7 mar

Walked another 37 kilometres, from Cahors to Montcuq, making a total of 306 kilometres. Passed in fact the half way point for the Via Podiensis, the french part of the Camino. That is, including the cheating. According to my guide the path up to Montcuq took 375 kilometres, while there is still 355 kilometres to go before I reach St Jean Pied de Port.
Julie dropped Han of at Bergerac Airport and I was on my own again. Splendid weather. Couldn’t be better really. In the morning it is still frosty – the puddles on the road keep being frozen till about 10.30 – but the sky is blue and after 11AM I am walking without a coat. The sun blesses every movement, and the temperature stops at about 15 degrees Celsius, about 60. Ideal. Even saw some bluebells.
Saw some more donkeys and kept thinking about the accepance of weakness. I remember a political program in the seventies where a dutch politician, also called Van Mierlo (no relative) defended the idea that social security should be so generous that anyone who needs it is being served by it. This would result in a whole lot of people who would receive social securities who don’t actually need it because the system could not be watertight.
I thought it was an interesting statement. It would work only perfectly well in a situation where everybody is completely honest and would not think about abusing the system. An ideal world like that doesn’t exist, because, as we Christians know, the human being tends to behave badly. Only norms and laws keep humans in check, and even that doesn’t wok perfectly.
A generous social benefit system is going to cause so much trouble, in the sense that the people who are providing it will feel cheated by the corruption of others. That was the situation of the seventies and eighties. The reaction of these days is that the government just makes the welfare system less generous. Although I do not think it is dramatic yet, in most western countries (not including the Unites States) welfare is still okay, the direction is concerning.
In Britain, the Conservatives suggested an alternative in the form of the Big Society. It was so vague that I just could not resist finding it attractive. From what I understand about it it says that problems should be taken care of at the most informal social level imaginable. For example, the care for other human beings should be done by people who are as close to the person who needs care as possible. This is about sick people, poor people, people with learning disabilities, people that are just not very fast in adapting to different circumstances; weak people.
Ideally they are being taken care of at home, or by wider family. If that isn’t possible maybe neighbours can get involved, or the local community, or the region. At last one tries to get something on a national level involved.
I think this is called the subsidiarity principle – if I am translating the dutch word right. But it is not only about politics. I think companies have a large role to fulfill here. They need to take care of weaker people on a much more intensive level than what they have been doing in recent times. Embracing weakness, while stimulating excellence. I think it is the kind of environment where I would love to work in.
Anyway, 1146 kilometres to go.