The Spider and the Ant

“There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
--Albert Einstein

The other evening as I descended the front-porch steps to belatedly retrieve that day’s newspaper off the lawn, I glimpsed in the dim dusk a huge spider web splendiferously constituted above the hedge. What halted me in my tracks was the inexplicable “engineering feat” it displayed. The web itself was higher than my head, anchored to a bush limb the other side of the walk and to the hedge below; however, the top had to be supported from an oak branch about 20 feet above, and the right side attached horizontally to the hedge across the driveway, another 20 feet away. Wow, I thought to myself, how did that spider accomplish that? Spiders don’t have wings! And what a delicate, geometric design! Why, that looks almost miraculous!

Standing by the web in a state of bemused awe, I thought of the classic Walt Whitman poem “A Noiseless Patient Spider.” Whitman must have witnessed and felt something similar when he penned the lines: “Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,/[the spider] launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,/Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.” Yes, the lines succeeding those do reveal a theme of detached, human aloneness and “soul searching”; however, another theme seems apropos to me as well—the recognition of one of nature’s creature’s dogged and brave persistence and self-reliance. A sense of determined hope driving an architectural endeavor. And the unquestioning trust in one’s own ability. Indeed, a thing of wondrous beauty.

Returning back inside the sanctuary of our abode, I recalled that morning witnessing another of nature’s phenomenon. After a hurried breakfast, I’d carelessly left some honeyed crumbs on the kitchen counter, and before long a caravan of ants had formed to transport them to their colony. I’d snatched up a sponge and swiped them up and flushed them posthaste down the kitchen sink. Nevertheless, I paused to muse how ants function as a gigantic single unit, each worker ant indistinguishable from another and, except for the queen, expendable. All actions and endeavors directed toward a single goal, the common good of the colony. So I hastily bused the countertop clean, knowing if I didn’t there’d soon be another “cadre” of workers arriving to replace those sacrificed.

Immersed as we are within the inescapable election-year context of warring political factions, I later pondered whether an instructive parallel might exist between them and the behavior of the aforementioned arthropods. Certainly, some politicians have been accused of possessing no greater intelligence than that of a bug. But how do their constituents sort themselves out into one category or another?

It would seem that the conservative/libertarian contingent most mimics the attributes of the spider. Like with the spider, the age-old descriptive phrase “rugged individualism” would certainly apply. And the entrepreneurial spirit appears to inhere in both. It even calls to mind Ayn Rand’s novels, doesn’t it. Both work to accumulate their own future’s security. Not to mention their shared concept of a “free market,” although the flies might perceive that differently! The occupational approach of both—capitalism—embodies the miracle of Adam Smith’s “the invisible hand.”

Nevertheless, on the other hand, the ant and the advocate for socialism share the legacy of Karl Marx. All the workers are of equal status (irrespective of their job description) and remain so, only the queen (or the politically powerful) benefiting the most from the workers’ labor. It’s interesting that some ants even fall under the definition of “slave” as well as “zombies.” As alluded to earlier, all the labor is undertaken for the benefit of the colony as a whole. All worker ants are totally replaceable, but the queen can survive for many years. And, interestingly enough, both ants and varieties of socialism can be found just about everywhere on the planet.

Perhaps it’s a testament to the falling out of favor of the emphasis on teaching history and entomology that so many of the youth today are attracted to socialism. Is it the siren song of “equality”? The false promise of eternal “security”? Or the seductive lure of “fairness” and “social justice” for all? Otherwise it would be rather hard to explain their attraction to imitating an ant hill. But, the naiveté of youth is difficult to explain under the best of circumstances.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy declared during his inaugural address, "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." That’s one of the most revered political statements in history and one of the least properly understood. It’s actually an affirmation of socialism. It would have been far better advice had he candidly opined, "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for yourself.” But, of course, that would have required stepping out of the role of the politician.

Oh, callow youth! First seek ye courage. And experiential wisdom. Then be a spider! And expect the miraculous.