autarky

Aide-toi, le ciel t’aidera! says Hercules to a cart driver in La Fontaine’s fable of Le charretier embourbé. This proverbial bit of moral code goes back to antiquity. It made sense as part of the Greek notion of freedom and autarky, when it didn’t hurt that authority over oneself was enhanced by dominion over women, children, strangers, and slaves. This authority over others did not trouble the moral luminaries of the time and could be assumed to be part of the natural world. The English version, “God helps those who help themselves,” is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin but was first formulated in these exact words by Algernon Sidney in the seventeenth century. What is peculiar is that many people in the US think that the idea and even the formula originated in the Bible. For some, it might even be a commandment. In fact, it is not biblical at all, in spite of somewhat similar statements in the late book of Proverbs, and in spite of attempts to interpret some parables in the synoptic gospels—the faithful servant or the ten virgins—along this line. It is part of the mishmash of notions purporting to support a proudly conquering capitalism. Believing that it is a biblical verse is a way of surrendering one’s independence of thought to a mythic authority, while sugarcoating what can often be bitter and cruel. As many know, including a minority of Christians, this view of the person is a radical misunderstanding of the notion of grace. Jesus’ words and deeds were mostly concerned with those who need other people’s help and the biblical god doesn’t seem interested in those who help themselves, or at least not that barefacedly. The biblical god helps widows, orphans, strangers, oppressed Israelites, precisely in circumstances when human solutions are hard to come by.