A good quote
The past cultures I admire-Periclean Greece, the city-states of the Italian Renaissance, Elizabethan England, are examples-have mostly been produced by communities , and remarkably small ones at that. Also remarkably heterogeneous ones, riven by factions, stormy with passionate antagonisms. But…[a] mass society, like a crowd, is inchoate and uncreative. Its atoms cohere not according to individual liking or traditions or even interests but in purely mechanical ways, as iron fillings of different shapes and sizes are pulled toward a magnet working on the one quality they have in common. Its morality sinks to the level of the most primitive members-a crowd will commit atrocities that very few of its members would commit as individuals-and its taste to that of the least sensitive and the most ignorant.
~Dwight Macdonald
Whenever I find myself within the ranks of some group it is usually not too long that I must push the boundaries. For, to my eternal dismay, groups far too often are more homogenous than not. It plainly becomes the impetus of the organization to perpetuate its own beliefs and this might override rational thought, ability to communicate or collaborate with others, and even the ability to grow. When amongst a group of environmentalists they were unable to see outside of their environmentalist views and unable to step down from their environmentalists platitudes and moral high ground. Talking with workers in the timber industry it was impossible for them to open their minds to the possibility that their practices are indeed problematic for, not only the Earth in large (forests as carbon sinks, slash burning for agriculture also releasing huge amounts of CO2) but nobody wants to hear that they are acting like an ass (plainly put). We all are defensive when it comes to this. Tell me what I am doing wrong and I’ll explain why you are just a twit. Such is the nature the fight between many environmentalists and timber workers.
The same is found among other polar groups as well. Anti-war groups and pro-military personnel. Patriotic Americans and those that see a global community. I might quickly add there is not a singular definition of patriotic used in either political science, psychology, or the like. There are various forms of patriotism. In general it is a desire to support one’s own in-group and a feeling of affinity with said in-group. The large differences are on what that means for other groups and your relationship with them. Those groups that attack patriotic Americans as shortsighted, and indeed those Americans who can, without a investigation of any facts, casually say ‘America, right or wrong’, generally promote the attitude of the success of the in-group with the failure of another group. Partnership or relationships are no inherently found within these viewpoints. The criticism is a valid one. However, not all who love their in-group are so closed to partnerships. It is therefore a mistake to lump all ‘patriotic Americans’ as such for this is a gross misunderstanding of in-group membership and social dynamics. It is, in reality, a thinly veiled attack. For those who profess such attacks against all patriotic Americans will feel themselves affinity with some sense of a community. It is likely that this community does not contain Somali warlords, Russian paratroopers, the wealthy leisurely class in Europe, a pocket of Nihilist writers in Norway, nor even University of Texas football fans. Their grouping of a ‘world community’ of which they feel one ought to feel an affinity for, is much more likely to include groups such as women’s poverty and land activists in India, Doctors Without Borders, the organization OXFAM, and other groups with a humanists bent.
When I find myself a part of a socialist organization I will usually end up arguing from a much different perspective. The same is true when I am surrounded by American Neoconservatives (not to be confused with the conservativism of Burke, Goldwater, nor of Reagan. Too bad more people who are ‘Conservative first and foremost’ and so ready to attack issues given a ‘liberal’ label by some pundit who gets paid by how much noise he can stir up on the radio waves, are not more familiar with the large distinctions) when I will usually argue the opposite. It is not that I am attempting to be difficult (some disagree with me here, yet indeed when the person is being intellectually lazy I sometimes take joy in harassing their un-soundess of their logic) but that, if one is to take Aristotle correctly in that finding the way of Happiness as a golden mean, between the extremes, it doesn’t necessarily mean that take the values and split them in half. It sometimes means a fiery dialogue between opposing viewpoints. What is the lesson of Job if we lose either Jehovah or the Devil? Nothing.
The above quote obviously says something about dynamics in community but it needs to be said that there is something that is important… that is that the communities, though riven by contentous debates, considered themselves a community more so than they did their particular faction within it. The Conservative of Liberal in today’s political spectrum, whether in Congress or sitting on a barseat listening to some idiot on the t.v. stir up controversy where there is none, who cannot see past his own faction to his membership in the greater community, is useless. For within him is no growth and nothing to hinge truth upon. Likewise, I am reminded of a time I met with a Baptist preacher in a small Southern community. I had set up a meeting with him to discuss how his (Christian) and mine (Pagan) communities might understand each other, respect each other, and even work together, such as in a soup kitchen or the like, he was only concerned with trying to prove his religion as the only one and mine as a delusion. The smallness of his heart and mind baffles me and, unfortunately is not a rarity. Talking with him is a waste of time. There can be no dialogue. So it is with many political pundits on the t.v. who are incapable of acting out of concern for their greater community. This is not to say that the ‘Devil’s Advocate” approach is not beneficial, I employ it a lot myself. Yet when I do so it is generally understood by those I am with that I might not even agree with my own arguments but that I am employing a logical attack on their argument. It is a simple test. If you were to build a boat you would not simply trust it but hopefully you would test it by giving it tests that might sink it before you took it out in deeper water. The point is to float.
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