Giving Up the Ghost of "Community"

When people wax nostalgic about “community,” what they are, in actuality, imagining or thinking worthy to emulate is a coterie of like-minded people who “go along to get along” (with those "going along" in a "show up and shut up" or suffer silently sort of way). 

When, however, someone with a varying or outright opposite or contrary viewpoint enters in to that community, or a longtime member demands too much from the group due to questioning or evolving perspective, or doesn’t contribute according to standard, that person becomes an outsider and most likely will never “fit in” until they “tow the community line.”

Sometimes they are booted out. 

Sometimes they are finger-pointed at and passively or aggressively confronted.

Sometimes the person wastes no more time and simply moves on. 

I truly believe that the ideal of “community” which most people adhere to, hope for and curate, is nothing more than group think and group act. 

Which is why “church-hoppers” will never find their church “home,” and why, in the current state of partisan politics, Democrats will rarely, if ever, concede greatness to a Republican, and a Republican will rarely, if ever, concede greatness to a Democrat. 

The beloved quest for diversity-in-community will never achieve its goal until people—each and every individual, young and old alike—stop being threatened by differing viewpoints and the people who hold them. 

Confident, assured individuals who are at peace with themselves will be sincerely inquisitive and able to carry on a mature, respectable conversation without shouting down another (either silently and internally, or outwardly). 

The potential for influence, after all, is only as great as one's ability to open their own mind--especially one that may heretofore have been closed--to thoughtful consideration of another's context and perspective. 

It's called a willingness to change, or a humble willingness to consider all the facts and not change, but also not force another to transform, or refuse their right to believe what they believe and be who they are.

In the end, I posit that “community” as most people dream it—to be with others who “think like I do, believe like I do, and act like I do” is actually quite detrimental, and no place in which I am pining to live. 

Copyright Barb Harwood