2024/05/29

Albert Schweitzer - Wikipedia

Albert Schweitzer - Wikipedia


Albert Schweitzer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Albert Schweitzer
Schweitzer in 1955
Born14 January 1875
KaysersbergAlsace–Lorraine, German Empire
Died4 September 1965 (aged 90)
Citizenship
  • Germany (until 1919)
  • France (from 1919)
Alma materUniversity of Strasbourg
Known for
Spouse
(m. 1912; died 1957)
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Doctoral advisor

Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer OM (German: [ˈalbɛʁt ˈʃvaɪ̯t͡sɐ] ; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was an Alsatian polymath. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. Lutheran minister, Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of the historical Jesus as depicted by the historical-critical method current at this time, as well as the traditional Christian view. His contributions to the interpretation of Pauline Christianity concern the role of Paul's mysticism of "being in Christ" as primary and the doctrine of justification by faith as secondary.

He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of "Reverence for Life",[1] becoming the eighth Frenchman to be awarded that prize. His philosophy was expressed in many ways, but most famously in founding and sustaining the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in LambarénéFrench Equatorial Africa (now Gabon). As a music scholar and organist, he studied the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach and influenced the Organ Reform Movement (Orgelbewegung).

Early years[edit]

Statue of Albert Schweitzer in Strasbourg
Albert Schweitzer's birthplace in Kaysersberg, now in Alsace in France
Schweitzer in 1912. Oil on canvas painting by Émile Schneider (Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art)

Schweitzer was born 14 January 1875 in Kaysersberg in Alsace, in what had less than four years previously become the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine in the German Empire after being French for more than two centuries; he later became a citizen of France after World War I, when Alsace became French territory again. He was the son of Adèle (née Schillinger) and Louis Théophile Schweitzer.[2][3] He spent his childhood in Gunsbach, also in Alsace, where his father, the local Lutheran-Evangelical pastor of the EPCAAL, taught him how to play music.[4] The tiny village would become home to the Association Internationale Albert Schweitzer (AIAS).[5] The medieval parish church of Gunsbach was shared by the Protestant and Catholic congregations, which held their prayers in different areas at different times on Sundays. This compromise arose after the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years' War. Schweitzer, the pastor's son, grew up in this exceptional environment of religious tolerance, and developed the belief that true Christianity should always work towards a unity of faith and purpose.[6]

Schweitzer's first language was the Alsatian dialect of German. At the Mulhouse gymnasium he received his "Abitur" (the certificate at the end of secondary education) in 1893. He studied organ in Mulhouse from 1885 to 1893 with Eugène Munch, organist at the Protestant cathedral, who inspired Schweitzer with his enthusiasm for the music of German composer Richard Wagner.[7] In 1893, he played for the French organist Charles-Marie Widor (at Saint-Sulpice, Paris), for whom Johann Sebastian Bach's organ music contained a mystic sense of the eternal. Widor, deeply impressed, agreed to teach Schweitzer without fee, and a great and influential friendship thus began.[8]

From 1893 Schweitzer studied Protestant theology at the Kaiser Wilhelm University in Strasbourg. There he also received instruction in piano and counterpoint from professor Gustav Jacobsthal, and associated closely with Ernest Munch, the brother of his former teacher, organist of St William church, who was also a passionate admirer of J. S. Bach's music.[9] Schweitzer served his one-year compulsory military service in 1894. Schweitzer saw many operas of Richard Wagner in Strasbourg (under Otto Lohse) and in 1896 he managed to afford a visit to the Bayreuth Festival to see Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal, both of which impressed him. In 1898, he returned to Paris to write a PhD dissertation on The Religious Philosophy of Kant at the Sorbonne, and to study in earnest with Widor. Here he often met with the elderly Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. He also studied piano at that time with Marie Jaëll.[10] In 1899, Schweitzer spent the summer semester at the University of Berlin and eventually obtained his theology degree at the University of Strasbourg.[11][12][13][14] He published his PhD thesis at the University of Tübingen in 1899.[15]

In 1905, Schweitzer began his study of medicine at the University of Strasbourg, culminating in the degree of M.D. in 1913.[11][14]

Music[edit]

Schweitzer rapidly gained prominence as a musical scholar and organist, dedicated also to the rescue, restoration and study of historic pipe organs. With theological insight, he interpreted the use of pictorial and symbolical representation in J. S. Bach's religious music. In 1899, he astonished Widor by explaining figures and motifs in Bach's Chorale Preludes as painter-like tonal and rhythmic imagery illustrating themes from the words of the hymns on which they were based. They were works of devotional contemplation in which the musical design corresponded to literary ideas, conceived visually. Widor had not grown up with knowledge of the old Lutheran hymns.[16]

The exposition of these ideas, encouraged by Widor and Munch, became Schweitzer's last task, and appeared in the masterly study J. S. Bach: Le Musicien-Poète, written in French and published in 1905. There was great demand for a German edition, but, instead of translating it, he decided to rewrite it.[17] The result was two volumes (J. S. Bach), which were published in 1908 and translated into English by Ernest Newman in 1911.[18] Ernst Cassirer, a contemporaneous German philosopher, called it "one of the best interpretations" of Bach.[19] During its preparation Schweitzer became a friend of Cosima Wagner, then resident in Strasbourg, with whom he had many theological and musical conversations, exploring his view of Bach's descriptive music, and playing the major Chorale Preludes for her at the Temple Neuf.[20] Schweitzer's interpretative approach greatly influenced the modern understanding of Bach's music. He became a welcome guest at the Wagners' home, Wahnfried.[21] He also corresponded with composer Clara Faisst, who became a good friend.[22]

The Choir Organ at St Thomas' Church, Strasbourg, designed in 1905 on principles defined by Schweitzer

His pamphlet "The Art of Organ Building and Organ Playing in Germany and France" (1906,[23] republished with an appendix on the state of the organ-building industry in 1927) effectively launched the 20th-century Orgelbewegung, which turned away from romantic extremes and rediscovered baroque principles—although this sweeping reform movement in organ building eventually went further than Schweitzer had intended. In 1909, he addressed the Third Congress of the International Society of Music at Vienna on the subject. Having circulated a questionnaire among players and organ-builders in several European countries, he produced a very considered report.[24] This provided the basis for the International Regulations for Organ Building. He envisaged instruments in which the French late-romantic full-organ sound should work integrally with the English and German romantic reed pipes, and with the classical Alsace Silbermann organ resources and baroque flue pipes, all in registers regulated (by stops) to access distinct voices in fugue or counterpoint capable of combination without loss of distinctness: different voices singing the same music together.

Schweitzer also studied piano under Isidor Philipp, head of the piano department at the Paris Conservatory.

In 1905, Widor and Schweitzer were among the six musicians who founded the Paris Bach Society, a choir dedicated to performing J. S. Bach's music, for whose concerts Schweitzer took the organ part regularly until 1913. He was also appointed organist for the Bach Concerts of the Orféo Català at Barcelona, Spain, and often travelled there for that purpose.[16] He and Widor collaborated on a new edition of Bach's organ works, with detailed analysis of each work in three languages (English, French, German). Schweitzer, who insisted that the score should show Bach's notation with no additional markings, wrote the commentaries for the Preludes and Fugues, and Widor those for the Sonatas and Concertos: six volumes were published in 1912–14. Three more, to contain the Chorale Preludes with Schweitzer's analyses, were to be worked on in Africa, but these were never completed, perhaps because for him they were inseparable from his evolving theological thought.[25]

On departure for Lambaréné in 1913, he was presented with a pedal piano, a piano with pedal attachments to operate like an organ pedal-keyboard.[26] Built especially for the tropics, it was delivered by river in a huge dug-out canoe to Lambaréné, packed in a zinc-lined case. At first, he regarded his new life as a renunciation of his art, and fell out of practice, but after some time he resolved to study and learn by heart the works of Bach, Mendelssohn, Widor, César Franck, and Max Reger systematically.[27] It became his custom to play during the lunch hour and on Sunday afternoons. Schweitzer's pedal piano was still in use at Lambaréné in 1946.[28] According to a visitor, Dr. Gaine Cannon, of Balsam Grove, N.C., the old, dilapidated piano-organ was still being played by Dr. Schweitzer in 1962, and stories told that "his fingers were still lively" on the old instrument at 88 years of age.

Sir Donald Tovey dedicated his conjectural completion of Bach's The Art of Fugue to Schweitzer.

Schweitzer's recordings of organ-music, and his innovative recording technique, are described below.

One of his pupils was conductor and composer Hans Münch.

Theology[edit]

Saint-Nicolas, Strasbourg

In 1899, Schweitzer became a deacon at the church of Saint Nicholas in Strasbourg. In 1900, with the completion of his licentiate in theology, he was ordained as curate, and that year he witnessed the Oberammergau Passion Play. In the following year he became provisional Principal of the Theological College of Saint Thomas, from which he had just graduated, and in 1903 his appointment was made permanent.[note 1]

In 1906, he published Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung [History of Life-of-Jesus research]. This book, which established his reputation, was first published in English in 1910 as The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Under this title the book became famous in the English-speaking world. A second German edition was published in 1913, containing theologically significant revisions and expansions: this revised edition did not appear in English until 2001. In 1931, he published Mystik des Apostels Paulus (The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle);[34] a second edition was published in 1953.

The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906)[edit]

In The Quest, Schweitzer criticised the liberal view put forward by liberal and romantic scholars during the first quest for the historical Jesus. Schweitzer maintained that the life of Jesus must be interpreted in the light of Jesus' own convictions, which reflected late Jewish eschatology and apocalypticism. Schweitzer writes:

The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the kingdom of God, who founded the kingdom of heaven upon earth and died to give his work its final consecration never existed. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in a historical garb. This image has not been destroyed from outside; it has fallen to pieces...[35]

Instead of these liberal and romantic views, Schweitzer wrote that Jesus and his followers expected the imminent end of the world.[36]

Schweitzer cross-referenced the many New Testament verses declaring imminent fulfilment of the promise of the World's ending within the lifetime of Jesus's original followers.[37] [failed verification] He wrote that in his view, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus speaks of a "tribulation", with his "coming in the clouds with great power and glory" (St. Mark), and states that it will happen but it has not: "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled" (St. Matthew, 24:34) or, "have taken place" (Luke 21:32). Similarly, in 1st Peter 1:20, "Christ, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you", as well as "But the end of all things is at hand" (1 Peter 4:7) and "Surely, I come quickly." (Revelation 22:20).

The cover of Albert Schweitzer's The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle

Schweitzer concluded his treatment of Jesus with what has been called the most famous words of twentieth-century theology:

"He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side, He came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: 'Follow thou me' and sets us to the task which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is."[38]

The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (1931)[edit]

In The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, Schweitzer first distinguishes between two categories of mysticism: primitive and developed.[39] Primitive mysticism "has not yet risen to a conception of the universal, and is still confined to naive views of earthly and super-earthly, temporal and eternal". Additionally, he argues that this view of a "union with the divinity, brought about by efficacious ceremonies, is found even in quite primitive religions".[39]

On the other hand, a more developed form of mysticism can be found in the Greek mystery-cults that were popular in first-century A.D. society. These included the cults of AttisOsiris, and Mithras. A developed form of mysticism is attained when the "conception of the universal is reached and a man reflects upon his relation to the totality of being and to Being in itself". Schweitzer claims that this form of mysticism is more intellectual and can be found "among the Brahmans and in the Buddha, in Platonism, in Stoicism, in SpinozaSchopenhauer, and Hegel".[40]

Next, Schweitzer poses the question: "Of what precise kind then is the mysticism of Paul?" He locates Paul between the two extremes of primitive mysticism and developed mysticism. Paul stands high above primitive mysticism, due to his intellectual writings, but never speaks of being one with God or being in God. Instead, he conceives of sonship to God as "mediated and effected by means of the mystical union with Christ".[41] He summarizes Pauline mysticism as "being in Christ" rather than "being in God".

Paul's imminent eschatology (from his background in Jewish eschatology) causes him to believe that the kingdom of God has not yet come and that Christians are now living in the time of Christ. Christ-mysticism holds the field until God-mysticism becomes possible, which is in the near future.[42] Therefore, Schweitzer argues that Paul is the only theologian who does not claim that Christians can have an experience of "being-in-God". Rather, Paul uses the phrase "being-in-Christ" to illustrate how Jesus is a mediator between the Christian community and God. Additionally, Schweitzer explains how the experience of "being-in-Christ" is not a "static partaking in the spiritual being of Christ, but as the real co-experiencing of His dying and rising again". The "realistic" partaking in the mystery of Jesus is only possible within the solidarity of the Christian community.[42]

One of Schweitzer's major arguments in The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle is that Paul's mysticism, marked by his phrase "being in Christ", gives the clue to the whole of Pauline theology. Rather than reading justification by faith as the main topic of Pauline thought, which has been the most popular argument set forward by Martin Luther, Schweitzer argues that Paul's emphasis was on the mystical union with God by "being in Christ". Jaroslav Pelikan, in his foreword to The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, points out that:

the relation between the two doctrines was quite the other way around: 'The doctrine of the redemption, which is mentally appropriated through faith, is only a fragment from the more comprehensive mystical redemption-doctrine, which Paul has broken off and polished to give him the particular refraction which he requires.[43]

Paul's "realism" versus Hellenistic "symbolism"[edit]

Schweitzer contrasts Paul's "realistic" dying and rising with Christ to the "symbolism" of Hellenism. Although Paul is widely influenced by Hellenistic thought, he is not controlled by it. Schweitzer explains that Paul focused on the idea of fellowship with the divine being through the "realistic" dying and rising with Christ rather than the "symbolic" Hellenistic act of becoming like Christ through deification.[44] After baptism, Christians are continually renewed throughout their lifetimes due to participation in the dying and rising with Christ (most notably through the Sacraments). On the other hand, the Hellenist "lives on the store of experience which he acquired in the initiation" and is not continually affected by a shared communal experience.[45]

Another major difference between Paul's "realism" and Hellenistic "symbolism" is the exclusive nature of the former and the inclusive nature of the latter. Schweitzer unabashedly emphasizes the fact that "Paul's thought follows predestinarian lines".[46] He explains, "only the man who is elected thereto can enter into relation with God".[47] Although every human being is invited to become a Christian, only those who have undergone the initiation into the Christian community through baptism can share in the "realistic" dying and rising with Christ.

Medicine[edit]

At the age of 30, in 1905, Schweitzer answered the call of The Society of the Evangelist Missions of Paris, which was looking for a physician. The committee of this missionary society was not ready to accept his offer, considering his Lutheran theology to be "incorrect".[48] He could easily have obtained a place in a German evangelical mission, but wished to follow the original call despite the doctrinal difficulties. Amid a hail of protests from his friends, family and colleagues, he resigned his post and re-entered the university as a student in a three-year course towards the degree of Doctorate in Medicine, a subject in which he had little knowledge or previous aptitude. He planned to spread the Gospel by the example of his Christian labour of healing, rather than through the verbal process of preaching, and believed that this service should be acceptable within any branch of Christian teaching.

Even in his study of medicine, and through his clinical course, Schweitzer pursued the ideal of the philosopher-scientist. By extreme application and hard work, he completed his studies successfully at the end of 1911. His medical degree dissertation was another work on the historical Jesus, Die psychiatrische Beurteilung Jesu. Darstellung und Kritik[49] [The psychiatric evaluation of Jesus. Description and criticism] (published in English in 1948 as The Psychiatric Study of Jesus. Exposition and Criticism[50]). He defended Jesus' mental health in it.[51] In June 1912, he married Helene Bresslau, municipal inspector for orphans and daughter of the Jewish pan-Germanist historian Harry Bresslau.[52]

In 1912, now armed with a medical degree, Schweitzer made a definite proposal to go as a physician to work at his own expense in the Paris Missionary Society's mission at Lambaréné on the Ogooué river, in what is now Gabon, in Africa (then a French colony). He refused to attend a committee to inquire into his doctrine, but met each committee member personally and was at last accepted. Through concerts and other fund-raising, he was ready to equip a small hospital.[53] In early 1913, he and his wife set off to establish a hospital (the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer) near an existing mission post. The site was nearly 200 miles (14 days by raft[54]) upstream from the mouth of the Ogooué at Port Gentil (Cape Lopez) (and so accessible to external communications), but downstream of most tributaries, so that internal communications within Gabon converged towards Lambaréné.

The catchment area of the Ogooué River occupies most of Gabon. Lambaréné is marked centre left.

In the first nine months, he and his wife had about 2,000 patients to examine, some travelling many days and hundreds of kilometres to reach him. In addition to injuries, he was often treating severe sandflea and crawcraw infections, yaws, tropical eating sores, heart disease, tropical dysentery, tropical malariasleeping sicknessleprosy, fevers, strangulated herniasnecrosis, abdominal tumours and chronic constipation and nicotine poisoning, while also attempting to deal with deliberate poisonings, fetishism and fear of cannibalism among the Mbahouin.

Schweitzer's wife, Helene Schweitzer, served as an anaesthetist for surgical operations. After briefly occupying a shed formerly used as a chicken hut, in late 1913 they built their first hospital of corrugated iron, with a consulting room and operating theatre and with a dispensary and sterilising room. The waiting room and dormitory were built, like native huts, of unhewn logs along a path leading to the boat landing. The Schweitzers had their own bungalow and employed as their assistant Joseph, a French-speaking Mpongwe, who first came to Lambaréné as a patient.[55][56]

After World War I broke out in July 1914, Schweitzer and his wife, German citizens in a French colony when the countries were at war, were put under supervision by the French military at Lambaréné, where Schweitzer continued his work.[57] In 1917, exhausted by over four years' work and by tropical anaemia, they were taken to Bordeaux and interned first in Garaison and then from March 1918 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. In July 1918, after being transferred to his home in Alsace, he was a free man again. At this time Schweitzer, born a German citizen, had his parents' former (pre-1871) French citizenship reinstated and became a French citizen. Then, working as medical assistant and assistant-pastor in Strasbourg, he advanced his project on the philosophy of civilization, which had occupied his mind since 1900. By 1920, his health recovering, he was giving organ recitals and doing other fund-raising work to repay borrowings and raise funds for returning to Gabon. In 1922, he delivered the Dale Memorial Lectures in the University of Oxford, and from these in the following year appeared Volumes I and II of his great work, The Decay and Restoration of Civilization and Civilization and Ethics. The two remaining volumes, on The World-View of Reverence for Life and a fourth on the Civilized State, were never completed.

In 1924, Schweitzer returned to Africa without his wife, but with an Oxford undergraduate, Noel Gillespie, as his assistant. Everything was heavily decayed, and building and doctoring progressed together for months. He now had salvarsan for treating syphilitic ulcers and framboesia. Additional medical staff, nurse (Miss) Kottmann and Dr. Victor Nessmann,[58] joined him in 1924, and Dr. Mark Lauterberg in 1925; the growing hospital was staffed by native orderlies. Later Dr. Trensz replaced Nessmann, and Martha Lauterberg and Hans Muggenstorm joined them. Joseph also returned. In 1925–6, new hospital buildings were constructed, and also a ward for white patients, so that the site became like a village. The onset of famine and a dysentery epidemic created fresh problems. Much of the building work was carried out with the help of local people and patients. Drug advances for sleeping sickness included Germanin and tryparsamide [defiit]. Trensz conducted experiments showing that the non-amoebic strain of dysentery was caused by a paracholera vibrion (facultative anaerobic bacteria). With the new hospital built and the medical team established, Schweitzer returned to Europe in 1927, this time leaving a functioning hospital at work.

He was there again from 1929 to 1932. Gradually his opinions and concepts became acknowledged, not only in Europe, but worldwide. There was a further period of work in 1935. In January 1937, he returned again to Lambaréné and continued working there throughout World War II.

Hospital conditions[edit]

The journalist James Cameron visited Lambaréné in 1953 (when Schweitzer was 78) and found significant flaws in the practices and attitudes of Schweitzer and his staff. The hospital suffered from squalor and was without modern amenities, and Schweitzer had little contact with the local people.[59] Cameron did not make public what he had seen at the time: according to a BBC dramatisation, he made the unusual journalistic decision to withhold the story, and resisted the expressed wish of his employers to publish an exposé.[60]

The poor conditions of the hospital in Lambaréné were also famously criticized by Nigerian professor and novelist Chinua Achebe in his essay on Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness: "In a comment which has often been quoted Schweitzer says: 'The African is indeed my brother but my junior brother.' And so he proceeded to build a hospital appropriate to the needs of junior brothers with standards of hygiene reminiscent of medical practice in the days before the germ theory of disease came into being."[61]

Schweitzer's biographer Edgar Berman, who was a volunteer surgeon at Lambarene for several months and had extended conversations with Schweitzer, has a different perspective.[62] Schweitzer felt that patients were better off, and the hospital functioned better given the severe lack of funding, if patients' families lived on the hospital grounds during treatment. Surgical survival rates were, Berman asserts, as high as in many fully-equipped western hospitals. The volume of patients needing care, the difficulty of obtaining materials and supplies, and the scarcity of trained medical staff willing to work long hours in the remote setting for almost no pay all argued for a spartan setting with an emphasis on high medical standards nevertheless.

Schweitzer's views[edit]

Colonialism[edit]

Schweitzer considered his work as a medical missionary in Africa to be his response to Jesus' call to become "fishers of men".

Who can describe the injustice and cruelties that in the course of centuries they [the coloured peoples] have suffered at the hands of Europeans?... If a record could be compiled of all that has happened between the white and the coloured races, it would make a book containing numbers of pages which the reader would have to turn over unread because their contents would be too horrible.

Schweitzer was one of colonialism's harshest critics. In a sermon that he preached on 6 January 1905, before he had told anyone of his plans to dedicate the rest of his life to work as a physician in Africa, he said:[63]

Our culture divides people into two classes: civilized men, a title bestowed on the persons who do the classifying; and others, who have only the human form, who may perish or go to the dogs for all the 'civilized men' care.

Oh, this 'noble' culture of ours! It speaks so piously of human dignity and human rights and then disregards this dignity and these rights of countless millions and treads them underfoot, only because they live overseas or because their skins are of different colour or because they cannot help themselves. This culture does not know how hollow and miserable and full of glib talk it is, how common it looks to those who follow it across the seas and see what it has done there, and this culture has no right to speak of personal dignity and human rights...

I will not enumerate all the crimes that have been committed under the pretext of justice. People robbed native inhabitants of their land, made slaves of them, let loose the scum of mankind upon them. Think of the atrocities that were perpetrated upon people made subservient to us, how systematically we have ruined them with our alcoholic 'gifts', and everything else we have done... We decimate them, and then, by the stroke of a pen, we take their land so they have nothing left at all...

If all this oppression and all this sin and shame are perpetrated under the eye of the German God, or the American God, or the British God, and if our states do not feel obliged first to lay aside their claim to be 'Christian'—then the name of Jesus is blasphemed and made a mockery. And the Christianity of our states is blasphemed and made a mockery before those poor people. The name of Jesus has become a curse, and our Christianity—yours and mine—has become a falsehood and a disgrace, if the crimes are not atoned for in the very place where they were instigated. For every person who committed an atrocity in Jesus' name, someone must step in to help in Jesus' name; for every person who robbed, someone must bring a replacement; for everyone who cursed, someone must bless.

And now, when you speak about missions, let this be your message: We must make atonement for all the terrible crimes we read of in the newspapers. We must make atonement for the still worse ones, which we do not read about in the papers, crimes that are shrouded in the silence of the jungle night ...

Paternalism[edit]

Schweitzer was nonetheless still sometimes accused of being paternalistic in his attitude towards Africans.[64] For instance, he thought that Gabonese independence came too early, without adequate education or accommodation to local circumstances. Edgar Berman quotes Schweitzer as having said in 1960, "No society can go from the primeval directly to an industrial state without losing the leavening that time and an agricultural period allow."[65] Schweitzer believed dignity and respect must be extended to blacks, while also sometimes characterizing them as children.[66] He summarized his views on European-African relations by saying "With regard to the negroes, then, I have coined the formula: 'I am your brother, it is true, but your elder brother.'"[66] Chinua Achebe has criticized him for this characterization, though Achebe acknowledges that Schweitzer's use of the word "brother" at all was, for a European of the early 20th century, an unusual expression of human solidarity between Europeans and Africans.[61] Schweitzer eventually emended and complicated this notion with his later statement that "The time for speaking of older and younger brothers has passed".[67]

American journalist John Gunther visited Lambaréné in the 1950s and reported Schweitzer's patronizing attitude towards Africans. He also noted the lack of Africans trained to be skilled workers.[68] By comparison, his English contemporary Albert Ruskin Cook in Uganda had been training nurses and midwives since the 1910s, and had published a manual of midwifery in the local language of Luganda.[69] After three decades in Africa, Schweitzer still depended on Europe for nurses.[70]

Reverence for life[edit]

Schweitzer in 1955

The keynote of Schweitzer's personal philosophy (which he considered to be his greatest contribution to mankind) was the idea of Reverence for Life (Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben). He thought that Western civilization was decaying because it had abandoned affirmation of life as its ethical foundation.

In the Preface to Civilization and Ethics (1923) he argued that Western philosophy from Descartes to Kant had set out to explain the objective world expecting that humanity would be found to have a special meaning within it. But no such meaning was found, and the rational, life-affirming optimism of the Age of Enlightenment began to evaporate. A rift opened between this world-view, as material knowledge, and the life-view, understood as Will, expressed in the pessimist philosophies from Schopenhauer onward. Scientific materialism (advanced by Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin) portrayed an objective world process devoid of ethics, entirely an expression of the will-to-live.

Schweitzer wrote, "True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness, and this may be formulated as follows: 'I am life which wills to live, and I exist in the midst of life which wills to live.'"[71] In nature one form of life must always prey upon another. However, human consciousness holds an awareness of, and sympathy for, the will of other beings to live. An ethical human strives to escape from this contradiction so far as possible.

Though we cannot perfect the endeavour we should strive for it: the will-to-live constantly renews itself, for it is both an evolutionary necessity and a spiritual phenomenon. Life and love are rooted in this same principle, in a personal spiritual relationship to the universe. Ethics themselves proceed from the need to respect the wish of other beings to exist as one does towards oneself. Even so, Schweitzer found many instances in world religions and philosophies in which the principle was denied, not least in the European Middle Ages, and in the Indian Brahminic philosophy.

For Schweitzer, mankind had to accept that objective reality is ethically neutral. It could then affirm a new Enlightenment through spiritual rationalism, by giving priority to volition or ethical will as the primary meaning of life. Mankind had to choose to create the moral structures of civilization: the world-view must derive from the life-view, not vice versa. Respect for life, overcoming coarser impulses and hollow doctrines, leads the individual to live in the service of other people and of every living creature. In contemplation of the will-to-life, respect for the life of others becomes the highest principle and the defining purpose of humanity.[72]

Such was the theory which Schweitzer sought to put into practice in his own life. According to some authors, Schweitzer's thought, and specifically his development of reverence for life, was influenced by Indian religious thought and in particular the Jain principle of ahimsa, or non-violence.[73] Albert Schweitzer noted the contribution of Indian influence in his book Indian Thought and Its Development:[74]

The laying down of the commandment to not kill and to not damage is one of the greatest events in the spiritual history of mankind. Starting from its principle, founded on world and life denial, of abstention from action, ancient Indian thought – and this is a period when in other respects ethics have not progressed very far – reaches the tremendous discovery that ethics know no bounds. So far as we know, this is for the first time clearly expressed by Jainism.

Further on ahimsa and the reverence for life in the same book, he elaborates on the ancient Indian didactic work of the Tirukkural, which he observed that, like the Buddha and the Bhagavad Gita, "stands for the commandment not to kill and not to damage".[75][76] Translating several couplets from the work, he remarked that the Kural insists on the idea that "good must be done for its own sake" and said, "There hardly exists in the literature of the world a collection of maxims in which we find so much lofty wisdom."[75][76]

Dr Schweitzer had a great love of cats. "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats" he stated.[citation needed]

Later life[edit]

The Schweitzer house and Museum at Königsfeld in the Black Forest

After the birth of their daughter (Rhena Schweitzer Miller), Albert's wife, Helene Schweitzer was no longer able to live in Lambaréné due to her health. In 1923, the family moved to Königsfeld im Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg, where he was building a house for the family. This house is now maintained as a Schweitzer museum.[77]

Albert Schweitzer's house at Gunsbach, now a museum and archive
Albert Schweitzer Memorial and Museum in Weimar (1984)

From 1939 to 1948, he stayed in Lambaréné, unable to go back to Europe because of the war. Three years after the end of World War II, in 1948, he returned for the first time to Europe and kept travelling back and forth (and once to the US) as long as he was able. During his return visits to his home village of Gunsbach, Schweitzer continued to make use of the family house, which after his death became an archive and museum to his life and work. His life was portrayed in the 1952 movie Il est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer, starring Pierre Fresnay as Albert Schweitzer and Jeanne Moreau as his nurse Marie. Schweitzer inspired actor Hugh O'Brian when O'Brian visited in Africa. O'Brian returned to the United States and founded the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Foundation (HOBY).

Albert Schweitzer Monument in Wagga Wagga, Australia

Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize of 1952,[78] accepting the prize with the speech, "The Problem of Peace".[79] With the $33,000 prize money, he started the leprosarium at Lambaréné.[14] From 1952 until his death he worked against nuclear tests and nuclear weapons with Albert EinsteinOtto Hahn and Bertrand Russell. In 1957 and 1958, he broadcast four speeches over Radio Oslo which were published in Peace or Atomic War. In 1957, Schweitzer was one of the founders of The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. On 23 April 1957, Schweitzer made his "Declaration of Conscience" speech; it was broadcast to the world over Radio Oslo, pleading for the abolition of nuclear weapons. His speech ended, "The end of further experiments with atom bombs would be like the early sunrays of hope which suffering humanity is longing for."[80]

Weeks prior to his death, an American film crew was allowed to visit Schweitzer and Drs. Muntz and Friedman, both Holocaust survivors, to record his work and daily life at the hospital. The film The Legacy of Albert Schweitzer, narrated by Henry Fonda, was produced by Warner Brothers and aired once. It resides in their vault today in deteriorating condition. Although several attempts have been made to restore and re-air the film, all access has been denied.[81]

In 1955, he was made an honorary member of the Order of Merit (OM) by Queen Elizabeth II.[82] He was also a chevalier of the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem.

Schweitzer's grave in Lambaréné, marked by a cross he made himself

Schweitzer died on 4 September 1965 at his beloved hospital in Lambaréné, now in independent Gabon. His grave, on the banks of the Ogooué River, is marked by a cross he made himself.

His cousin Anne-Marie Schweitzer Sartre was the mother of Jean-Paul Sartre. Her father, Charles Schweitzer, was the older brother of Albert Schweitzer's father, Louis Théophile.[83][better source needed]

Schweitzer is often cited in vegetarian literature as being an advocate of vegetarianism in his later years.[84][85][86] Schweitzer was not a vegetarian in his earlier life. For example, in 1950, biographer Magnus C. Ratter commented that Schweitzer never "commit[ted] himself to the anti-vivisection, vegetarian, or pacifist positions, though his thought leads in this direction".[87] Biographer James Bentley has written that Schweitzer became a vegetarian after his wife's death in 1957 and he was "living almost entirely on lentil soup".[88] In contrast to this, historian David N. Stamos has written that Schweitzer was not a vegetarian in his personal life nor imposed it on his missionary hospital but he did help animals and was opposed to hunting.[89] Stamos noted that Schweitzer held the view that evolution ingrained humans with an instinct for meat so it was useless in trying to deny it.[89]

The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship was founded in 1940 by Schweitzer to unite US supporters in filling the gap in support for his Hospital when his European supply lines were cut off by war, and continues to support the Lambaréné Hospital today. Schweitzer considered his ethic of Reverence for Life, not his hospital, his most important legacy, saying that his Lambaréné Hospital was just "my own improvisation on the theme of Reverence for Life. Everyone can have their own Lambaréné". Today ASF helps large numbers of young Americans in health-related professional fields find or create "their own Lambaréné" in the US or internationally. ASF selects and supports nearly 250 new US and Africa Schweitzer Fellows each year from over 100 of the leading US schools of medicine, nursing, public health, and every other field with some relation to health (including music, law, and divinity). The peer-supporting lifelong network of "Schweitzer Fellows for Life" numbered over 2,000 members in 2008, and is growing by nearly 1,000 every four years. Nearly 150 of these Schweitzer Fellows have served at the Hospital in Lambaréné, for three-month periods during their last year of medical school.[90]

Schweitzer eponyms

Schweitzer's writings and life are often quoted,[91] resulting in a number of eponyms, such as the 'Schweitzer technique' (discussed below), and the 'Schweitzer effect'. The 'Schweitzer effect' refers to his statement that 'Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing'.[91] This eponym is used in medical education to highlight the relationship between lived experience/example and medical students' opinions on professional behaviours.[92]

International Albert Schweitzer Prize[edit]

The prize was first awarded on 29 May 2011 to Eugen Drewermann and the physician couple Rolf and Raphaela Maibach in Königsfeld im Schwarzwald, where Schweitzer's former residence now houses the Albert Schweitzer Museum.[93]

Sound recordings[edit]

Recordings of Schweitzer playing the music of Bach are available on CD. During 1934 and 1935 he resided in Britain, delivering the Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh University, and those on Religion in Modern Civilization at Oxford and London. He had originally conducted trials for recordings for HMV on the organ of the old Queen's Hall in London. These records did not satisfy him, the instrument being too harsh. In mid-December 1935 he began to record for Columbia Records on the organ of All Hallows, Barking-by-the-Tower, London.[94] Then at his suggestion the sessions were transferred to the church of Ste Aurélie in Strasbourg, on a mid-18th-century organ by Johann Andreas Silbermann (brother of Gottfried), an organ-builder greatly revered by Bach, which had been restored by the Lorraine organ-builder Frédéric Härpfer shortly before the First World War. These recordings were made in the course of a fortnight in October 1936.[95]

Schweitzer Technique[edit]

Schweitzer developed a technique for recording the performances of Bach's music. Known as the "Schweitzer Technique", it is a slight improvement on what is commonly known as mid-side. The mid-side sees a figure-8 microphone pointed off-axis, perpendicular to the sound source. Then a single cardioid microphone is placed on axis, bisecting the figure-8 pattern. The signal from the figure-8 is muted, panned hard left and right, one of the signals being flipped out of polarity. In the Schweitzer method, the figure-8 is replaced by two small diaphragm condenser microphones pointed directly away from each other. The information that each capsule collects is unique, unlike the identical out-of-polarity information generated from the figure-8 in a regular mid-side. The on-axis microphone is often a large diaphragm condenser. The technique has since been used to record many modern instruments.

Columbia recordings[edit]

Altogether his early Columbia discs included 25 records of Bach and eight of César Franck. The Bach titles were mainly distributed as follows:

  • Queen's Hall: Organ Prelude and Fugue in E minor (Edition Peters[note 2] Vol 3, 10); Herzlich thut mich verlangen (BWV 727); Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein (Vol 7, 58 (Leipzig 18)).[96]
  • All Hallows: Prelude and Fugue in C major; Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (the Great); Prelude and Fugue in G major; Prelude and Fugue in F minor; Little Fugue in G minor; Toccata and Fugue in D minor.[97]
  • Ste Aurélie: Prelude and Fugue in C minor; Prelude and Fugue in E minor; Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Chorale Preludes: Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele (Peters Vol 7, 49 (Leipzig 4)); O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß (Vol 5, 45); O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig (Vol 7, 48 (Leipzig 6)); Christus, der uns selig macht (Vol 5, 8); Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stand (Vol 5, 9); An Wasserflüssen Babylon (Vol 6, 12b); Christum wir wollen loben schon (Vol 5, 6); Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier (Vol 5, app 5); Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin (Vol 5, 4); Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig (Var 11, Vol 5, app. 3); Jesus Christus, unser Heiland (Vol 6, 31 (Leipzig 15)); Christ lag in Todesbanden (Vol 5, 5); Erschienen ist der herrlich Tag (Vol 5, 15).[98][99]
Gunsbach parish church, where the later recordings were made

Later recordings were made at Parish church, Günsbach: These recordings were made by C. Robert Fine during the time Dr. Schweitzer was being filmed in Günsbach for the documentary "Albert Schweitzer". Fine originally self-released the recordings but later licensed the masters to Columbia.

  • Fugue in A minor (Peters, Vol 2, 8); Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (Great) (Vol 2, 4); Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major (Vol 3, 8).[100]
  • Prelude in C major (Vol 4, 1); Prelude in D major (Vol 4, 3); Canzona in D minor (Vol 4, 10) (with Mendelssohn, Sonata in D minor op 65.6).[101]
  • Chorale-Preludes: O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß (1st and 2nd versions, Peters Vol 5, 45); Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein (Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit) (vol 7, 58 (Leipzig 18)); Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (Vol 5, 30); Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ (Vol 5, 17); Herzlich tut mich verlangen (Vol 5, 27); Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (vol 7, 45 (BWV 659a)).[102]

The above were released in the United States as Columbia Masterworks boxed set SL-175.

Philips recordings[edit]

  • J. S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in A major, BWV 536; Prelude and Fugue in F minor, BWV 534; Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 544; Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538.[103]
  • J. S. Bach: Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582; Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 533; Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543; Prelude and Fugue in G major, BWV 541; Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565.[104]
  • César Franck: Organ Chorales, no. 1 in E major; no. 2 in B minor; no. 3 in A minor.[105]

Portrayals[edit]

Dramatisations of Schweitzer's life include:

Bibliography[edit]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ He officiated at the wedding of Theodor Heuss (later the first President of West Germany) in 1908.[29][30][31][32][33]
  2. ^ Schweitzer's Bach recordings are usually identified with reference to the Peters Edition of the Organ-works in 9 volumes, edited by Friedrich Konrad Griepenkerl and Ferdinand August Roitzsch, in the form revised by Hermann Keller.

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ Schweitzer, Albert (10 December 1953), "Award Ceremony Speech"The Nobel Peace Prize 1952, The Nobel prize.
  2. ^ Oermann 2016, p. 43.
  3. ^ Free 1988, p. 74.
  4. ^ Stammbaum – Genealogic tree Arbre généalogique de la famille Schweitze, Schweitzer, archived from the original on 26 April 2006.
  5. ^ Association Internationale Albert Schweitzer, archived from the original on 9 December 2010, retrieved 1 August 2012.
  6. ^ Seaver 1951, p. 3–9.
  7. ^ A. Schweitzer, Eugene Munch (J. Brinkmann, Mulhouse 1898).
  8. ^ Joy 1953, p. 23–24.
  9. ^ Joy 1953, p. 24.
  10. ^ George N. Marshall, David Poling, Schweitzer, JHU Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8018-6455-0
  11. Jump up to:a b Cicovacki, Predrag (2 February 2009). Albert Schweitzer's Ethical Vision A Sourcebook. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199703326.
  12. ^ Schweitzer, Albert; Bresslau, Helene; Stewart, Nancy (2003). Albert Schweitzer-helene Bresslau: the Years Prior to Lambarene. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815629948.
  13. ^ Brabazon 2000, p. 84.
  14. Jump up to:a b c "Albert Schweitzer – Biographical"nobelprize.org. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
  15. ^ Joy 1953, p. 24–25.
  16. Jump up to:a b Seaver 1951, p. 20.
  17. ^ Schweitzer, My Life and Thought, pp. 80–81; cf. Seaver 1951, pp. 231–232
  18. ^ Joy 1953, p. 58–62.
  19. ^ Cassirer, Ernst (1979). Verene, Donald Phillip (ed.). Symbol, Myth, and Culture: Essays and Lectures of Ernst Cassirer 1935–1945. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. p. 230ISBN 978-0-300-02666-5.
  20. ^ Schweitzer, in Joy 1953, pp. 53–57
  21. ^ Joy 1953, pp. 53–57, quoting from and translating A. Schweitzer, 'Mes Souvenirs sur Cosima Wagner', in L'Alsace Française, XXXV no. 7 (12 February 1933), p. 124ff.
  22. ^ Wedel, Gudrun (2010), Autobiographien von Frauen: ein Lexikon
  23. ^ Reproduced in Joy 1953, pp. 127–129, 129–165: cf. also Seaver 1951, pp. 29–36
  24. ^ Joy 1953, pp. 165–166: Text of 1909 Questionnaire and Report, pp. 235–269.
  25. ^ Seaver 1951, p. 44.
  26. ^ Given by the Paris Bach Society, Seaver 1951, p. 63; but Joy 1953, p. 177, says it was given by the Paris Missionary Society.
  27. ^ Seaver 1951, p. 63–64.
  28. ^ Joy 1953 plate facing p. 177.
  29. ^ Oermann 2016, p. 101-102.
  30. ^ Brabazon 2000, p. 422.
  31. ^ Pierhal 1956, p. 63.
  32. ^ Pierhal 1957, p. 63f.
  33. ^ "The Bulletin". Bulletin des Presse- und Informationsamtes der Bundesregierung [...] [Englische Ausgabe] = the Bulletin9–10. Bonn, West Germany: Press and Information Office: 36. 1962. ISSN 0032-7794.
  34. ^ Avey, Albert E. (1934). "Review of The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle"The Philosophical Review43 (1): 84–86. doi:10.2307/2179960JSTOR 2179960.
  35. ^ Schweitzer, Albert (2001). The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Fortress Press. p. 478. ISBN 9781451403541.
  36. ^ Ehrman, Bart D. (20 March 2012). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperCollins. pp. 11–. ISBN 978-0-06-208994-6I agree with Schweitzer's overarching view, that Jesus is best understood as a Jewish prophet who anticipated a cataclysmic break in history in the very near future, when God would destroy the forces of evil to bring in his own kingdom here on earth.
  37. ^ "Review of "The Mystery of the Kingdom of God"". Pcisys.
  38. ^ The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Macmillan. 1910. p. 403.
  39. Jump up to:a b Schweitzer 1931, p. 1.
  40. ^ Schweitzer 1931, p. 2.
  41. ^ Schweitzer 1931, p. 3.
  42. Jump up to:a b Schweitzer 1931, p. 13.
  43. ^ Schweitzer 1931, p. xvi.
  44. ^ Schweitzer 1931, p. 16.
  45. ^ Schweitzer 1931, p. 17.
  46. ^ Schweitzer 1931, p. 103.
  47. ^ Schweitzer 1931, p. 9.
  48. ^ Seaver 1951, p. 40.
  49. ^ Schweitzer, Albert (1913). Die psychiatrische Beurteilung Jesu: Darstellung und Kritik (in German). Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). LCCN 13021072OCLC 5903262OL 20952265W.
  50. ^ Schweitzer, Albert (1948). The Psychiatric Study of Jesus: Exposition and Criticism. Translated by Joy, Charles R. Boston: Beacon Press. LCCN 48006488OCLC 614572512OL 6030284M.
  51. ^ Seidel, Michael (January 2009). "Albert Schweitzer's MD thesis on Criticism of the medical pathographies on Jesus". Würzburger medizinhistorische Mitteilungen28 (1). Königshausen & Neumann: 276–300. ISSN 0177-5227PMID 20509445.
  52. ^ Marxsen, Patti M. Helene Schweitzer: A Life of Her Own. First edition. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2015.
  53. ^ From the Primeval Forest, Chapter 1.
  54. ^ From the Primeval Forest, Chapter 6.
  55. ^ Monfried, Walter (10 February 1947). "Admirers Call Dr. Schweitzer "Greatest Man in the World"". Milwaukee, Wisconsin. pp. 1, 3.
  56. ^ From the Primeval Forest, Chapters 3–5.
  57. ^ Albert Schweitzer 1875–1965 Archived 14 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine. schweitzer.org (in German)
  58. ^ Nessmann worked with the French Resistance during the Second World War, was captured and executed by the Gestapo in Limoges in 1944. cf Guy Penaud, Dictionnaire Biographique de Périgord, p. 713. ISBN 978-2-86577-214-8
  59. ^ Cameron, James (1966) [1978]. Point of Departure. Law Book Co of Australasia. pp. 154–174. ISBN 9780853621751.
  60. ^ On Monday 7 April 2008 ("The Walrus and the Terrier" – programme outline) BBC Radio 4 broadcast an Afternoon Play "The Walrus and the Terrier" by Christopher Ralling concerning Cameron's visit.
  61. Jump up to:a b Chinua Achebe. "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" Archived 18 January 2006 at the Wayback Machine – the Massachusetts Review. 1977. (c/o North Carolina State University)
  62. ^ Berman, Edgar (1986). In Africa with Schweitzer. Far Hills, New Jersey, U.S.: New Horizon Press. ISBN 0-88282-025-7.
  63. ^ Schweitzer 2005, p. 76–80.
  64. ^ Brabazon 2000, p. 253-256.
  65. ^ Berman, Edgar (1986), In Africa With Schweitzer, Far Hills, New Jersey: New Horizon Press, p. 139ISBN 978-0-88282-025-5.
  66. Jump up to:a b Schweitzer 1924, p. 130
  67. ^ Quoted by Forrow, Lachlan (2002). "Foreword". In Russell, C.E.B. (ed.). African Notebook. Albert Schweitzer library. Syracuse University Press. p. xiii. ISBN 978-0-8156-0743-4.
  68. ^ Inside Africa. New York: Harper. 1955.
  69. ^ Amagezi Agokuzalisa. London: Sheldon Press.
  70. ^ Paget, James Carleton (2012). "Albert Schweitzer and Africa". Journal of Religion in Africa24 (3): 277–316. doi:10.1163/15700666-12341230JSTOR 41725476.
  71. ^ Civilization and Ethics, Chapter 21, p. 253: reprinted as A. Schweitzer, The Philosophy of Civilization (Prometheus Books, Buffalo 1987), Chapter 26.
  72. ^ Civilization and Ethics, Preface and Chapter II, "The Problem of the Optimistic World-View".
  73. ^ Ara Paul Barsam (2002) "Albert Schweitzer, Jainism and reverence for life", in: Reverence for life: the ethics of Albert Schweitzer for the twenty-first century, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, ISBN 978-0-8156-2977-1 pp. 207–208
  74. ^ Albert Schweitzer and Charles Rhind Joy (1947) Albert Schweitzer: an anthology Beacon Press
  75. Jump up to:a b S. Maharajan (2017). Tiruvalluvar (2 ed.). New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. pp. 100–102. ISBN 978-81-260-5321-6.
  76. Jump up to:a b Schweitzer, Albert (2013). Indian Thoughts and Its Development. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Read Books. pp. 200–205. ISBN 978-14-7338-900-7.
  77. ^ Schweitzer museum
  78. ^ "The Nobel Peace Prize 1952"The Nobel Foundation. 21 May 2014. Retrieved 18 August 2017.
  79. ^ Schweitzer 1954.
  80. ^ Declaration of Conscience speech Archived 16 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine – at Tennessee Players
  81. ^ "Albert Schweitzer and Henry Fonda's Lost Special"Culturedarm. 20 January 2015.
  82. ^ "List of Members of the Order of Merit, past and present". British Monarchy. Retrieved 2 December 2008.
  83. ^ "Louis Théophile Schweitzer". Roglo.eu. Retrieved 18 October 2011.[self-published source]
  84. ^ Barkas, Janet L. (1975). The Vegetable Passion. Scribner. p. 131. ISBN 9780684139258
  85. ^ Gregerson, Jon. (1994). Vegetarianism: A History. Jain Publishing Company. p. 104. ISBN 9780875730301
  86. ^ "History of Vegetarianism – Dr Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965)". Ivu.org. 4 September 1965. Archived from the original on 21 May 2011.
  87. ^ Ratter, Magnus C. (1950). Albert Schweitzer: Life and Message. Beacon Press. p. 179
  88. ^ Brentley, James. (1992). Albert Schweitzer: The Enigma. HarperCollins. p. 200. ISBN 9780060163648
  89. Jump up to:a b Stamos, David N. (2008). Evolution and the Big Questions: Sex, Race, Religion, and Other Matters. Wiley. p. 175. ISBN 9781405149020
  90. ^ "The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship". Schweitzerfellowship.org. 23 June 2011. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011.
  91. Jump up to:a b See quotations. Byers, J.Q., 1996. Brothers in Spirit: the Correspondence of Albert Schweitzer and William Larimer Mellon, Jr. (New York, Syracuse University Press).
  92. ^ McGurgan, Paul; Calvert, Katrina; Celenza, Antonio; Nathan, Elizabeth A.; Jorm, Christine (2023). "The Schweitzer effect: The fundamental relationship between experience and medical students' opinions on professional behaviours"Medical Teacher: 1–10. doi:10.1080/0142159X.2023.2284660PMID 38048408.
  93. ^ "Königsfeld feiert ?Schweitzer-Erben? | Südkurier Online"Südkurier. 30 May 2011.
  94. ^ This 1909 Harrison and Harrison organ was destroyed in the war (cf W. Kent, The Lost Treasures of London (Phoenix House 1947), 94–95) and rebuilt in 1957, see "Harrison & Harrison organ catalogue by name London". Archived from the original on 5 July 2008. Retrieved 6 May 2008..
  95. ^ Seaver 1951, p. 139–152.
  96. ^ (78 rpm HMV C 1532 and C 1543), cf. R.D. Darrell, The Gramophone Shop Encyclopedia of Recorded Music (New York 1936).
  97. ^ (78 rpm Columbia ROX 146–152), cf. Darrell 1936.
  98. ^ Joy 1953, pp. 226–230. The 78s were issued in albums, with a specially designed record label (Columbia ROX 8020–8023, 8032–8035, etc.). Ste Aurélie recordings appeared also on LP as Columbia 33CX1249
  99. ^ E.M.I., A Complete List of EMI, Columbia, Parlophone and MGM Long Playing Records issued up to and including June 1955 (London 1955) for this and discographical details following.
  100. ^ Columbia LP 33CX1074
  101. ^ Columbia LP 33CX1084
  102. ^ Columbia LP 33CX1081
  103. ^ E.M.G., The Art of Record Buying (London 1960), pp. 12–13. Philips ABL 3092, issued March 1956.
  104. ^ E.M.G., op. cit., Philips ABL 3134, issued September 1956. Other selections are on Philips GBL 5509.
  105. ^ Philips ABL 3221.

Sources[edit]

Further reading[edit]

———————

Notes
  1. ^ Online version is titled "The legacy of Albert Schweitzer : can we still admire him?".

External links[edit]

Albert Schweitzer: My Life is My Argument (Director's Cut)




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Albert Schweitzer: My Life is My Argument (Director's Cut)

Quinnipiac University
====

96,020 views  Oct 28, 2011
ALBERT SCHWEITZER: MY LIFE IS MY ARGUMENT presents the life story of Albert Schweitzer and explores his decision to give up a prestigious career as a musician and philosopher to become a medical doctor and serve native inhabitants of Gabon, Africa. Schweitzer's life continues to inform a new generations that there is great value in offering service to others.

Executive Producer: David T. Ives
Directed by Liam O'Brien
Camera & Editing by Rebecca Abbott
====



0:07
One of the key lessons that everyone learns from dr. swatch is that you can
0:12
serve global humanity in one village dr. Schweitzer's example has said a powerful
0:22
and inspirational standard for us and for many other people who have attempted
0:28
in various ways to follow in his footsteps
0:35
we quite often told me the hospital is my improvisation but for him his most
0:43
important contributions was as a philosopher with the principle of
0:49
reverence for life which was the foundation of his philosophy theologian
0:58
philosopher musician author by age 30 Albert Schweitzer's seemed destined for
1:06
an end be able and comfortable future as a scholar and a performer but that
1:13
wasn't the future he had in mind instead to the shock of both family and friends
1:21
Schweitzer returned to school to prepare for a very different sort of life to
1:27
serve the sick and poor thousands of miles away in the jungle for more than
1:32
50 years Schweitzer would devote himself to building a hospital in a small village on a tributary of the great ogle Way
1:40
River in French Equatorial Africa no one least of all Schweitzer could have
1:46
foreseen that his work would capture worldwide attention or that his thoughts
1:52
and ideas scribbled at a rustic desk deep into the jungle night would still
1:57
resonate today people called me a man of action but I am really a dreamer Albert
2:06
Schweitzer was born on January 14 1875 in the town of kaisers Berg in Alsace a
2:13
region between France and Germany which was then a part of Germany
2:20
Albert's father Louis was a Protestant pastor in the mainly Catholic town he
2:26
preached to his small congregation in a tiny chapel built behind the family home
2:32
soon after Albert's birth the family moved to the village of goons back in
2:37
the munster valley 40 miles south here most Protestant and Catholic congregations shared pastor Schweitzer's church when I was still merely a child I
2:49
felt it to be something beautiful that in our village Catholics and Protestants worshiped in the same building but the world beyond
3:00
the stained-glass harmony was somewhat less benign
3:07
school was a trial for young Albert he may have grown up to be a scholar but he
3:13
certainly didn't start out as one his less than stellar marks caused his mother no end of grief worse by far though was being teased by his
3:22
classmates for being a rich man's son which given the poverty of the village
3:27
was true Albert was so bothered by this inequality that he even refused to wear an overcoat in cold weather because the
3:36
other boys didn't have them Albert's budding sense of justice soon grew to include all living creatures one day another boy invited him to shoot
3:48
birds with slingshots in the hills above town Albert found himself torn he wanted
3:54
to please his friend but he was appalled at the idea of killing for fun but just
4:02
as Albert readied his first shot the church bell rang out for the start of Lent to Schweitzer this was a divine warning
4:10
he dropped his slingshot and ran forward shouting and waving his arms to scare
4:16
and save the birds ever since when the passion tied bells
4:21
ring I reflect with a rush of grateful emotion how on that day their music
4:28
drove deep into my heart to the commandment thou shalt not kill from
4:33
that day onward I took courage to emancipate myself from the fear of man
4:39
and whenever my inner convictions were at stake I let other people's opinion
4:45
wait less with me than they had done previously this early influence upon me
4:52
of the commandment not to kill all to torture other creatures is the great experience of my childhood and youth these intense personal childhood
5:02
experiences would one day help form Schweitzer's philosophy of reverence for
5:07
life a philosophy that embraces the oppressed and indeed all living things
5:16
Schweitzer 'z interest in Africa also has roots in his childhood his mother
5:22
was an avid newspaper reader so even in bucolic Gunes Bach they knew of the
5:27
slave trade and other horrors making headlines from the Congo and perhaps
5:32
this is partly why he was so fascinated by a statue of an African man in the
5:37
town of colmar where his grandparents lived it was sculpted by Frederic
5:44
Auguste Bartholdi a fellow Alsatian whose most famous work sits in New
5:49
York's Harbor the colmar statue was an intense and vivid portrait and Schweitzer was mesmerized and haunted by the Africans gaze his face with its sad
6:01
thoughtful expression spoke to me of the misery of the Dark Continent years later
6:08
in Africa he would write ever since the world's far-off lands were discovered
6:14
what has been the conduct of the white people to the colored ones what is the
6:19
meaning of the simple fact that this and that people had died out as a result of
6:25
their discovery by man who professed to be followers of Jesus who can describe
6:31
injustice and cruelties they have suffered at the hand of the Europeans we
6:37
and our civilizations our burden really with a great debt
6:44
there was however one area of young Schweitzer's life that was a steady source of joy music he came from a long line of musicians his grandfather was
6:56
famous for his improvisations on the organ and it was a gift Albert would inherit by age five he was playing the piano but it was the organ
7:07
in his father's Church at Gunn's Bach that fascinated him when the organist
7:14
became suddenly ill one Sunday Albert then nine and barely able to reach the
7:19
pedals was good enough to fill in and play all the music for the service later
7:35
as a student in the nearby town of mol Heusen he studied music formally by his
7:41
mid-teens he was playing the massive organ at mul house and st. Stephen's Church
7:49
Albert loved most music of Johann Sebastian Bach by the time he was 30
7:55
Schweitzer had become a published authority and master performer of Bach's many works he also studied the art and science of organ building when the organ
8:06
at Gunn's Bach was damaged during World War one and again during World War two it was Schweitzer who designed its restoration
8:16
it was clear to everyone that albert schweitzer was preparing for two careers
8:21
music and the church at 18 in 1893 Schweitzer enrolled at the University of
8:29
Strasbourg the preeminent liberal University in Europe at the time and the school his father had attended over the next seven years he would study organ in
8:40
Paris explore philosophy at the Sorbonne and pursued theology at the University
8:45
of Berlin by 1900 choice er had been awarded three university degrees - in
8:53
theology and a PhD in philosophy a year later he finished an advanced
9:00
degree in theology with an in-depth study of the Last Supper this research
9:05
became in 1906 Schweitzer's great theological work the quest of the
9:11
historical Jesus Albert Schweitzer was becoming well-known in academic and musical
9:18
circles as a man of original vision energy and determination but he had a
9:24
very practical side too once when Schweitzer missed a pre concert lunch
9:30
and dinner held in his honor his frantic host eventually found the star musician
9:35
in his shirtsleeves climbing down from the organ pipes in the church Schweitzer had arrived as scheduled earlier that day but it stopped by the
9:44
church to try out the organ finding it in disrepair he spent the next six hours
9:49
tuning it that night the townspeople remarked the organ never sounded so
9:54
brilliant professionally Schweitzer's future seemed assured by his mid-20s he was
10:03
ordained as a Lutheran minister became a professor at the University and was
10:08
appointed dean at st. Thomas Theological College yet for all his outward signs of
10:15
success Schweitzer was in a state of profound inner turmoil when he was just 21 at the start of his studies
10:25
Schweitzer had made a promise to himself he would dedicate the first 30 years of
10:31
his life to the study of music theology and philosophy after that he would
10:37
devote the rest of his life to serving humanity it was the only way he felt he
10:43
could repay the wonderful gifts he had been given life love friendship good
10:49
health and education but what could he offer his only confidante was Helene
10:56
Breslau a professor's daughter and a rather unconventional liberated soul
11:01
herself raised in a Jewish household she trained as a social worker and teacher
11:07
their friendship bloomed over a 10-year correspondence and in the safety of
11:13
private letters meant only for her kind and discerning eyes Schweitzer shared his hopes and dreams I think that one day I may have to fulfill a major task
11:24
for which I will need you and then I will simply ask you to work with me and
11:30
that perhaps Providence will lead us toward working for the same cause that
11:37
cause arrived in the form of a pamphlet published by the Paris Missionary Society in the fall of 1904 it called for doctors to work in French Equatorial
11:48
Africa Schweitzer knew immediately this was his long sought destiny but of
11:54
course first he would have to become a doctor with the exception of Helene Schweitzer's friends and family were
12:03
shocked by the decision but Schweitzer clearly saw his future as a medical missionary in Africa in a sermon at st. Nikolai's church around the time of his
12:13
pivotal 30th birthday he explained we must make atonement for all the terrible
12:19
crimes we read off in the newspapers we must make atonement for the still worse
12:26
ones which we do not read about in the papers crimes that are shrouded in the
12:32
Silence of the jungle night but more than atonement it was about teaching
12:41
much later in life Schweitzer would tell his friend American journalist Norman Cousins I decided that I would make my life my
12:51
argument I would advocate the things that I believed in terms of the life I
12:57
lived and what I did for the next eight years in between writing books and his
13:03
other responsibilities Schweitzer studied medicine on June 18th
13:08
1912 he and Helene were married she had trained as a nurse and he would
13:15
soon receive his degree in tropical medicine and surgery now nearly 40 years
13:21
old and with half a lifetime of study behind him Schweitzer wrote to the Paris Missionary Society seeking an appointment at their
13:29
African mission station at Lam bahraini they turned him down flat
13:37
Schweitzer it seemed was far too controversial a theologian to sponsor
13:42
but what if the society didn't have to put up a single franc what if he and Helene could raise all the money to run the hospital for two
13:51
years the Schweitzer is immediately set to work raising money from their many
13:58
friends across France and Germany the following January twice her sent a
14:04
second letter to the society with a much sweeter offer a deal was struck their
14:10
daughter Reina explains the Paris Mission Society for their theological
14:16
views they are quite different from my father they were much more fundamentalist and he was a very liberal theologian but my father's and promised
14:28
him that for theology he would be silent mute as a fish but he would only work as
14:36
a medical doctor at last they were ready to set off on their journey and to begin
14:43
as Schweitzer later put it this great improvisation
14:48
the voyage from Bordeaux to Lambrini took three weeks fun connect Lyon with
14:55
we were almost always within sight of the coast the pepper coast the Ivory
15:01
Coast the Gold Coast the slave coast if only that line of forest on the
15:07
horizon could tell us about all the cruelties it had to witness here the
15:13
slave dealers used to land and ship their living cargoes for transport to
15:18
America they boarded the elem Bay an old riverboat for the last leg of their
15:24
journey 200 kilometers up the mighty ogle a river the reality of Africa what Schweitzer called the prose of Africa as
15:33
opposed to its poetry was just around the bend the hospital had no buildings
15:41
only patients with crates of medical supplies still enroute there was only so
15:46
much the Schweitzer's could do drums beat out the message far and wide from
15:52
village to village across the jungle that Oh Ganga the white fetish man has come among us and he is powerless until the next boat arrives with his charms
16:01
those seeking his medicine should remain in their villages until the elem Bay
16:06
returns in the meantime the Schweitzer's cleaned and whitewashed an old chicken
16:13
coop for their office and surgery room when the elem be arrived weeks later with their supplies and a piano a present from the Box society in Paris
16:23
hundreds of people crossed the river by canoe or walked out of the jungle to see
16:28
if the white fetish man could help them it was a daunting task patience came
16:36
from many tribes speaking different languages and dialects the Schweitzer's had to navigate native customs superstitions and rivalries and since
16:46
the sick came to the hospital from long distances they stayed until they recovered often for weeks at a time they and the family members who traveled with
16:56
them needed to be housed and fed the list of ailments was staggering sleeping
17:02
sickness malaria dysentery leprosy hernias bronchitis pneumonia heart
17:10
disease mental illness venereal diseases elephantiasis he damaged their medicines
17:17
there was no running water and no electricity operations like everything
17:22
else at lambeau rainy were done either in daylight or by kerosene lamp the
17:30
Schweitzer's could cope with all that but a world at war was something else again
17:39
on August 5th 1914 Albert and Helene who were German nationals were seized at
17:46
gunpoint by French colonial troops and placed under house arrest but after hundreds of villagers protested to the colonial authorities
17:54
Albert and Helene were allowed to continue tending the sick many natives
18:00
are puzzling over the question how it can be possible that the whites who
18:06
brought them the gospel of love are now murdering each other and throwing to the
18:11
winds the command of the Lord Jesus when they put the question to us we are
18:17
helpless meanwhile the medical work goes on as usual I'm worried however about how to provide food for the sick
18:27
ironically their arrest gave Schweitzer both time and inspiration to start
18:32
writing two books on the philosophy of civilization he was struggling to
18:37
distill a new system of ethics on which to build a more just and compassionate civilization Schweitzer took his work with him one day while traveling up the
18:48
yoga way to treat a missionary who had fallen ill it was the dry season and we
18:54
had to fill our way through huge sand banks I sat in one of the scouts before
19:01
boarding I had resolved to devote the entire trip to the problem of how it culture could be brought into being that possessed a greater moral depth and
19:10
energy than the one we lived in I felt page on page was disconnected sentences
19:17
primarily to center my every thought on the problem weariness and a sense of
19:24
despair paralyzed by thinking at the sunset of the third day near the village
19:30
of the Ganga we moved along an island set in the middle of the wide river on
19:36
ascend bang to our left for hippopotamuses and their young flooded
19:41
along in our same direction just then in my great tiredness and discouragement
19:48
the phrase reverence for life struck me like a flash I realized at once that it
19:55
carried within itself the solution to the problem that had been torturing me
20:00
reverence for life encompasses all living things not just human life it
20:06
demands respect for the will to live and it requires compassion and tolerance for
20:12
others whether of other species or other cultures reverence for life provides a
20:19
rational basis for determining right from wrong in weighing the consequences of one's actions we must try to demonstrate the essential worth of life
20:30
by doing all we can to alleviate suffering reverence for life which grows
20:36
out of proper understanding of the will to live contains life affirmation reverence for life became a central theme of the book
20:46
Schweitzer was writing and the guiding principle of his life from then on in
20:53
October 1917 the end of the war was in sight now that the United States entered
20:58
the fray but because the Schweitzer's were still technically POWs they were
21:03
deported to France the next few months were spent in garrison France a former
21:11
monastery turned prison camp in the Pyrenees winter was fast approaching by
21:16
the time they reached the prison unaccustomed to cold weather after four and a half years in the tropics they both became ill Helene with tuberculosis
21:26
in March they were moved again this time to a camp specifically for Alsatians at
21:32
another converted monastery as saul remedio Provos despite the conditions
21:38
Schweitzer forced himself to keep busy by writing and studying yet even in the
21:46
midst of so much misery life and hope have a way of prevailing as Sol Remi
21:51
Elaine became pregnant by mid-july the Schweitzer's were released and headed
21:58
home to Alsace exhausted Albert and Hellenes daughter Reina was born in
22:06
early 1919 it was a rare ray of joy in those dark years
22:15
the Europe to which the Schweitzer's had returned had been ravaged by war
22:26
surrounded by death destruction poverty and sickness Schweitzer's thoughts
22:31
returned to the idea of reverence for life only a shift to this life-affirming
22:37
ethic could prevent civilization from again sinking into cruelty and chaos but
22:46
before he could take on the ills of the world he had to deal first with the difficulties in his own life although improved Hellenes health was fragile his
22:56
own wasn't much better after emergency hospitalization and surgery for complications from his prison illnesses there was a new baby to provide for and
23:07
large debts to the Paris missionary society to repay the idealism and hope
23:13
that had led him to serve in Africa seem naive and futile then out of the blue
23:20
Schweitzer got an invitation the Archbishop of Sweden asked him to
23:26
lecture at the University of Uppsala in the spring of 1920 the trip revived him
23:32
providing both a forum to share his ideas and a way out of debt at the
23:37
Archbishop's urging Schweitzer toured the country giving organ recitals and talks about Africa if Archbishop's saw the bloom had not
23:47
called me to Sweden and stimulated interest in my work as doctor in the
23:52
primeval forest among his countrymen I'm not at all sure that it would have been
23:59
possible for me to return to lumbini the decision to return to Africa wasn't
24:05
easy he would have to go without hélène this time she was still too weak and
24:11
Reina was too young to travel the next few years were devoted to raising money
24:17
through concerts and lectures interest in Schweitzer's work grew as he traveled
24:22
through Switzerland England Germany Spain France Holland and Denmark his
24:28
fame increased with the publication in 1921 of his first memoir on the edge of
24:35
the primeval forest in 1923 both volumes of the philosophy of civilization were
24:41
released by the time Schweitzer now almost 50 set sail for Lambeau Rene in
24:48
February 1924 his mission had changed
24:55
initially a private choice to serve now his goal was a public symbol for
25:01
humanitarian good works reverence for life an idea born of his first years in
25:07
Africa would become the foundation for Schweitzer's work there for the next 40 years what began to take shape was more than a hospital it was a healing village
25:19
complete with vegetable gardens and plantations to provide food for the sick
25:24
and their families
25:29
throughout the 1920s and 30s schweitzer traveled home regularly to see Helene
25:35
and Reina and to raise money for the hospital honorary degrees and awards
25:41
flooded in with proceeds from the Goethe prize he built a house in goons Bach
25:47
that would serve as his European headquarters in 1931 Schweitzer's
25:53
autobiography out of my life and thought was published not long after that he
26:01
recorded his first album the Columbia gramophone company promoted him as the
26:07
greatest interpreter of Bach it was a solid hit and more Recordings followed
26:15
but social and economic problems were plaguing both Africa and post-war Europe
26:21
Schweitzer sense that a new war was imminent and traveled to Europe only long enough to get supplies by June 1940 Hitler invaded France which meant the
26:33
surrender of all French colonies little Lambrini found itself in the crossfire
26:41
located at the junction of river and jungle routes it was strategically important although technically neutral territory the hospital grounds were
26:51
sometimes subject to stray gun shots corrugated metal was taken from rooftops
26:57
and turned into barricades for protection nonetheless the hospital
27:02
treated wounded soldiers from both sides
27:07
as war raged in Europe hélène joined Schweitzer in Africa her Jewish heritage
27:13
made the long journey from nazi-occupied France that much more daring news of the
27:22
war's end in Europe reached Lambrini by radio in May 1945 but any sense of
27:29
relief was tempered three months later when atomic bombs obliterated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bringing the Asian conflict to
27:39
an end never before had the world witnessed weapons capable of such mass destruction
27:49
and the nuclear arms race that followed a reverence for death was the antithesis
27:55
of Schweitzer's ethic of hope throughout his years in Africa Schweitzer was many
28:07
things at lambeau reign a doctor surgeon pastor administrator superintendent
28:14
builder author musician correspondent and host he built his hospital he made
28:22
his decisions he acted his way obstinate strong-willed he possessed a single-minded determination that his life would spell
28:31
out his argument for a better future for humankind it came as a complete surprise
28:38
to Schweitzer that he had won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1952
28:45
it was one afternoon that a nurse came in dr. Schweitzer dr. Schweitzer very
28:54
excited and my father looked at her and said which ket has has had kittens so
29:02
that's how he learned this young nurse had heard about a Nobel Peace Prize he
29:09
was honored by the students with torch parade at the residue he was given the
29:18
prize fame was always so easy to bear because he couldn't take public
29:26
transportation in Europe anymore because he was mobbed wherever he turned up
29:33
after that Nobel Peace Prize but from that time on he mostly had to travel by
29:41
car and then it was his pleasure to pick up people who were walking along and he
29:48
had wonderful conversations which he enjoyed with students at all kind of
29:54
people as donations from friends and supporters arrived at lambeau Rene Schweitzer poured these funds as well as the money from the Nobel Peace Prize
30:03
into his hospital he was also very happy about the money to pay for the roofs of
30:13
the village for the leprosy patients he was building said throughout his years
30:21
in Africa Schweitzer kept up a torrent of Correspondence often by kerosene lantern with supporters and friends around the
30:29
world his friends included the cellist Pablo Casals yarrow lal nehru and the physicist Albert Einstein
30:39
with Einstein and others like Bertrand Russell Schweitzer corresponded extensively about the dangers of the newest form of warfare atomic bombs
30:50
Schweitzer and other scientists believe that atomic testing was a grave peril that could best be stopped by the moral force of their combined voices
31:03
two years after Einstein's death well-known publisher Norman Cousins visited Lambrini in January of 1957 to discuss the dangers of nuclear
31:14
proliferation with Albert Schweitzer cousins persuaded Schweitzer to go
31:20
public with his opposition to nuclear testing nuclear proliferation and nuclear war with that urging and just before the death of his wife Elaine
31:31
Schweitzer made a radio address that was heard around the world it was his first
31:37
public pronouncement against nuclear war
31:43
that first radio address turned into a series that was heard worldwide and
31:48
schweitzer began writing many articles for the world's press as well in private
31:54
correspondence schweitzer appealed to global leaders including John F Kennedy for support in 1963 the first international nuclear test ban treaty
32:05
was signed with her own children in boarding school Reyna Schweitzer joined her father at
32:14
lambeau Rainey as a medical technician now in his late 80s Schweitzer was
32:20
grateful for her help and companionship near the end of his life Schweitzer
32:26
wrote reverence for life gives us something more profound and mightier
32:32
than the idea of humanism it includes all living beings we reject the idea
32:39
that men is must of other creatures Lord above all others we must realize that
32:45
all life is valuable and that we are united to all life by ethical conduct
32:51
toward all creatures we enter into a spiritual relationship with the universe
32:59
when albert schweitzer died at 10:30 p.m. on the evening of September 4th
33:04
1965 radios in jabal and around the world carried the news the jungle drums
33:12
which over 50 years before had signaled a no Ganga the white fetish man had
33:17
arrived now boomed out up a poor new amour our Father is dead families began to fill the trails and the canoes to lambarena
33:36
thousands trekked to pass by his grave a procession that would go on for months
33:43
many who traveled to express their grief had been born or treated and healed at
33:48
Lambrini others arrived simply because they felt they had to come
33:55
lagron doctor was dead
34:01
over a half century the hospital at Lambeau ran a station had grown from a
34:06
chicken coop to 72 buildings with beds for 600 patients and a staff of six
34:12
doctors and 35 nurses today while many patients arrived at Lambeau Raney by
34:19
Road others still arrived just as their grandparents and great-grandparents had by canoe their family and friends are still welcome to take up residency on
34:29
the hospital grounds to cook and to care for the needs of their loved ones between 6,000 and 7,000 patients are treated at Lambeau Rene every year the
34:41
original Hospital buildings house a museum to Albert Schweitzer his philosophy of social action and his life's work he quite often told me the
34:52
hospital that is as he said my improvisation but and he knew that it
34:59
would one day disappear it's now 90 years old and that is already a miracle
35:04
but he said what ought to continue is the building of my philosophy of
35:13
reverence for life the ancient Presbyterian guns Bock the
35:18
Schweitzer family home where Albert grew up and his family shared so many happy and sad moments is today an active conference center where visitors from
35:27
around the world share their thoughts on advancing Schweitzer's philosophy
35:33
the home albert schweitzer built for Helene and Reina we're on each of his visits to Europe after 1927 he greeted neighbors at the window of the study is
35:49
a museum and the repository of his correspondence with people around the world the Albert Schweitzer Institute at Quinnipiac University has grown into a
36:04
leading global promoter of the ideas of Albert Schweitzer our goals of the Albert Schweitzer Institute here at Quinnipiac University are to promote the
36:12
values and ideas of dr. Albert white surrounded worldwide basis we are doing this in many different ways working with Nobel Peace Prize laureates is one
36:18
taking our students on humanitarian missions to other countries especially in the third world is another and also working on some of the more particular
36:26
issues that dr. Schweitzer was interested in such as nuclear non-proliferation and relieving poverty
36:43
and now there are six layers and that's what we did today we sifted the sands to
36:51
make the working conditions throughout the week when we were building the
36:56
additions to the school in Nicaragua were very hot and oppressive but it was
37:02
rewarding at the end of the day because so you get caught up and that good feeling you're oblivious to what you're actually doing too and you actually are
37:08
providing a good service to people that need it and people are that are in need and need help the children we're so excited to see us every day when we got
37:16
off the bus they would come running up to us full of hugs and smiles and even
37:22
though the days were so hot and whatnot I went in the back your head you didn't realize the conditions you're in anymore it was like my new home and I now have a
37:31
family in a world that I never imagined possible one of the reasons you do come
37:37
to college in the first place is to grow it's to grow as a person to grow as a human being and I can tell you that and all the time that I was at Quinnipiac
37:45
one of the best things that kind of reacted for me with let me go on that trip because I've grown more in that time when I was gone for about four
37:53
and a half months that I think I have in my entire life don't want to change the world you have to let all those experiences that you have transforming
38:01
and not just see them as like you know passing in the wind that oh yeah one time I went down to Nicaragua and I saw destitute and I saw poverty and I saw
38:09
sickness but to actually learn from that and should let it transform your life and to not work against it
38:17
it's amazing that out of four years of college how essentially one week could
38:22
have really changed the way I think about the world globally not just the
38:27
world that I know I think there's a an unexplored untapped reservoir of
38:35
idealism among the world's young people these days and it's not just theoretical
38:42
idealism I think many of them are very eager to find a way to put their moral
38:51
ideals into actual practical application and that's that's a lesson that dr.
39:00
Schweitzer's life exemplifies vividly
39:06
I'm delighted that writer Institute is at Quinnipiac University my father would
39:14
be very happy to know that his thoughts go out to these young people and that it
39:21
has meaning for them well he's a perfect role model he gave
39:27
everything up including an enormous ly brilliant career he could have had a
39:33
nurse at native land yet he chose to sacrifice that to do better for mankind
39:41
and if young people were to look at what he did and continues to do because you
39:47
know lambarena is still there his work still goes on the Schweitzer Institute at Quinnipiac with david ives as a growing and beautiful flower
39:58
Albert Schweitzer was a real humanitarian a true man of peace we must
40:04
harness the wisdom Albert Schweitzer left us in our efforts to build a world
40:10
free from violence and threats to human security because this philosophy is not
40:16
just the system of ethics it is a way of life 

we must look to reverence for life
40:23
as the keystone for our pursuit of peace and human progress this adventure of an
40:33
unpredictable nature among people in need who are dissimilar from you will
40:41
never prove to be a sacrifice the biggest obstacle to overcome is just a
40:47
decision to do it and the willingness to invest part of our existence in the
40:56
lives of other people 

I think it is very important to make
41:02
people realize how precious is life and that we can do something about it and
41:10
perhaps one day bring about peace on this earth
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over the course of his life Albert Schweitzer's work established inspired or anticipated many of the major social and humanitarian movements of the 20th
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century but it was for future generations that he expressed the greatest hope in youthful idealism man perceives the truth in youthful idealism he possesses riches that should not be bartered for anything on earth 

Albert
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Schweitzer was known to say everyone must find their own lambarena it's not
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enough merely to exist, it is not enough to say I'm earning enough to live and
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support my family, I do my work well.
 you must do something more seek always to do some good somewhere every man has to seek his own way to make his own self more noble.
 you must give something to your fellow man even if it's a little thing.

 do something for those who have needs of a man's help, something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.

today thousands of people from all walks of life around the globe are creating
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their own improvisations answering the most personal of calls defining their
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own lamborghini's and acts great and small that serve all people and the
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world
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you
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you
====

조현 - "나이든 사람들이 갈만한, 노인들도 받아주는 공동체는 없나요?"

(1) 조현 - "나이든 사람들이 갈만한, 노인들도 받아주는 공동체는 없나요?" "공동체는 정부나 지자체에서 운영하는... | Facebook

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"나이든 사람들이 갈만한, 노인들도 받아주는 공동체는 없나요?"

"공동체는 정부나 지자체에서 운영하는 사회복지시설이 아니에요. 가정에도 누군가 돈을 벌고, 누군가 밥을 하고, 청소를 해야하듯이 가정의 확대판인 공동체도 마찬가지에요. 가정에서 자기 부모 한분 모시는것도 힘겨워하는 세상에 남의 부모들을 돌봐줄 공동체를 기대하긴어려워요. 자기는 젊어서 공동체에 아무런 경제적 물질적 육체적 헌신을 하지않고, 늙은몸을 의탁만하려한다면, 만약 자기들이 공동체원들이라면 그노인들을 받아줄수있을는지요. 따라서 요즘은 자식이 부모를 모시고살기를 기대하기어려워 공동체살이를 꿈꾼다면, 좀더 일찍 공동체적 삶을 준비하고, 헌신해야 자기도 늙어서 케어받을수있어요"

기대 섞인 중년 여성의 질문에 냉정하게 이렇게 답해줄수밖에 없었는데, 오히려 덕산 마실분들은 솔직하게 말해주어 고맙다며, 깨달은바가 있다고 말해주셨다.
멋진 마을. 충북 제천시 덕산면. 20여년 이곳에 대안학교 간디학교가 터를 잡으면서, 간디학교에 자녀를 보낸분들을 중심으로 한분 두분 귀촌 귀농. 인근 면들이 수가 급감하고있는데 반해 꾸준히 2000명대를 유지하는건 200명 가량의 귀촌 귀농자들이 있어서다.

어제밤 덕산 마실 주막학교에서 강연 초청.

환자는 외롭고 함께는 괴롭디면-마을공동체 갈등 해소 비결. 을 주제로.
한시간 반거리 원주에서까지 유튜브팬이라며 오고, 유튜브를 올릴때마다 내용을 요약해 올리는 남창규 한의사께서도 제천시에서 한시간 차를 몰고 오셨다.

얼마전 덕산 폐교에 야생초편지.생태도서관 및 교육장을 만들고계신 황대권 형님, 양희창 설립자를 비롯한 간디학교선생님등 덕산분들이 마실을 가득매워, 집중해주고, 질문을 계속해줘 아주 즐겁게 두시간 넘게 강의하고, 20여명은 현장 뒷풀이까지 함께하며 즐겼다.

멋진마을, 멋진사람들. 사람들이 함께하다보면 의견 차이가 있게마련이고, 갈등도 있디만, 이를 제거해야할 대상이 아니라, 삶의 당연한 일부로 받아들이며, 덕스런 산같은 마을을 만들어가시라.




















Namgok Lee - 나는 종교(宗敎)라는 말을 접할 때, 두 가지 의미로 다가온다.

Namgok Lee - 나는 종교(宗敎)라는 말을 접할 때, 두 가지 의미로 다가온다. 하나는 인간이라는 존재의... | Facebook

Namgok Lee

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나는 종교(宗敎)라는 말을 접할 때, 두 가지 의미로 다가온다.

하나는 인간이라는 존재의 특성인 숭고지향성(崇高指向性)을 나타내는 말인데 이 점에서는 종교를 긍정할 뿐 아니라 지금의 인류적 위기를 넘어서는데 선도적 역할을 할 수 있고, 해야 한다고 생각한다.
또 하나는 ‘유일한 진리’ ‘절대적 진리’로 신앙의 대상이 되는 종교를 말하는 경우인데, 나는 이것은 인류의 보편적인 의식이 넘어서야할 대상이라고 생각한다.

나는 불교를 종교 가운데서 현대 인류에게 잘 살려질 수 있는 종교라고 생각한다.
불교라는 종교의 교세(敎勢)가 커질 것이라는 의미가 아니고, 후자(後者)와 같은 의미의 종교가 사라지고 전자(前者)의 의미로 살려질 수 있다는 의미에서다.

요즘 유튜브로 불교의 여러 교파 간의 논쟁들을 보면서 착잡한 심경이 될 때가 많다.
이른바 견성(見性)을 나타내는 확철대오(廓徹大悟)라는 말이 확고부동한 확증편향(確證偏向)으로 다가올 때가 있기 때문이다.

그렇게 되어서는 종교가 그 동안 인류 역사에서 끼친 수많은 부정적 역할에서 벗어나지 못하고, 불교가 가진 뛰어난 특성을 살리지 못하는 것으로 된다.

나는 참선 수행 등을 통해 뛰어난 경지를 경험하는 분들을 존경한다.
그 존경심은 ‘내 생각이 틀림없다’는 무오류의 깨달음을 얻었기 때문이 아니라, 
무지(無知)의 자각에 바탕을 두고 자기와 다른 생각이나 주장에 대해서 아무런 차별이나 걸림이 없이 열린 상태로 되어 진리를 향해 끝없는 탐구심을 내는데 있다.

그런 점에서 나는 원효를 존경한다.
우리는 지금 전대미문(前代未聞)의 중층적 위기를 만나고 있다.
집단적 확증편향 간의 대립과 증오가 가장 큰 원인이다.

이 나라가 퇴행적 편가름의 수렁에서 벗어나지 못하는 것도 바로 이성(理性)이 제대로 작동하지 못하는 확증편향들 때문이다.

이 나라는 다종교 국가이고, 석가와 예수의 탄생을 함께 공휴일로 기념하는 대단히 특별한 나라다.
종교인들이 이 나라의 위기의 가장 큰 원인으로 되는 확증편향의 대립을 더욱 부추긴다면 그것은 종교에 대한 신뢰를 근본적으로 배반하는 것이다.

종교(인)에 대한 나의 판단 기준은 현실적으로 그 점에서 어떤 행보를 보이는가이다.
숭고지향성을 신장시키고 있는가?
획증편향을 부추기고 있는가?