“The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession, what there is of it.”Mark Twain · Scrieri și caiete · 1897 · Scrieri și caiete, caietul din 1896–1897
Solidarity is precious precisely because it is rare and fragile, not natural.
The second half of the sentence changes everything: Twain admits brotherhood exists only in fragments, shaky and often absent. This is not cynicism but an honest inventory: the asset is precious precisely because it is scarce and needs defending. A simple economic logic confirms it: what is abundant goes unvalued. Like water in a desert, solidarity is worth enormously even when unevenly distributed.
If solidarity is scarce, then every act of it carries a price we rarely notice. When someone defends you in your absence, when a neighbor waters your plants unasked, a small stock gets spent. Twain does not idealize human fellowship; he takes inventory of it, like goods about to run out. And things about to run out call for care, not complaint. That is why a small act of help is not trivial: it is one unit of a scarce good. Think of a pharmacy queue where a stranger gives up their place because you have a restless child. Nothing there is obligatory, just a rare coin put into circulation. The next question: how do you recognize when you are giving or receiving such a coin?
Why it matters It reminds us that in polarized times, acts of solidarity are not naivety but investment in something scarce. It urges you to cultivate what exists rather than despise what is missing.