger siblings, on the other hand, are “fundamentalists” and one of them says:

“How awful! When there is a birthday party there, I won’t go. I would not want any of that!”

Months pass and another birthday is celebrated at the home of family “b”. The mother of family “a” tells her children:

“Today you will all go there.”

One of the youngest replies:

“Mom, I can’t, because I have to do my homework.”

“Do it tonight, when you get home.”

The other says:

“I can’t, because I’m not feeling well.”

“Tell me how you feel, because I’ll give you some medicine to get rid of your discomfort.”

And it is only with great difficulty that the woman manages to convince her children to go to that family’s home.

But suddenly, the mother changes her mind and they all go to the home of a relative they had not yet met, which seems to them to be somewhere between the house with the strange turkey and their own home.

Similarities and differences

There also comes a time in life when children have a crisis with their own family and begin to think them boring, are ashamed of their parents, think the other family is wonderful, and sometimes establishes close friendships with someone from another family and becomes almost like an apostate from their own, having taken up residence in other people’s homes.

These similarities and differences provoke instinctive attitudes, proceeding from the likes and dislikes in the depths of one’s very being.

I am only describing the phenomenon in general terms, because it is much deeper; many other people come into play, such as teachers and even the parish priest.

It is a universe made up entirely of organicity, which is formed by differences that, when put in order, are endowed with their own originality, and are fruitful, interesting, and creative. But also with similarities that tend to be highly uniting, and affinities that tend to be highly creative, which can make a group of families, descending from an original clan constitute a world and be a force in society.

Organicity is found, from the bottom up, first of all in these impulses that are semi-hereditary, semi-genetic and semi-ethnic; but, later, it is found in the phenomena of the soul and in the struggle of grace against the devil within the person. Thus, a very complex and rich picture is formed. The world of relationships this basis constitutes the fabric of society.

Primary analogate of all other relationships

How does this relate to the rest of society outside the family?

When an individual lives family life intensely, they realize in a deep and instinctive way that either they transfer the characteristics of family life to other relationships, or all other relationships will be false.

They then tend to relate family life to all other benevolent sentiments they can have towards people. When you have a friend, you tend to consider him a relative, on the preferential, affectionate side. When you have a colleague – for example, two doctors who work together because they have complementary specializations – you tend to turn that collaboration into a friendship, and the latter into a fraternal relationship. When you have a teacher, you tend to treat him like a father; and when you are a teacher, you also tend to consider your pupil a son. The family relationship becomes a kind of primary analogate for all other relationships.

This places friendship in a very important place in people’s lives, because to have true friends is to have friends for life and for death, which is only possible when true affection prevails. And those who do not originally have a great source of affection in the family do not have this affection.

Some examples

This is why certain associations used to be called fraternities, and in the internal language their members called each other brothers. For example, the Fraternity of the Blessed Sacrament. This is a tradition of the penetration of the family environment into all other spheres.

It follows that professional associations organized in this way do not have the coldness of trade unions, which are formed more according to self-interest than friendship. The poor soul who lives only for his financial interests does not realize that he has lost one of life’s greatest interests: affection.

The ancient Saxon law of Germany, in the days when the Germans were barbarians, established as law the obligation for every Saxon to have certain inner dispositions towards the others of his race. This is impossible to impose by law, because you cannot force someone to have an inner disposition. But we can see that they observed in each other whether their outward behaviour corresponded to the fulfilment of this prescription. And when it did not, punishment ensued.

Thus, the first of all the laws was: love of neighbour, demonstrated by loyalty. When there was any form of disloyalty, it was punished in a certain way prescribed by law.

Naturally, there is a certain combination of barbarism and wisdom in this, but it corresponds to the religious background of my idea of the social fabric.

The vivifying element of the social fabric

The social fabric is nourished or constituted by a certain network of individual relationships in which the vivifying element, similar to what blood is for the body, is the observance of the Ten Commandments and Catholic doctrine. This creates the perfect social fabric.

With regard to loyalty, for example, even in my grandfather’s time there were cases in Brazil in which it was inconceivable for two men to do business together based on written contracts, since that shows a lack of mutual trust.

For example, a man bought a farm on credit. The owner received a portion of the payment, but was obliged to take care of the farm while it was still in his care. How were the negotiations carried out? Each man would pluck a hair from his own beard and give it to the other. Nothing more.

Since the beard was a symbol of respectability, to say to a man, “Look, this is your beard as proof!” meant creating a situation in which he would not be such a scoundrel as to be shameless when presented with his own beard. And so the beard served as a guarantee.

I suppose the former Bishops of São Paulo bought and sold without providing a document. Because Archbishop Duarte Leopoldo e Silva, the oldest Archbishop I knew, had the following habit. The Curia of São Paulo owned many pieces of property and sometimes bought or sold one or another of them. As required by the banks, Dom Duarte had to sign, but he only did so by putting a cross and a “D” on the stamp. He said it was an affront to the Archbishop’s honour to sign his full name. And he only initialled it because of the bank’s requirement, but before he had not signed at all, his word as Archbishop sufficed.

Take souls who are convinced of the wisdom and holiness of the Commandments, and who have modelled themselves entirely in this way, who know each other and integrate well: they form a perfect social fabric. The starting point is the family, but true life is the supernatural life of grace.

Can an organic society exist among evil people and pagans?

The question arises: would a wicked organic society be possible?

For a time, yes, but it would be short-lived. That is to say, when there is a tradition of creating friendship by shared sentiments, the first thieves to come along also become friends by the same process. And although they are enemies of those they wish to harm, because they want to take their money, they have acceptable behaviour elsewhere. They are remnants of the social fabric that is not yet completely disintegrated.

Now another question arises: would an organic society be possible among pagans?

We need to distinguish. I doubt that it would be an authentic and durably organic society. A more or less organic society might be possible. The feudal regime of certain Eastern peoples, for example, was ferocious, unlike Catholic feudalism, but it could have the skeleton of a feudal society.

What seems fundamental to me in this matter is to recognize that this would be short-lived, because it would end up in an assault of one against the other.

Someone might object: “But, Dr. Plinio, you seem to support the theory of certain heretics who claim that man is only capable of doing evil. However, there are certain natural virtues that man is capable of practising without the help of grace, and you seem to deny this by asserting that outside the Church there is no good.”

We are speaking of diverse realities. There may be an exceptional man who, without being aware of it, practises a certain good. However, it is not possible to practise good in its entirety without knowing Catholic doctrine and without God’s grace. ◊

Taken, with adaptations, from:
Dr. Plinio. São Paulo. Year XVIII.
N.209 (Aug., 2015), p.18-23