When I decided to use this topic for my first tool I thought it was going to be about the software. I was wrong. Ubuntu means humanity. Treating people as human beings. Not like animals nor like property. In the story the idea about becoming our own saviors and no one is coming to save us it a strong mindset. When that mindset becomes the only way of thinking the standard values of ubuntu become less and less relevant. When you have to survive you do what ever you have to do. Its someone freedom that is on the line when you have to survive. When that freedom is gained you start to get rights. What ubuntu gives us and teaches. Ubuntu, by contrast, holds that it is only through community that we can have rights at all, and that rights and individuality only make sense with reference to a community of shared projects and shared commitments. This style of message is very dangerous in the form of government.

Reading the story I can see where Ubuntu is shown a lot. I took from the story Exploration of empathy to challenge an unjust world. Wilbur is never seen in the story, except through the eyes of the Joan. She seems him twice, first when she uses an empathy box, the major tool of the religion and second as a street vendor smuggling to her the instructions about how to build a new empathy box. The government debates where he can be found and wants to suppress the movement by crushing its head. Empathy is institutionalized in the form of a new religious movement called Mercerism, but since it is a decentralized movement, made up of networks of solidarity, it can best be understood as a form of bottom-up resistance. Let me make my case for Mercer being a bottom-up religion first.

You can consider that Marshall law or even a dictatorship. It’s the same idea or mindset. Its telling people do what you have to do to live. Saying that a group is better then one group to live or even eat. Ubuntu plays into roles like this because of its idea of community growth. In stead of the idea of my group is better then your. The idea of lets bring both together and gain from it. This fights that mentality of repressive government. The reason empathy is a threat is because of becoming vulnerable. The emotion that comes into play is that thinking there needs to feel sorry for someone or something. That brings downs guards and being vulnerable and things can get bad from there. When our emotional guards start to get let down. Disadvantages as a person come out. You start to see the flaws and that supports the idea of ubuntu and how it is a dangerous message to an authoritarian, repressive government. So doing more digging onto what ubuntu means. It essentially means I am the way I am and the way I act is because of you. So going back to the original idea of how humanity is treated with a repressive government. People will act on the rules and the ways we act is because of our government. So when governments are repressive societies and authoritarian ideals then that’s how their citizens will act. So the way I am is because of you but then we throw in how we become our own savior. We ask ourselves do we act because of you or do we have to do something else so we can survive. Common humanity. What do we do to achieve that and what cause our humanity to be at risk? So not only can we find the negatives but find the positives to. Human success relies on ubuntu. This is exactly what Ubuntu is about, it’s a reminder that no one is an is alone, every single thing that you do, good or bad, has an effect on your family, friends, and society. It also reminds us that we need think twice about the choices we want to make and the kind of impact they may have on others.