Community is Fiction "This account has been
terminated due to repeated or severe violations
of our Community Guidelines..." saith the lockout
message on u-tube when an account is disabled.
I'm here to tell that community is dead.
There is no more community. Community is
fiction. It no longer exists except as fodder
used by advertisers to lull us into a false sense
of security that we do have people who agree with
us and also buy their product.
We used to have community. It was very real.
People knew each other, they interacted, they
trusted each other and they tried to make life
better for everyone in their community. Not
community is a lie, a buzz word, perpetrated by
politicians to fill the gaps in between the times
when they insinuate they might actually have our
interest in mind. Community is no longer with us
and we should grieve its passing.
What happened? Television and now the
internet. That's what happened. You have mom
watching television in one room, dad in another
and the kids in each of their rooms with their
own tv or ipod. The family unit has been
separated by time, motivation and the razzel
dazzle that 'entertains' them.
It goes even further back than that. It used
to be, back in rural America, that four
generations would live under one roof. That was
important because grandparents could fill in the
gaps between times when the parents were working
so hard to raise the kids. Some important life
lessons were taught by grandparents. Not only
was the wisdom and experience of a mature
generation passed down, but kids would often see
the realities of life through their grandparents
growing old. It was motivation to survive and to
achieve in life.
During that time we didn't have tv. The pace
of life was different as well. People would stop
and talk to one another, on the street, if they
happened to meet. Visitors might ride a horse
and buggy and stay the night to make the trip
back in reasonable time. Jefferson once
explained how he had a notebook, and when he
visited a friend\'s house with a library, he
might stay two weeks and jot notes from the books
in his acquaintance's library. Do we even
comprehend the community our forefathers had?
One interview [find source] about radio's
introduction into society back in the twenties,
one of the interviewed stated how she stopped
playing the piano when they got a radio.
Instead of practicing the piano she would listen
to the radio. I think she touches on the
motivation of many faced with media verses an
experience. It's so much easier to turn it on
and be entertained.
I don't know. I'm just touched with a bout
of surmiseses here. Don't know what happened to
community but it's gone. "It takes a village to
raise a child." The loss of community has
destroyed our social fabric and the strength of
our country. "Divide and conquer." America is
no more because of the loss of community.
I participated in a little experiment: I
joined the Grange. You see they got a computer
lab with high speed internet access donated. I
needed a place to meet prospective clients, and I
didn't want to bring them to my house so I
volunteered to manage the computer lab at the
Grange hall in order to meet people for the
purposes of discussing software.
It didn't actually work like that, although
that's what I was thinking I would like to do
when I first went down to the computer lab. It
was an all volunteer organization and I knew
people would be hesitant to volunteer their time
each Saturday to open the lab. Instead I joined
the Grange. I paid their membership and started
attending meetings. My goal was more than just
the computer lab; I did have intentions of
getting involved in the community. The Grange
seemed like a perfect venue. It just happened,
quite naturally, because I talked so much about
computers and electronics, that they asked me to
manage the Grange computer lab on Saturdays.
There's a lot of politics in the Grange, or
amongst any group of people for that matter.
Fraternal organizations like this can be a
stepping point into politics and if you work with
people there are 'politics'. And politics are
rarely very pretty. Jill hates Jane. Bob tries
to talk down Jim. Bosley picks up a loose end
that Terry missed and makes sure to tell
everybody at the next meeting. You know how
company politics can get quite messy.
I'm reminded of when I was six or seven
and we had the I hate Stevie club. We had
cardboard boxes and everything and one week, I
don't remember why, but all the kids on the
street were invited except Stevie. Then the next
week it was Mikey, the I hate Mikey club. Might
have been Jimmy next, and I can remember a couple
of times not being invited.
The same thing in the office or any work
environment. It seems to move around. One day
it's this or that person and the next them or
they. It's gossip and politics fueled by our
influences from life and the media. Community's
not going to back us any more. You can almost
plant rumors and wait for the results. It's a
sport for people. They set each other up and
tear people down. "I'm not one to say, and you
know I never talk about anyone behind their
backs, but ...". It's over. The salvo has been
fired.
Same with the Grange, except nobodies
getting a pay check. We all become, however,
quite committed to the goals and take
extraordinary strides to make things happen.
Politics enter the picture.
The Grange is also a follower of
parliamentary rules. You have a master of
ceremonies, committee members, there are certain
ways to say things at meetings, it's quite
remarkable, parliamentary rule akin to Robert's
Rules of Order. Amongst all this fanfare is a
structure and that structure is under constant
manipulation, gossip and innuendo by members to
achieve their goals. There are some tremendous
battles that go on in any fraternal organization
and the politics gets quite messy.
Unfortunately this Grange hall was in a rural
area that was quickly being converted to
residential as the real estate boom mowed down
the trees and houses and cul-de-sacs replaced
farm land. In the Grange hall they had picture
albums of when they met going back all the way to
the forties. The hall was filled with people in
the forties, fifties and sixties, and even into
the seventies, at times. By the eighties it was
empty. It was difficult in the early 00's, when
I joined, to even get enough people for a quorum
(eight). The rural and farming community that
once thrived in this area was long gone, now
replaced by rich yuppies who dominated the
landscape and could care less if their neighbor
was alive or dead. This community organization
which used to have canning displays and barn
raisings was long gone as locks replaced open
farm houses that once dotted the landscape.
The demise of community started when we first
moved from the farms to the cities for work.
The first to be separated from the family unit
were the grandparents. The stripped down family
units moved to the cities and the responsibility
of raising children was turned over the the
schools as father and then mother entered the
work force having less and less time for the
influences needed to raise children.
The community dissipated almost without
anybody noticing. There were attempts to
maintain community in the suburbs but it lacked
the real life impact of the farm. Media further
took over the home's center piece and community
was relegated to social clubs, fiction and
corporate hype to get you to think everybody else
is, so why not you. Living, breathing, pulsing,
thriving, barn raising community that once was
has been relegated to history and community
expressed by politicians and Hollywood only
fiction. Let us morn the loss of community.
