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Albert Schweitzer 09: Culture and cultural development: The reverence for life - ideals + ethics - craft as a means of education
Albert Schweitzer = one of the first "medical doctors without borders"

War destroys everything: trade, agriculture, society - technology-culture turns negative and destructive - worldview goes, ideals of culture go, in the end people kill each other - ideals + ethics + progress = cultural development - India with ban of further education - natives without education - the ethical affirmation of the world and life - the reverence for life - avoiding negative actions - avoiding the destruction of life - ethics human-human and human-animal world - the helping devotion - the craft is the basis of a culture with education for precision and reliability, manual skills and intellect are trained at the same time - important sawyers and carpenters

from: Albert Schweitzer: Life+Thought (Aus meinem Leben und Denken) -- Edge of the Primeval Forest (Zwischen Wasser und Urwald (1920) -- Letters from Lambarene 1924-1927 (Briefe aus Lambarene 1924-1927)

In: Albert Schweitzer. Collected works in 5 volumes (German: Gesammelte Werke in fünf Bänden): volume 1; Edition ExLibris without year (appr. 1970)

by Michael Palomino (2020)
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Literature: Books of Albert Schweitzer concerning medicine in the African rain forest

Medical reports from Africa:
1) On the edge of the primeval forest (orig. German: Zwischen Wasser und Urwald (Edition Haupt, Berne 1921 - Spanish: Entre el agua y la selva virgen)
2) Letters from Lambarene 1924-1927 (orig. German: Briefe aus Lambarene 1924-1927)
3) Out of My Life & Thought (orig. German: Aus meinem Leben und Denken 1931 - Spanish: Mi vida y pensamientos)

Other sources

Sources for the time from 1924-1927 in Lambarene are also the reviews of the C.H.Beck Edition, which were mainly written for the donors of the hospital:
-- Messages from Lambarene. First and second review (spring 1924 - autumn 1925). C.H.Beck Edition, 164 pages
-- Messages from Lambarene. Third review (autumn 1925-summer 1927). C.H.Beck-Verlag, 74 pages
The reviews are also available in Swedish, English and Dutch, English with the title: "More from the Primeval Forest" (Life + Thought, p.219)




First World War 1914-1918: White people kill white people - Albert Schweitzer will be interned until the end of November 2014 - and the Afros don't understand that
[The whites have world power - and kill each other
The whites, who rule almost the entire world with their steam ships, telegraph lines and steam engines, are now banging on each other. The Afros absolutely cannot understand THAT. So something is wrong in the brain of the white people with their Jesus fantasy - because the fantasy bible says: You shouldn't kill!]


5.8.1914
WWI: outbreak of war in Europe + internment - blacks complain about black soldiers who lock up a white doctor
The government in Paris immediately put Albert and Helene Schweitzer under house arrest on Lambarene and placed them under black French soldiers. Another pair of missionaries (also Alsatians) on Lambarene is placed under house arrest. Many black people are protesting and are now insulting the black soldiers that black people are now locking up a white doctor (Life+thinking, p.157).

WWI: The black timber trade is gone - inflation - but Albert Schweitzer has a supply for his hospital
The blacks are losing the timber trade to Europe - and the inflation is driving up prices (Life+Thought, p.157).

Albert Schweitzer has enough medication and bandages in stock for his treatments despite the state of war, he and his jungle hospital are very lucky (Life+Thought, p.174).

WWI: Black perspectives on senseless acts of war
-- some whites who live on the Ogowe River then fall during acts of war and are killed. The blacks comment on the war as a pointless "palaver". They also have other views concerning fatalities:
-- if a war party kills someone, then the perpetrator party has to pay for the killed person
-- if one kills people without eating them afterwards, the killing happens out of pure CRUELTY (life + thinking, p.157).

from 6/8/1914
WWI: The white technology culture turns negative and destructive
-- The white technology culture is in decline and people are blasting each other off. Albert Schweitzer's warnings since 1899 come true (Life+Thought, p.159).
-- the work "The Epigones", which Albert Schweitzer had in project, has no meaning anymore, but Albert Schweitzer writes it for himself during his house arrest (!) (Life+Thought, p.160)
-- at the same time Albert Schweitzer is afraid that the guards would rob him his written papers (Life+Thought, p.160)

from September 1914
WWI: House arrest for Albert + Helene Schweitzer cannot be maintained, is not feasible
-- in Lambarene, from around August 10th, 1914 WHITE AND BLACK AT THE SAME TIME complain to the French military authorities that the only doctor in the region is now to be locked up, and that is not possible
-- some sick people urgently ask for treatment from Albert Schweitzer [because some of them have traveled over 100s of km with family members!]
-- the district captain of the French army has to allow treatments and instructs the guards to let the sick patients through to Albert Schweitzer (Life+Thought, p.160).

WWI during the internment: External contacts thanks to Robert Kaufmann
Albert Schweitzer can maintain his communication with the world through a Bach singer in Zurich - Mr. Robert Kaufmann - who organizes the connection to the internees office ("Office des Internés Civils") in Geneva for Albert Schweitzer (Life+Thought, p.173).

WWI during the internment: beginning with the cultural philosophy with the search for ethics - and why it was lost
Now Albert Schweitzer has the whole day off and uses the time from the second day to develop his cultural philosophy:
-- Whites are only epigones (this was discussed in Berlin in the summer of 1899 in the Curtius house)
-- humanity is moving towards self-destruction (these was Albert Schweitzer's thought since he was visiting the university)
-- during WWI, ideals are no longer valid, the sense of justice and expediency are decreasing (Life + Thought, p.158)
-- philosophical hopes for the future of humanity are reduced to the feasible (Life + Thought, p.158-159)
-- "Reality politics" become short-sighted nationalism
-- anti-progressive tendencies are encouraged
-- the belief in a high level of inventions + knowledge + spirit + ethics turns out to be superstition, respectively the old cultures turn out to be smarter than the new technology cultures of the whites (!) (Life + Thought, p.159)

Late November 1914
Lambarene: Albert + Helene Schweitzer's internment is canceled
-- Albert + Helene Schweitzer's internment is canceled at the instigation of a certain Mr. Widor. They are now officially allowed to heal people again
-- in his free time Albert continues with cultural analysis, partly all night long - at the same time always thinking of the people who are fighting each other on the battlefields in the trenches. The crux of the big question is to find out how is it possible to bring whole cultures to ruin (Life + Thought, p.160)

Summer 1915
Lambarene: Albert Schweitzer has new theses on how a culture disappears
But now he also wants to know how to rebuild a culture (!) (Life + Thought, p.160-161)

Albert Schweitzer's findings on the decline of cultures: First comes the worldview - then the ideals of culture - then the people
-- First comes a catastrophe concerning the worldview
-- then the destructive world view destroys the culture, whose ideals are no longer valid (Life+Thought, p.162)
-- affirmation of life, ethics + the will to progress lose orientation (life + thinking, p.165)
-- worlds are changing from ethical to non-ethical worlds because the ethical world "was not really based on thinking" [ethics was only a facade]:
-- there was noble thinking, enthusiastic thinking, affirmation of life, ethics
-- but this thinking was only superficial without living according to it
-- the belonging together of the elements is only a sensation, without acting on it (life + thinking, p.166):
Quote:
"It [the thinking] felt and experienced the combination of the ethical and of the affirmation of the world and of life more than it proved it." (Life + Thought, p.166)

and:

"It [the thinking] confessed to world and life affirmation and to ethics, without really having explored themselves and their inner connectedness." (Life + Thought, p.166)
So if a culture breaks down, then the "noble and valuable worldview" was more of a belief and wasn't real action and was therefore not capable of survival, but other powers are taking over the spirit (life + thinking, p.166).

Albert Schweitzer's findings on rebuilding a culture: ideals + ethics with progress or denial of progress
-- the ideals have to be rebuilt
-- an ethic must be established that protects the world and life from violence = "world and life affirmation"
Examples: Enlightened technology culture
-- that can be a progressive culture that allows further development [and makes a non-violent policy] (Life+Thought, p.162)
-- Europe developed the will to progress in ancient Greece, then came a standstill, the Middle Ages were shaped by the Jesus fantasy Church with ecclesiastical-hostile repression, and at the same time the Rome-God-Fantasy-Christians believed that the "super sensible" of her fantasy would be the "meaning of life" (life + thinking, p.163)
-- the Renaissance renounced the church-life-denying dogmas, developed a new ethics and a "spiritual-ethical world", people themselves want to "become an active force in the world" and so new ideals are developed for remodeling the world (living + thinking, p.164)
-- this is how the modern culture is founded (Life + Thought, p.164).

Such ethical-progressive cultures are:
-- the Zarathustra culture (which is then destroyed by the Mohammed Fantasy Islam: affirmation of life, ethics and the will to progress lose their orientation)
-- the Chinese thinking of Confucius (Kung-Tse), Meng-Tse, Mi-Tse etc. (which is then almost totally destroyed by English colonialism - the affirmation of life, ethics and the will to progress lose their orientation [the Mafia the East India Company from London has drugs grown in India, which are then sold in China in order to destroy China, this is only revealed since Coleman's book has come out: "The Committee of 300"].

Culture without development in India
-- that can be a negative culture like in India, which rejects all progress as "nonsense", [but at the same time makes nonviolent politics] with an eternal retreat into the interior - as well as with a lack of interest for the whole of humanity - and there is no action during life - and there is waiting just to die - and there is waiting for a higher existence to stand above the gods (Life + Thought, p.162).
-- this is how the Brahmins think, and now all people in India should become like the Brahmins [a false ideal] (Life + Thought, p.163).

Culture without development of the indigenous people
-- Albert Schweitzer thinks that the native cultures ("primitives and semi-primitives") simply live there without the will to progress (Life+Thought, p.163).
A decline of a culture is a consequence of the progressive weakening of the world view: ethical world is going down, and life affirmation is also going down (life + thinking, p.166).

Research into how a new culture emerges

from summer 1915
-- Albert Schweitzer is holding on to the ethical affirmation of the world and of life (Life + Thought, p.167)
-- how a new culture arises is still unclear for Albert Schweitzer (Life+Thought, p.167-168)
-- everything he has studied in ethics is useless for the task of creating a new culture, so: finding the answer to the question how a new culture is created was "unexplored land", thus this was pioneering work:
"To my surprise, I found that the central province of philosophy, to which my thinking about culture and worldview had led me, was actually unexplored land." (Life + Thought, p.168)
Albert Schweitzer's spirit is now looking for new words and concepts (Life + Thought, p.168).


The key to a peaceful life: "Reverence for life"

September 1915 (in Gabon dry season)
A river trip brings the solution: The key concept for a holistic culture: Reverence for life
Albert and Helene Schweitzer are at Cape Lopez on the beach because Helene has to relax. There comes a message that a Jesus fantasy missionary - Ms. Pelot - should be treated 200km upriver in N'Gômô. A steamer with a barge is ready (p.168), Albert Schweitzer quickly gets on the barge (p.169). A black friend from Lambarene - Emil Ogouma - is on board on the barge, all others are unknown black people who let Albert eat with them, because in the rush Schweitzer had no time to buy food for the trip (Life + Thought, p.168).

The journey up the river is difficult at low tide between sandbanks. Albert Schweitzer is on the deck of the barge with pen and paper and is always looking for a solution to the creation of a culture. On the evening of the third day, the steamer and the barge are passing a herd of hippos, and that's when Albert Schweitzer thinks of the key term for a holistic culture:

    "Awe of Life." (Life + Thought, p.169)

This counts for positive cultures with world affirmation, with life affirmation, with ethics, with cultural ideals (Life + Thought, p.169).

End of 1915 approx.
Finally, Albert Schweitzer formulates the positive, holistic culture

From consciousness man comes to the thinking worldview.
To think with awareness means to think SOMETHING. The people with awe of life are in the following state (Life + Thought, p.169):

     "I am life that wants to live in the middle of life that wants to live." (Life + Thought, p.169-170)

Self-reflection and the control of the relationship to the environment is that
    -- "There is the will to live in the midst of will to live"
    -- "mysterious exaltation of the will to live" = lust
    -- "Fear to be destroyed + the mysterious impairment of the will to live" = pain (life + thinking, p.170).

To affirm the will to live means:
-- an act carried out in instinctive thinking is now consciously realized and put into action
-- the own existence is a "bottomless secret" (Life+Thought, p.170).

Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"Life affirmation
is the spiritual act in which he [the person] stops to live simply without thinking and begins to devote himself to his life (life + thinking, p.170) with reverence in order to bring it to its true value." (life + thinking, p.171)
or:
"Affirmation of life is deepening, internalizing and increasing the will to live." (Life + Thought, p.171)
The life-affirming person is a "person who has become thinking"
-- and shows the same respect for other life as you do for yourself
-- and can "empathize" with another "life, with love, devotion, compassion, joy, striving, and with solidarity" (Life + Thought, p.171).

The morality (basic principle) of the affirmation of life
Occupations and types of work are:
-- preserve / promote / develop life / bring it to its highest value (life + thinking, p.171).

Activities to be avoided are:
-- destroy / damage life / keep developable life down (life + thinking, p.171).


The holistic ethics

Ethics worldwide until 1915
Until 1915 ethics only was researching the behavior from person to person, the animal world and plant world do not appear in ethical considerations (Life + Thought, p.171).

The holistic ethics of Albert Schweitzer from 1915: The helping dedication
The ethics from Albert Schweitzer requires to regulate the behavior of humans towards animals and plants with a non-violent coexistence (Life + Thought, p.171).

Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"He [she - man/woman] is only ethical when his [her] life as such, that of plants and animals as well as that of man [women], is sacred and he [she] embraces life giving help to the ones who are in an emergency."

and: The responsibility towards everything that lives is limitless
and: The ethics between people is only ONE part of the whole ethics, but a special part: Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"The ethics of human-to-human behavior is not something separated, but is just something special that arises from a general context." (Life + Thought, p.171)
The destruction of life - the consumption of meat
= a stronger will who wants to live destroys a weaker will who wants to live (life + thinking, p.171)
-- Animal husbandry and meat consumption are constantly destroying life, that is a life based on destroyed life (Life + Thought, p.171-172)

Quote from Albert Schweitzer:
"This [the solidarity with other life] he [the human being] cannot fully carry out because the human being is also placed under the mysterious and gruesome law, being enforced to live at (p.171) the expense of other lifes and to be guilty of destroying and damaging life again and again." (Life + Thought, p.172)

The life of ethical beings - to live with "reverence for life"
Ethical beings do the best they can
- for not harming others
- for proving themselves with humanity
- for saving others from suffering (life + thinking, p.172).

THAT is real lived reverence for life with ethics and life affirmation. This applies to all relationships between
Human being - human being
Human - animal
Human being - plant world (life + thinking, p.172)

All of these relationships are examined. Who lives according to this has "the thinking world and life affirmation", which according to Albert Schweitzer represents "the spiritual and ethical perfection of the human being" (Life + Thought, p.172).

This strong, ethical spirit is strong and resilient:
-- the "mindless cultural arrogance" can no longer harm him
-- to look the truth in the eye becomes normal: So:
    -- the progress of knowledge + ability is not only a positive development, but can also always turn into a negative: The "true culture" will not become easier but more difficult
    -- one recognizes the interrelationship between spiritual + material
    -- poverty is unacceptable (Life + Thought, p.172).
    -- this is how the "true culture" comes up (Life+Thought, p.173).

1915-1917
Lambarene: Albert Schweitzer develops the structure of his cultural philosophy
The chapters are as follows: Quote (translation):
"1. Of the current lack of culture and its causes
2. Examination of the idea of reverence for life with previous attempts by European philosophy to justify the world view of ethical world and life affirmation
3. Representation of the worldview of reverence for life
4. From the cultural state."
Missing books for the elaboration are sent to Schweitzer by the zoology professor Mr. J. Strohl and his wife from Zurich (Life + Thought, p.173).

With all this, Albert Schweitzer has the idea to work for an "age of peace" (Life+Thought, p.174)


April 1925 approx.: Cognition from Albert Schweitzer: The basis of a culture is CRAFT - and not reading and writing
Albert Schweitzer sees that the basis of a culture is the craft that educates people to work regularly and to be reliable. THAT is missing in Africa. So a culture starts with the handicraft, not with reading and writing (letters from Lambarene, p.589).

Without good craftsmen there is no basis for a cultural life, that is clearly evident in Lambarene. The blacks in Gabon are learning to read and write, but not to work (Letters, p.589) and they can sell and write, but they cannot build solid buildings. Albert Schweitzer concludes:

Political studies according to Albert Schweitzer:

Intellect and manual dexterity must be trained TOGETHER, this is the "healthy basis for ascension". (Letters from Lambarene, p.590)
"If I had something to say, no black person should learn to read and write without being an apprentice in a craft at the same time. No training of the intellect without simultaneous training of manual skills! This is the only way to create a healthy basis for advancement." (Letters from Lambarene, p.590)
Political studies according to Albert Schweitzer:

Political science: Roads and railways in foreign continents are of no use because the brains of the natives are not trained with them

When foreigners build roads or railways, nothing has changed. Blacks become "efficient" through human rights and handicrafts. Culture comes on this basis. So:
-> Woodcutters -> sawmills in sawmills -> joiners and carpenters build the houses with the sawn timber.

If that is not developed in this way, then the population is stuck living in their bamboo huts and having some money for some consumer goods, but then the mentality does not change (letters from Lambarene, p.590). Albert Steiner quote:
"How ridiculous it seems to me when I read that Africa is being opened up to culture because a railroad now goes as far as that, the automobile can get there and an airplane service is to be set up from there to there. That will not achieve anything. "To what extent blacks will become good people?" This is the only thing that matters. They become good through religious and moral instruction and through the craft. Everything else only makes sense when this foundation is laid.
And of all manual skills, that of the sawyer is again the most important. The sawyer creates boards and beams from the trunks from which comfortable houses can be built. Before sawmills existed, our ancestors saw beams and planks by hand. And if the blacks do not go the same way, then they just remain savages, maybe one or the other will earns the money as a scribe to get his wife silk stockings and high-heeled shoes from Europe. Both of them and their descendants will continue to live in bamboo huts." (Letters from Lambarene, p.590)
Sawyers can work manually in pairs, making 10 boards or beams per day (letters from Lambarene, p.590-591).

African governments do not notice the importance of the sawmills and so the population stays in bamboo huts (letters from Lambarene, p.591). Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"To saw beams and planks out of a tree trunk, you lay it over a two-meter-deep and four-meter-long pit. With a long straight saw, it is tackled by two sawyers, one on the tree, the other in the pit. The way of the saw is marked out by corresponding lines on the top and at the bottom of the tree trunk (Letters, p.590). The art consists in sawing exactly vertically and staying in the line above and below requires some practice.Two well-trained sawyers make about 10 boards or beams a day.

This craft, which is most valuable for us, is the least respected as it is rated as too easy and too strenuous at the same time. That is why people live in miserable huts, but they could live in houses made of mahogany! But I myself can't even find two sawyers to cut some thick beams into thinner ones!" (Letters from Lambarene, p.591)
-- the white colonialist is destroying the African society by luring policy luring people to "distant" working places (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.424)
-- people should remain in their villages and being educated as craftsmen THERE (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.423-424)

-- all in all, plantings should be installed and house construction should be improved (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.424)


The danger of slavery

The government gives "concessions" to large companies over large areas
-- such "concessions" to big companies can degenerate into slavery like in the Belgian Congo, or it can have an educational effect like at the upper reaches of the Ogowe in Gabon in the area of the "society of the upper Ogowe" (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.426)

-- a state must have people who feed and maintain the troops (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.426)

-- fresh food and jungle paths with sparse settlements and long distances are a difficult tasks for Africa (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.427).


The comparison with Cameroon

-- in Cameroon a road network was built through the jungle
-- women have to do slave labor to repair the roads
-- you can see that the road network is only of limited use to the native population, but it brings new slavery (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.428)


Albert Schweitzer calls for the protection of the native population

-- Albert Schweitzer demands: The preservation of the indigenous population must have first priority (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.428)
-- education for black people begins with agriculture and handicrafts, some should also be able to speak languages and to manage trade, but these highly educated government officials are then uprooted and prone to alcohol and high crime, and they do not give up their black wastefulness and despite high wages they continue to be poor
-- the development of the society and ethics are therefore not solved with education alone (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.428).

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