Ubuntu legend

[hstarr]

Via Facebook:
"An anthropologist proposed a game to African tribe kids. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told them that whoever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?

UBUNTU in the Xhosa culture means: "I am because we are"


- has this been researched via Snopes yet? Couldn't find anything on forum search. Also couldn't find any credible sources for origin of this story.

[ganzfeld]

I'm not sure what you are asking. The word itself was recorded over 100 years ago and it was used to mean (among other things, such as "human nature") this kind of community spirit (well, that's how I would see it in context; I've never been to Africa). Do you mean you want to know the veracity of the anthropologist's story? Is it meant as a literally true story or as an illustration?

[hstarr]

Yes, I am curious if this actually happened - the anthropologist setting up this experiment. No serious scientist would do this today, but perhaps in antiquity it might have happened. Could also have been something observed by missionaries.

This story sounds like something that might have been in an early book about African culture. Something slightly racist along the lines of "oh my, how curious these savages are!"

[hstarr]

ah ha. I found a slightly longer, more detailed version of the story here

[A Turtle Named Mack]

It does not make sense, though, as if he was interested in an actual race, he could have asked them to race. If he did not suspect already that they would act cooperatively, then trying to set a competition this way would test nothing else but speed.

"Silly northerners! They do not know about acting cooperatively on their own or for mutual benefit. They can only do so with someone ordering them to do so"

[ToadMagnet]

All I know is, if you wave an Ubuntu boot disk at a computer with a corrupted Windows OS, said computer suddenly decides it wants to work properly after all.

(Okay, maybe not literally, but it comes close.)