The Daily Ant

Okay, this isn’t really a proper Philosophy Phriday contribution, but: Greetings, dear readers! Have you been well? We trust that you have found a way to remain relatively myrmecologically informed in our long absence. We are very pleased to announce that The Daily Ant is back in business. We’ve even launched a Patreon, if you are so inclined to give – check it out!

For those beginning to grow concerned, no, this article’s headline is not an ant bait and switch. So, let’s get to the philosophy. We provide today an excerpt from the 18th-century work Ernst und Falk – Gespräche für Freymäurer (Ernst and Falk – Conversations for Freemasons), by German philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. In our estimation, it posits an edenic form of societal organization and governance that may especially resonate for many in the U.S. this month:

Ernst — Nothing is easier than to put you back into that condition. Just let yourself down here by me and look!

Faulk — Now what?

E. — The life and the moving to and fro and round about these ant-hills. What industry and yet what order! Every one carries and pulls and shoves and no one hinders another. Just see! They even help one another.

F. — The ants live in society like the bees.

E. — And in a still more wonderful society than that of the bees. For they have no one among them who holds them together and rules them.

F. — Therefore it must be true that order can exist without government.

E. — When each one knows how to rule himself, why not?

F. — Will it ever come to that among men?

E. — Very hardly!

F. — Too bad!

E. — Assuredly!

F. — Get up and let us be going! For they will be crawling all over you, these ants, and just now there occurred to me what I must ask you at this time. I have no idea at all what you think about it…

[See here for the entire discourse. And see here for our new Patreon!]