solidarity

Also known as togetherness, unity, solidarism

Solidarity or solidarism is the provision of mutual moral and material support among the members of a group in times of need.

Overview

Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. Solidarity does not reject individuals and sees individuals as the basis of society. It refers to the ties in a society that bind people together as one. The term is generally employed in sociology and the other social sciences as well as in philosophy and bioethics. It is a significant concept in Catholic social teaching and in Christian democratic political ideology. What forms the basis of solidarity, and how it is implemented, vary between societies. In Global South societies it may be mainly based on kinship and shared values while Global North societies accumulate a variety of theories as to what contributes to a sense of solidarity or social cohesion. Solidarity is also one of six principles of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and December 20 of each year is International Human Solidarity Day recognized as an international observance. Solidarity is not mentioned in the European Convention on Human Rights nor in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights and has hence lesser legal meaning when compared to basic rights. Concepts of solidarity are mentioned in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, but not defined clearly. As biotechnology and biomedical enhancement research and production increase, the need for distinct definition of solidarity within healthcare system frameworks is important.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Also known as togetherness, unity, solidarism

Notable quotes

“Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future. Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.”
— Sara Ahmed, in (2004), p. 189
“This solidarity can grow only in inverse ratio to personality.... Solidarity which comes from likenesses is at its maximum when the collective conscience completely envelops our whole conscience and coincides in all points with it.... when this solidarity exercises its force, our personality vanishes, as our definition permits us to say, for we are no longer ourselves, but the collective life.”
— Émile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society (1947), as translated by George Simpson
“Unlike solidarity, which is horizontal and takes place between equals, charity is top-down, humiliating those who receive it and never challenging the implicit power relations.”
— Eduardo Galeano, in Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking Glass World (2000), p. 312
“The public service is a principle of social solidarity.”
— Christian Laval and Pierre Dardot, The pandemic as political trial: the case for a global commons (March 28, 2020),
“A politics of solidarity demands that my ally’s needs are my own.”
— Jo Livingstone,
“Karl Heinzen ... transforms the distinction between classes into the “distinction between the size of purses” and class contradictions into “craft-bickering”. The size of one’s purse is a purely quantitative distinction whereby any two individuals of the same class may be incited against one another at will.”
— Karl Marx, Moralising Criticism and Critical Morality (1847)

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.