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# 2020-02-26 - The Different Drum by M. Scott Peck | |
# The Different Drum by M. Scott Peck | |
# Introduction | |
In and through community lies the salvation of the world. | |
Nothing is more important. Yet it is virtually impossible to | |
describe community meaningfully to someone who has never experienced | |
it--and most of us have never had an experience of true community. | |
The problem is analogous to an attempt to describe the taste of | |
artichokes to someone who has never eaten one. | |
I am dubious, however, as to how far we can move toward global | |
community--which is the only way to achieve international | |
peace--until we learn the basic principles of community in our own | |
individual lives and personal spheres of influence. | |
Community neither comes naturally nor is it purchased cheaply. | |
Demanding rules must both be learned and followed. But there are | |
rules! | |
# Chapter 1, Stumbling into community | |
The word "radical" comes from the Latin radix, meaning "root"--the | |
same word from which we get "radish." The proper radical is one who | |
tries to get to the root of things, not to be distracted by | |
superficials, to see the woods for the trees. It is good to be a | |
radical. Anyone who thinks DEEPLY will be one. In the dictionary | |
the closest synonym to "radical" is "fundamentalist." Which only | |
makes sense. Someone who gets down to the root of things is someone | |
who gets down to the fundamentals. Yet in our North American culture | |
these words have come to have opposite meanings... | |
While on one hand we bandy about the word "community" in such a | |
shallow, meaningless way, many of us simultaneously long for the | |
"good old days" when frontier neighbors gathered together to build | |
one another's barns. [Or for the archaic revival of tribal | |
lifestyles.] We mourn the LOSS of community. | |
Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville traveled through our young United | |
States, and in 1835 he published what is still considered the | |
classical work on the American character. In his Democracy in | |
America, he described those "habits of the heart," or mores, that | |
gave citizens of the United States a unique new culture. The one | |
characteristic that impressed him most was our individualism. De | |
Tocqueville admired this character trait immensely. He very clearly | |
warned, however, that unless our individualism was continually and | |
strongly balanced by other habits, it would inevitably lead to | |
fragmentation of American society and social isolation of its | |
citizens. | |
* * * | |
Simply seek happiness, and you are not likely to find it. Seek to | |
create and love without regard for your happiness, and you will | |
likely be happy much of the time. Seeking joy in and of itself will | |
not bring it to you. Do the work of creating community, and you will | |
obtain it--although never exactly according to your schedule. Joy is | |
an uncapturable yet utterly predictable side effect of genuine | |
community. | |
# Chapter 2, Individuals and the fallacy of rugged individualism | |
Christian theologians have reached a well-nigh universal conclusion: | |
God loves variety. | |
... we never truly learn to think for ourselves or dare to be out of | |
step with the stereotypes. But in light of all we understand, this | |
failure to individuate is a failure to grow up and become fully | |
human. For we are called to be individuals. We are called to be | |
unique and different. | |
We are also called to power. In this individuation process we must | |
learn how to take responsibility for ourselves. We need to develop a | |
sense of autonomy and self-determination. | |
Furthermore, we are called to wholeness. We should use what gifts or | |
talents we are given to develop ourselves as fully as possible. ... | |
If we are to grow, we must work on the weak spots that prevent | |
growth. We are beckoned toward that self-sufficiency, that wholeness | |
required for independence of thought and action. | |
But all this is only one side of the story. | |
... the reality is that we can never be completely whole in and of | |
ourselves. We cannot be all things to ourselves and to others. We | |
cannot be perfect. ... the reality is that there is a point beyond | |
which our sense of self-determination not only becomes inaccurate and | |
prideful but increasingly self-defeating. Yet the reality is that we | |
are inevitably social creatures who desperately need each other not | |
merely for sustenance, not merely for company, but for any meaning to | |
our lives whatsoever. These, then, are the paradoxical seeds from | |
which community can grow. | |
So we are called to wholeness and simultaneously to recognition of | |
our incompleteness; called to power AND to acknowledge our weakness; | |
called to both individuation AND interdependence. Thus the | |
problem--indeed, the total failure--of the "ethic" of rugged | |
individualism is that it runs with only one side of the paradox, | |
incorporates only half of our humanity. It recognizes that we are | |
called to individuation, power, and wholeness. But it denies | |
entirely the other part of the human story: that we can never fully | |
get there and that we are, of necessity in our uniqueness, weak and | |
imperfect creatures who need each other. | |
This denial can be sustained only by pretense. Because we cannot | |
ever be totally adequate, self-sufficient, independent beings, the | |
ideal of rugged individualism encourages us to fake it. It | |
encourages us to hide our weaknesses and failures. It teaches us to | |
be utterly ashamed of our limitations. It drives us to attempt to be | |
superwomen and supermen not only in the eyes of others but also in | |
our own. It pushes us day in and day out to look as if we "had it | |
all together," as if we were without needs and in total control of | |
our lives. It relentlessly demands that we keep up appearances. It | |
also relentlessly isolates us from each other. And it makes genuine | |
community impossible. | |
Trapped in our tradition of rugged individualism, we are an | |
extraordinarily lonely people. So lonely, in fact, that many cannot | |
even acknowledge their loneliness to themselves, much less to others. | |
Look at the sad, frozen faces all around you and search in vain for | |
the souls hidden behind masks of makeup, masks of pretense, masks of | |
composure. ... We are desperately in need of a new ethic of "soft | |
individualism," an understanding of individualism which teaches that | |
we cannot be truly ourselves until we are able to share freely the | |
things we most have in common: our weaknesses, our incompleteness, | |
our imperfection, our inadequacy, our sins, our lack of wholeness and | |
self-sufficiency. ... It is the kind of individualism that | |
acknowledges our interdependence not merely in the intellectual | |
catchwords of the day but in the very depths of our hearts. It is | |
the kind of individualism that makes real community possible. | |
# Chapter 3, The true meaning of community | |
If we are going to use the word meaningfully we must restrict it to a | |
group of individuals who have learned how to communicate honestly | |
with each other, whose relationships go deeper than their masks of | |
composure, and who have developed some significant commitment to | |
"rejoice together, mourn together," and to "delight in each other, | |
make others' conditions our own." | |
We can define or adequately explain only those things that are | |
smaller than we are. ... And there are certain questions about | |
electricity, despite its known physical laws, that even the most | |
advanced electrical engineer cannot answer. That is because | |
electricity is something larger than we are. | |
[But part of us, our nervous system, utilizes electricity. That | |
would seem to make electricity a sub-set of what we are.] | |
There are many such "things": God, goodness, love, evil, death, | |
consciousness, for instance. Being so large, they are many-faceted, | |
and the best we can do is describe or define one facet at a time. | |
Even so, we never seem quite able to plumb their depths fully. | |
Sooner or later we inevitably run into a core of mystery. | |
Community is another such phenomenon. Like electricity, it is | |
profoundly lawful. Yet there remains something about it that is | |
inherently mysterious, miraculous, unfathomable. Thus there is no | |
adequate one-sentence definition of genuine community. | |
The facets of community are interconnected, profoundly interrelated. | |
No one could exist without the other. They create each other, make | |
each other possible. What follows, then, is but one scheme for | |
isolating and naming the most salient characteristics of a true | |
community. | |
* Inclusivity, commitment, and consensus | |
* Realism | |
* Contemplation | |
* A safe place | |
* A laboratory for personal disarmament | |
* A group that can fight gracefully | |
* A group of all leaders | |
* A spirit | |
## Inclusivity, commitment, and consensus | |
The great enemy of community is exclusivity. | |
Inclusiveness is not an absolute. Long-term communities must | |
invariably struggle over the degree to which they are going to be | |
inclusive. ... Communities do not ask "How can we justify taking this | |
person in?" Instead the question is "It it at all justifiable to | |
keep this person out?" | |
Commitment--the willingness to coexist--is crucial. ... Exclusivity | |
appears in two forms: excluding others and excluding yourself. If | |
you conclude under your breath, "Well, this group just isn't for | |
me--they're too much this or too much that--and I'm just going to | |
quietly pick up my marbles and go home," it would be as destructive | |
to community as it would be to a marriage... Community, like | |
marriage, requires that we hang in there when the going gets a little | |
rough. ... Our individualism must be counterbalanced by commitment. | |
Decisions in genuine community are arrived at through consensus, in a | |
process that is not unlike a community of jurors, for whom consensual | |
decision making is mandated. | |
## Realism | |
We are accustomed to think of group behavior as often primitive. | |
"Mob psychology" is properly a vernacular expression. There is, in | |
fact, more than a quantum leap between an ordinary group and a | |
community; they are entirely different phenomena. And a real | |
community is, by definition, immune to mob psychology because of its | |
encouragement of individuality, its inclusion of a variety of points | |
of view. Mob psychology cannot occur in an environment in which | |
individuals are free to speak their minds and buck the trend. | |
An important aspect of the realism of community deserves mention: | |
humility. While rugged individualism predisposes one to arrogance, | |
the "soft" individualism of community leads to humility. Begin to | |
appreciate each others' gifts, and you begin to appreciate your own | |
limitations. Witness others share their brokenness, and you will | |
become able to accept your own inadequacy and imperfection. Be fully | |
aware of human variety, and you will recognize the interdependence of | |
humanity. As a group of people do these things--as they become a | |
community--they become more and more humble, not only as individuals | |
but also as a group--and hence more realistic. From which kind of | |
group would you expect a wise, realistic decision: an arrogant one, | |
or a humble one? | |
## Contemplation | |
Among the reasons that a community is humble and hence realistic is | |
that it is contemplative. It examines itself. It is self-aware. | |
"Know thyself" is a sure rule for humility. | |
The spirit of community once achieved is not then something forever | |
obtained. It is not something that can be bottled or preserved in | |
aspic. It is repeatedly lost. | |
No community can expect to be in perpetual good health. What a | |
genuine community does do, however, because it is a contemplative | |
body, is recognize its ill health when it occurs and quickly take | |
appropriate action to heal itself. | |
## A safe place | |
Once a group has achieved community, the single most common thing | |
members express is: "I feel safe here." | |
It is a rare feeling. Almost all of us have spent nearly all of our | |
lives feeling only partially safe, if at all. Seldom, if ever, in | |
any kind of group, have we felt wholly accepted and acceptable. | |
So another of the characteristics of community is that it is healing | |
and converting. Yet I have deliberately not listed that | |
characteristic by itself, lest the subtlety of it be misunderstood. | |
For the fact is that most of our human attempts to heal and convert | |
prevent community. Human beings have within them a natural yearning | |
and thrust toward health and wholeness and holiness. (All three | |
words are derived from the same root.) ... But put a human being in a | |
truly safe place, where those defenses and resistances are no longer | |
necessary, and the thrust toward health is liberated. When we are | |
safe, there is a natural tendency for us to heal and convert | |
ourselves. | |
Experienced psychotherapists usually come to recognize this truth. | |
... With experience, however, they realize that they do not have the | |
power to heal. But they also learn that it is within their power to | |
listen to the patient, to accept her or him, to establish a | |
"therapeutic relationship." So they focus not so much on healing as | |
on making their relationship a safe place where the patient is likely | |
to heal themself. | |
## A laboratory for personal disarmament | |
Vulnerability is a two-way street. Community requires the ability to | |
expose our wounds and weaknesses to our fellow creatures. It also | |
requires the capacity to be affected by the wounds of others, to be | |
wounded by their wounds. | |
[A laboratory can be defined as a place designed to be safe for | |
experiments.] | |
So it is in community: it is a safe place to experiment with new | |
types of behavior. | |
An experiment is designed to give us new EXPERIENCE from which we can | |
extract new wisdom. So it is that in experimenting with personally | |
disarming themselves, the members of a true community experientially | |
discover the rules of peacemaking and learn its virtues. It is a | |
personal experience so powerful that it can become the driving force | |
behind the quest for peace on a global scale. | |
## A group that can fight gracefully | |
In genuine community there are no sides. It is not always easy, but | |
by the time they reach community the members have learned how to give | |
up cliques and factions. They have learned how to listen to each | |
other and how not to reject each other. Sometimes consensus in | |
community is reached with miraculous rapidity. But at other times it | |
is arrived at only after lengthy struggle. Just because it is a safe | |
place does not mean community is a place without conflict. It is, | |
however, a place where conflict can be resolved without physical or | |
emotional bloodshed and with wisdom as well as grace. A community is | |
a group that can fight gracefully. | |
That this is so is hardly accidental. For community is an | |
amphitheater where the gladiators have laid down their weapons and | |
their armor, where they have become skilled at listening and | |
understanding, where they respect each others' gifts and accept each | |
others' limitations, where they celebrate their differences and bind | |
each others' wounds, where they are committed to a struggling | |
together rather than against each other. It is a most unusual | |
battleground indeed. But that is also why it is an unusually | |
effective ground for conflict resolution. | |
... there is a fantasy abroad. Simply stated, it goes like this: "If | |
we can resolve our conflicts, then someday we shall be able to live | |
together in community." Could it be that we have it totally | |
backward? And the real dream should be: "If we can live together in | |
community, then someday we shall be able to resolve our conflicts"? | |
## A group of all leaders | |
Communities have sometimes been referred to as leaderless groups. It | |
is more accurate, however, to say that a community is a group of all | |
leaders. | |
Because it is a safe place, compulsive leaders feel free in | |
community--often for the first time in their lives--to NOT lead. And | |
the customarily shy and reserved feel free to step forth with their | |
latent gifts of leadership. The result is that a community is an | |
ideal decision-making body. The expression "A camel is a horse | |
created by a committee" does not mean that group decisions are | |
inevitable clumsy and imperfect; it does mean that committees are | |
virtually never communities. | |
The flow of leadership in community is routine. It is a phenomenon | |
that has profound implications for anyone who would seek to improve | |
organizational decision making--in business, government, or | |
elsewhere. But it is not a quick trick or fix. Community must be | |
built first. Traditional hierarchical patterns have to be at least | |
temporarily set aside. Some kind of control must be relinquished. | |
## A spirit | |
Competitiveness is always exclusive; genuine community is inclusive. | |
If community has enemies, it has begun to lose the spirit of | |
community--if it ever had it in the first place. | |
The spirit of true community is the spirit of peace. | |
Nor will one question that it is a spirit of peace that prevails when | |
a group enters community. An utterly new quietness descends on the | |
group. People seem to speak more quietly; yet, strangely, their | |
voices seem to carry better through the room. There are periods of | |
silence, but it is never an uneasy silence. Indeed, the silence is | |
welcomed. It feels tranquil. Nothing is frantic anymore. The chaos | |
is over. It is as if noise had been replaced by music. The people | |
listen and can hear. It is peaceful. | |
The "atmosphere" of love and peace is so palpable that almost every | |
community member experiences it as a spirit. Hence, even the | |
agnostic and atheist members will generally report a | |
community-building workshop as a spiritual experience. | |
The wisdom of a true community often seems miraculous. This wisdom | |
can perhaps be explained in purely secular terms as a result of the | |
freedom of expression, the pluralistic talents, the consensual | |
decision making that occur in community. There are times, however, | |
when this wisdom seems to my religious eye to be more a matter of | |
divine spirit and possible divine intervention. This is one of the | |
reasons why the feeling of joy is such a frequent concomitant of the | |
spirit of community. The members feel that they have been | |
temporarily--at least partially--transported out of the mundane world | |
of ordinary preoccupations. For the moment it as if heaven and earth | |
had somehow met. | |
# Chapter 4, The genesis of community | |
## Crisis and community | |
Genuine communities of a sort frequently develop in response to | |
crisis. Strangers in the waiting room of an intensive-care ward | |
suddenly come to share each other's hopes and fears and joys and | |
griefs as their loved ones lie across the hall on the "critical list." | |
On a larger scale, in the course of a minute a distant earthquake | |
causes buildings to crumble and crush thousands of people to death in | |
Mexico City. Suddenly rich and poor alike are working together night | |
and day to rescue the injured and care for the homeless. Meanwhile | |
men and women of all nations open their pocketbooks and their hearts | |
to a people they have never seen, much less met, in a sudden | |
consciousness of our common humanity. | |
The problem is that once the crisis is over, so--virtually always--is | |
the community. The collective spirit goes out of the people as they | |
return to their ordinary individual lives, and community is lost. | |
There is a dreadful form of psychiatric disorder that compels its | |
victims to lead destructively histrionic lives. The far more common | |
curse, however, is for us human beings to fail to live our lives with | |
a proper sense of drama. Here those people with an active religious | |
bent have another advantage. Secular people have plain ups and downs | |
in their lives, while we religious get to have "spiritual crises." It | |
is much more dignified, or so it would seem, to have a spiritual | |
crisis than a depression. It is also often the more appropriate way | |
of looking at things. But, in fact, all psychological problems can | |
be seen as crises of the human spirit. In my practice of | |
psychotherapy, more often than not I have to work quite hard to teach | |
people a sense of their own importance and dramatic significance. | |
We do not have to manufacture crises in our lives; we have merely to | |
recognize that they exist. [Or...] We can keep pretending that this | |
is not so. We can continue refusing to face the crisis until the day | |
when we individually and collectively destroy ourselves and our | |
planet. We can avoid community until the end. Or we can wake up to | |
the drama of our lives and begin to take the steps necessary to save | |
them. | |
## Community by design | |
I began to conduct "community-building workshops" with frequency. I | |
have been able to reach a number of conclusions with such a degree of | |
certainty that I know them to be facts. The most basic are these: | |
* The process by which a group of human beings becomes a community | |
is a lawful process. Whenever a group functions in accord with | |
certain quite clear laws or rules it will become a genuine | |
community. | |
* The words "communicate" and "community," although verb and noun, | |
come from the same root. The principles of good communication are | |
the basic principles of community-building. And because people do | |
not naturally know how to communicate, because humans have not yet | |
learned how to talk with each other, they remain ignorant of the | |
laws or rules of genuine community. | |
* In certain situations people may unconsciously stumble onto the | |
rules of communication or community. That is what occurred in the | |
communities I have already described. Since the process is | |
unconscious, however, people do not consciously learn these rules | |
as a result and therefore immediately forget how to practice them. | |
* The rules of communication and community building can be simply | |
taught and learned with relative ease. This conscious learning | |
allows people to remember the rules and practice them at a later | |
date. | |
* Learning can be passive or experiential. Experiential learning | |
is more demanding but infinitely more effective. As with other | |
things, the rules of communication and community are best learned | |
experientially. | |
* The vast majority of people are capable of learning the rules of | |
communication and community-building and are willing to follow | |
them. In other words, if they know what they are doing, virtually | |
any group of people can form themselves into a genuine community. | |
# Chapter 5, Stages of community making | |
Communities, like individuals, are unique. Still we all share the | |
human condition. So it is that groups assembled deliberately to form | |
themselves into community routinely go through certain stages in the | |
process. These stages, in order, are: | |
* Pseudocommunity -- Forming | |
* Chaos -- Storming | |
* Emptiness -- Norming | |
* Community -- Performing | |
I do not insist that community development occur by formula. But in | |
the process of community-making by design, this is the natural, usual | |
order of things. | |
## Pseudocommunity | |
The first response of a group seeking to form a community is most | |
often to try to fake it. The members attempt to be an instant | |
community by being extremely pleasant with one another and avoiding | |
all disagreement. This attempt--this pretense of community-is what I | |
term "pseudocommunity." It never works. | |
The essential dynamic of pseudocommunity is conflict-avoidance. | |
Pseudocommunity is conflict-avoiding, true community is | |
conflict-resolving. | |
What is diagnostic of pseudocommunity is the minimization, the lack | |
of acknowledgment, or the ignoring of individual differences. | |
Another characteristic of pseudocommunity is that the members will | |
let one another get away with such blanket statements. ... To avoid | |
the risk of conflict they keep their feelings to themselves and even | |
nod in agreement, as if a speaker has uttered some universal truth. | |
Indeed, the pressure to skirt any kind of disagreement may be so | |
great that even the very experienced communicators in the group--who | |
know perfectly well that speaking in generalities is destructive to | |
genuine communication--may be inhibited from challenging what they | |
know is wrong. | |
[To nip pseudocommunity in the bud] Often all that is required is to | |
challenge the platitudes or generalizations. | |
Once individual differences are not only allowed but encouraged to | |
surface in some such way, the group almost immediately moves to the | |
second stage of community development: chaos. | |
## Chaos | |
The chaos always centers around well-intentioned but misguided | |
attempts to heal and convert. | |
Chaos is not just a state, it is an essential part of the process of | |
community building. Consequently, unlike pseudocommunity, it does | |
not simply go away as soon as the group becomes aware of it. | |
In the stage of chaos individual differences are, unlike those in | |
pseudocommunity, right out in the open. Only now, instead of trying | |
to hide or ignore them, the group is attempting to obliterate them. | |
The stage of chaos is a time of fighting and struggle. But that is | |
not its essence. Frequently, fully developed communities will be | |
required to fight and struggle. Only they have learned to do so | |
effectively. The struggle during chaos is chaotic. It is not merely | |
noisy, it is uncreative, unconstructive. If anything, chaos, like | |
pseudocommunity, is boring, as members continually swat at each other | |
to little or no effect. The struggle is going nowhere, accomplishing | |
nothing. It is no fun. | |
Since chaos is unpleasant, it is common for the members of a group in | |
this stage to attack not only each other but also their leader. "We | |
wouldn't be squabbling like this if we had effective leadership," | |
they will say. "We deserve more direction than you've been giving | |
us..." | |
In response to the perceived vacuum of leadership during the chaotic | |
stage of community development, it is common for one or more members | |
of the group to attempt to replace the designated leader. | |
The problem with the emergence of such "secondary leaders" is not | |
their emergence but their proposed solutions. What they are | |
proposing, one way or another, is virtually always an "escape into | |
organization." It is true that organizing is a solution to chaos. | |
Indeed, that is the primary reason for organization: to minimize | |
chaos. The trouble is, however, that organization and community are | |
also incompatible. I am not an anarchist. But an organization is | |
able to nurture a measure of community within itself only to the | |
extent that it is willing to risk or tolerate a certain lack of | |
structure. As long as the goal is community-building, organization | |
as an attempted solution to chaos is an unworkable solution. | |
The proper resolution of chaos is not easy. | |
## Emptiness | |
"There are only two ways out of chaos," I will explain to a group | |
after it has spent a sufficient period of time squabbling and getting | |
nowhere. "One is into organization--but organization is never | |
community. The only other way is into and through emptiness." | |
It is no accident that groups are not generally eager to pick up on | |
my suggestion of emptiness. People are smart, and often in the | |
dimmer recesses of their consciousness they know more than they want | |
to know. As soon as I mention "emptiness," they have a presentiment | |
of what is to come. And they are in no hurry to accept it. | |
When the members of a group finally ask me to explain what I mean by | |
emptiness, I tell them simply that they need to empty themselves of | |
barriers to communication. And I am able to use their behavior | |
during chaos to point out to them specific things--feelings, | |
assumptions, ideas, and motives--that have so filled their minds as | |
to make them impervious as billiard balls. The process of emptying | |
themselves of these barriers is the key to the transition from | |
"rugged" to "soft" individualism. The most common barriers are: | |
* Expectations and Preconceptions | |
* Prejudice | |
* Ideology, Theology, and Solutions | |
* The Need to Heal, Convert, Fix, or Solve | |
* The Need to Control | |
## Expectations and Preconceptions | |
Community-building is an adventure, a going into the unknown. People | |
are routinely terrified of the emptiness of the unknown. | |
Consequently they fill their minds with generally false expectations | |
of what the experience will be like. In fact, we humans seldom go | |
into any situation without preconceptions. We then try to make the | |
experience conform to our expectations. Occasionally this is useful | |
behavior, but usually (and always in regard to community-building) it | |
is destructive. | |
## Prejudices | |
Prejudice, which is probably more often unconscious than conscious, | |
comes in two forms. One is the judgments we make about people | |
without any experience of them whatsoever... Even more common are | |
the judgments we make about people on the basis of very brief, | |
limited experience. One reason to distrust instant community is that | |
community-building requires time--the time to have sufficient | |
experience to become conscious of our prejudices and then to empty | |
ourselves of them. | |
## Ideology, Theology, and Solutions | |
It is not only such ideological and theological rigidities that we | |
need to discard, it is any idea that assumes the status of "the one | |
and only right way." | |
In speaking of this emptying process, however, I do not mean to imply | |
we should utterly forsake our sometimes hard-won sentiments and | |
understandings. A community-building workshop in Virginia several | |
years ago offered an example of the distinction between emptying and | |
obliteration. The group was the most dedicated band of converters I | |
have ever encountered. Everyone wanted to talk about God; everyone | |
had a different idea of God; and everyone was certain she or he knew | |
exactly who God was. It didn't take us long to get into chaos of | |
magnificent proportions. But thirty-six hours later, after the group | |
had made its miraculous transition from chaos to community, I told | |
them, "It's fascinating. Today you are still talking just as much | |
about God as you were yesterday. In that respect you haven't | |
changed. What has happened, however, is the way in which you talk. | |
Yesterday each of you was talking as if you had God in your back | |
pocket. Today you are all talking about God with humility and a | |
sense of humor." | |
## The Need to Heal, Convert, Fix, or Solve | |
During the stage of chaos, when the members of a group attempt to | |
heal or convert each other, they believe they are being loving. And | |
they are truly surprised by the chaos that results. After all, isn't | |
it the loving thing to do to relieve your neighbor of her suffering | |
or help him to see the light? Actually, however, almost all these | |
attempts to convert and heal are not only naive and ineffective but | |
quite self-centered and self-serving. It hurts me when my friend is | |
in pain. If I can do something to get rid of this pain I will feel | |
better. My most basic motive when I strive to heal is to feel good | |
myself. But there are several problems here. One is that my cure is | |
usually not my friend's. Indeed, offering someone my cure usually | |
only makes that person feel worse. So it was that all the advice | |
that Job's friends gave him in his time of affliction served only to | |
make him more miserable. The fact of the matter is that often the | |
most loving thing we can do when a friend is in pain is to SHARE that | |
pain--to be there even when we have nothing to offer except our | |
presence and even when being there is painful to ourselves. | |
The same is true with the attempt to convert. | |
## The Need to Control | |
The need to control--to ensure the desired outcome--is at least | |
partially rooted in the fear of failure. For me to empty myself of | |
my overcontrolling tendencies I must continually empty myself of this | |
fear. I must be willing to fail. | |
Just as the physical death of some individuals is rapid and gentle | |
while for others agonizing and protracted, so it is for the emotional | |
surrender of groups. Whether sudden or gradual, however, all the | |
groups in my experience have eventually succeeded in completing, | |
accomplishing, this death. They have all made it through emptiness, | |
through the time of sacrifice, into community. This is an | |
extraordinary testament to the human spirit. What it means is that | |
given the right circumstances and knowledge of the rules, on a | |
certain but very real level we human beings are able to die for each | |
other. | |
## Community | |
When its death has been completed, open and empty, the group enters | |
community. In this final stage a soft quietness descends. It is a | |
kind of peace. The room is bathed in peace. Then, quietly, a member | |
begins to talk about herself. She is being very vulnerable. She is | |
speaking of the deepest part of herself. The group hangs on each | |
word. No one realized she was capable of such eloquence. | |
When she is finished there is a hush. It goes on a long time. But | |
it does not seem long. There is no uneasiness in this silence. | |
Slowly, out of the silence, another member begins to talk. He too is | |
speaking very deeply, very personally, about himself. He is not | |
trying to heal or convert the first person. He's not even trying to | |
respond to her. It's not she but he who is the subject. Yet the | |
other members of the group do not sense he has ignored her. What | |
they feel is that it is as if he is laying himself down next to her | |
on an altar. | |
The silence returns. | |
A third member speaks. Perhaps it will be to respond to the previous | |
speaker, but there will be in this response no attempt to heal or | |
convert. It may be a joke, but it will not be at anyone's expense. | |
It may be a short poem that is almost magically appropriate. It | |
could be anything soft and gentle, but again it will be a gift. | |
Then the next member speaks. And as it goes on, there will be a | |
great deal of sadness and grief expressed; but there will also be | |
much laughter and joy. There will be tears in abundance. Sometimes | |
they will be tears of sadness, sometimes of joy. Sometimes, | |
simultaneously, they will be tears of both. And then something | |
almost more singular happens. An extraordinary amount of healing and | |
converting begins to occur--now that no one is trying to convert or | |
heal. And community has been born. | |
Or the task of community may be the difficult one of deciding whether | |
it will or will not maintain itself. This decision usually should | |
not be made quickly. In the joy of the moment members may make | |
commitments that they shortly discover they are unable to fulfill. | |
The consequences of long-term commitment are major and should not be | |
taken lightly. | |
Because I have spoken so glowingly of its virtues, it worries me that | |
some might conclude that life in community is easier or more | |
comfortable than ordinary existence. It is not. But it is certainly | |
more lively, more intense. The agony is actually greater, but so is | |
the joy. [Intensity junkies?] | |
It is like falling in love. When they enter community, people in a | |
very real sense do fall in love with one another en masse. They not | |
only feel like touching and hugging each other, they feel like | |
hugging everyone all at once. During the highest moments the energy | |
level is supernatural. It is ecstatic. | |
Great power, however, can sometimes hold potential danger. The | |
danger of the power of true community is never the creation of mob | |
psychology but of group sexuality. It is only natural when a group | |
of people fall in love with one another that enormous sexual energy | |
should be released. Usually this is not harmful, but it is wise for | |
communities to be aware of their great potential sexuality in order | |
that it does not get out of hand. It may need to be suppressed. It | |
should not, however, be repressed. And it is wise to remember that | |
the experience of other forms of love, "phila" and "agape" (brother | |
or sister love, and divine love) can be even deeper and more | |
rewarding than simple erotic or romantic bonding. The sexuality of | |
community is an expression of its joy, and its energy can be | |
channeled to useful and creative purpose. | |
# Chapter 7, Community maintenance | |
[Entropy happens.] To remain such, therefore, a community must | |
forever attend to its own health. While external service may be its | |
ultimate task, self-scrutiny and the other efforts required for | |
self-maintenance must remain its first priority. | |
Every living organism exists in tension. For there to be life there | |
must be tension. At the level of physiology, the process of this | |
ongoing tension is referred to as homeostasis. We humans hunger for | |
genuine community and will work hard to maintain it precisely because | |
it is the way to live most fully, most vibrantly. Being the most | |
alive of entities, true communities must consequently pay the price | |
of experiencing even more tension than other organizations. | |
The parameters over which tension will most frequently be experienced | |
as communities struggle to maintain themselves are: | |
* Size | |
* Structure | |
* Authority | |
* Inclusivity | |
* Intensity | |
* Commitment | |
* Individuality | |
* Task definition | |
* Ritual | |
Another crucial issue was worked out in the first two years. It was | |
natural for the early members to probe each other and interpret each | |
other's lives. But gradually the group discovered that some degree | |
of chaos was the invariable result. All by itself it came to the | |
wisdom that attempts to heal or convert were generally more | |
destructive than supportive. As it had come to define itself as a | |
group that did not party, so it defined itself quite quickly as "not | |
a therapy group." "We are just, merely and only, a support group," it | |
would tell new members. "It is our purpose to love, not to heal." | |
Since its virtues are so great, the maintenance of genuine community | |
over as long a time as possible is an ideal. However, it is an ideal | |
on general principle, which means it is not necessarily virtuous for | |
each and every community to attempt to be immortal. Communities, | |
like individual human beings, are organisms with different life | |
spans, some of which, as we shall see, are more proper than others. | |
The longevity of a community is no more adequate a measure of its | |
success than the length of an individual human life attests to its | |
fulfillment. | |
We human beings have often been referred to as social animals. But | |
we are not yet community creatures. We are impelled to relate with | |
each other for our survival. But we do not yet relate with the | |
inclusivity, realism, self-awareness, vulnerability, commitment, | |
openness, freedom, equality, and love of genuine community. It is | |
clearly no longer enough to be simply social animals, babbling | |
together at cocktail parties and brawling with each other in business | |
and over boundaries. It is our task--our essential, central, crucial | |
task--to transform ourselves from mere social creatures into | |
community creatures. It is the only way that human evolution will be | |
able to proceed. | |
# Chapter 8, Human nature | |
Perhaps the first step then, toward community on a grander scale lies | |
in the acceptance of the fact that we are not, nor can we ever be, | |
all the same. | |
Because each of us is unique, inevitably we live in a pluralistic | |
society, and we take pride in the United States as a pluralistic | |
society. | |
For the fact of the matter is that we Americans live together only in | |
RELATIVE peace. The relationship in this country between blacks and | |
whites and groups of various ethnic and national origins is generally | |
uneasy at best. The wealthy and the poor are seldom enamored of each | |
other. | |
Through community the problem of pluralism ceases to be a problem. | |
Community is a true alchemical process that transforms the dross of | |
our differences into golden harmony. | |
To understand more deeply how this happens, we must also understand | |
at the most radical level just why we human beings are so different | |
and, at the very same time, just what it is that we all have in | |
common. We must answer the question What is human nature? | |
To most people a myth is a tall tale, a story that is not true or | |
real. Increasingly, however, psychologists are coming to realize | |
that myths are myths precisely because they are true. Myths are | |
found in one form or another in culture after culture, age after age. | |
The reason for their permanence and universality is precisely that | |
they are embodiments of great truths. | |
Dragons are creatures of myth. Long before the fire-breathing | |
fantasies of today's comic books and television cartoons, Christian | |
monks throughout Europe were illuminating manuscripts with | |
painstaking illustrations of dragons. So were Taoist monks in China. | |
And Buddhist monks in Japan. And Hindus in India. And Muslims in | |
Arabia. Why? Why dragons? Why should these mythical beasts be so | |
extraordinarily ecumenical and international? | |
The reason is that dragons are symbols of human beings. And as | |
mythical symbols, they say something very important about the basic | |
truths of human nature. We are snakes with wings, worms that can | |
fly. Reptilelike, we slink close to the ground and are mixed in the | |
mud of our animal nature and the muck of our cultural prejudices. | |
Yet, like birds, we are also of the spirit, capable of soaring in the | |
heavens, transcending, at least for moments, our narrow-mindedness | |
and sinful proclivities. So it is that I sometimes tell my patients | |
that part of their task is to come to terms with their dragonhood, to | |
decide whether they want most to exercise the more slothful or more | |
spiritual aspects of their nature. | |
Even the simplest of myths is multifaceted, because, like dragons, we | |
are multifaceted beings. Indeed, this is the very reason for myths. | |
Our nature is so multifaceted and paradoxical that it cannot be | |
captured in words that represent single, simple categories. Myths | |
are required to contain and embrace the richness of human nature. | |
Because it is multifaceted and complex, simplistic definitions of | |
human nature not only fail to do its richness justice, they are | |
extremely dangerous. Any falsity is dangerous, and the | |
misapprehension of human nature particularly so, since such | |
misapprehensions is one of the foundations of war. | |
The reality of human nature is that we are--and always will | |
be--profoundly different, for the most salient feature of human | |
nature lies in its capacity to be molded by culture and experience in | |
extremely variable ways. Human nature is flexible; it is indeed | |
capable of change. But such a phrase fails to do justice to the | |
glory of human nature. Far better is the phrase "the capacity for | |
transformation." It is the capacity for transformation that is the | |
most essential characteristic of human nature. And again | |
paradoxically, this capacity is both the basic cause of war and the | |
basic cure for war. | |
Since human nature is so subtle and many-faceted, it cannot be | |
captured in a single definition. | |
This capacity we have to change--to transform--ourselves is so | |
extraordinary that at other times when asked "What is human nature?" | |
I facetiously respond that there is no such thing. | |
And nowhere is our capacity for transformation more evident than | |
through the successive stages of psychological growth from infancy, | |
through adolescence, to adulthood. | |
So it is not easy for us to change. But it is possible. And it is | |
our glory as human beings. | |
# Chapter 9, Patterns of transformation | |
The key to community is the acceptance--in fact, the celebration--of | |
our individual and cultural differences. This does not mean, | |
however, that as we struggle toward world community we need to | |
consider all individuals or all cultures and societies equally good | |
or mature. It is simply not true. | |
Thus we need labor under no compulsion to feel the same degree of | |
attraction to each and everyone--or the same degree of taste for | |
every culture. So Gale Webbe wrote in his classic work on the deeper | |
aspects of spiritual growth that the further one grows spiritually, | |
the more and more people one loves and the fewer and fewer people one | |
likes. This is because when we have become sufficiently adept at | |
recognizing our own flaws so as to cure them, we naturally become | |
adept at recognizing the flaws in others. We may not like the people | |
because of these flaws or immaturities, but the further we ourselves | |
grow, the more we become able to accept--to love--them, flaws and all. | |
Over the course of a decade of practicing psychotherapy a strange | |
pattern began to emerge. If people who were religious came to me in | |
pain and trouble, and if they became engaged in the therapeutic | |
process so as to go the whole route, they frequently left therapy as | |
atheists, agnostics, or at least skeptics. On the other hand, if | |
atheists, agnostics, or skeptics came to me in pain or difficulty and | |
became fully engaged, they frequently left therapy as deeply | |
religious people. Same therapy, same therapist, successful but | |
utterly different outcomes from a religious point of view. Again it | |
didn't compute--until I realized that we are not all in the same | |
place spiritually. | |
With that realization came another: there is a pattern of progression | |
through identifiable stages in human spiritual life. But here I will | |
talk about those stages only in general, for individuals are unique | |
and do not always fit neatly into any psychological or spiritual | |
pigeonhole. | |
With that caveat, let me list my own understanding of these stages | |
and the names I have chosen to give them: | |
* STAGE I: Chaotic, antisocial | |
* STAGE II: Formal, institutional | |
* STAGE III: Skeptic, individual | |
* STAGE IV: Mystic, communal | |
Most all young children and perhaps one in five adults fall into | |
Stage I. It is essentially a stage of undeveloped spirituality. I | |
call it because those adults who are in it seem generally incapable | |
of loving others. Although they may pretend to be loving (and think | |
of themselves that way), their relationships with their fellow human | |
beings are all essentially manipulative and self-serving. They | |
really don't give a hoot about anyone else. I call the stage chaotic | |
because these people are basically unprincipled. Being unprincipled, | |
there is nothing that governs them except their own will. And since | |
the will from moment to moment can go this way or that, there is a | |
lack of integrity to their being. | |
"Mysticism," a much-maligned word, is not an easy one to define. It | |
takes many forms. Yet through the ages, mystics of every shade of | |
religious belief have spoken of unity, of an underlying connectedness | |
between things: between men and women, between us and the other | |
creatures and even inanimate matter as well, a fitting together | |
according to an ordinarily invisible fabric underlying the cosmos. | |
Mysticism also obviously has to do with mystery. Mystics acknowledge | |
the enormity of the unknown, but rather than being frightened by it, | |
they seek to penetrate ever deeper into it that they may understand | |
more--even with the realization that the more they understand, the | |
greater the mystery will become. While Stage IV men and women will | |
enter religion in order to approach mystery, people in Stage II, to a | |
considerable extent, enter religion in order to escape from it. | |
The process of spiritual development I have described is highly | |
analogous to the development of community. Stage I people are | |
frequently pretenders; they pretend they are loving and pious, | |
covering up their lack of principles. The first, primitive stage of | |
group formation--pseudocommunity--is similarly characterized by | |
pretense. | |
Stage II people have begun the work of submitting themselves to | |
principle--the law. But they do not yet understand the spirit of the | |
law. Consequently they are legalistic, parochial, and dogmatic. | |
They are threatened by anyone who thinks differently from them, and | |
so regard it as their responsibility to convert or save the other 90 | |
to 99 percent of humanity who are not "true believers." It is this | |
same style of functioning that characterizes the second stage of the | |
community process in which the group members, rather than accepting | |
one another try vehemently to fix one another. The chaos that | |
results is not unlike that existing among the various feuding | |
denominations or seen within or between the world's different | |
religions. | |
Stage III, a phase of questioning, is analogous to the crucial stage | |
of emptiness in community formation. In reaching for community the | |
members of a group must question themselves. "Is my particular | |
theology so certain--so true and complete--as to justify my | |
conclusion that these people are not saved?" they may ask. Or "Could | |
I have swallowed the party line in thinking that all religious people | |
are fanatics?" Indeed, such questioning is the required beginning of | |
the emptying process. Conversely, individuals remain stuck in Stage | |
III precisely because they do not doubt deeply enough. They must | |
begin to doubt even their own doubt. | |
Does this mean, then, that a true community is a group of all Stage | |
IV people? Paradoxically the answer is yes and no. It is no because | |
the individual members are hardly capable of growing so rapidly as to | |
totally discard their customary styles of thinking when they return | |
from the group to their usual worlds. But it is yes because in | |
community the members have learned how to behave in a Stage IV manner | |
in relation to one another. In other words, out of love and | |
commitment to the whole, virtually all of us are capable of | |
transcending our backgrounds and limitations. So it is that genuine | |
community is so much more than the sum of its parts. It is, in | |
truth, a mystical body. | |
Aldous Huxley labeled mysticism "the perennial philosophy" because | |
the mystical way of thinking and being has existed in all cultures | |
and all times since the dawn of recorded history. Although a small | |
minority, mystics of all religions the world over have demonstrated | |
an amazing commonality, unity. Unique though they might be in their | |
individual personhood, they have largely escaped free | |
from--transcended--those human differences that are cultural. | |
# Chapter 10, Emptiness | |
Meditation can probably best be defined as the process by which we | |
can empty our minds. | |
But why? It is said that nature abhors a vacuum. So it is that the | |
moment we become empty something comes into our emptiness. The | |
virtue of meditation is that whatever comes into emptiness is beyond | |
our control. It is the unforeseen, the unexpected, the new. And it | |
is only from the unforeseen, the unexpected, the new that we learn. | |
Throughout the ages mystics have also been known as "contemplatives." | |
Contemplation and meditation are intimately related. Contemplation | |
is a process by which we think about--mull over and reflect upon--the | |
unexpected things that happen to us in our moments of meditation and | |
emptiness. True contemplation, therefore, requires meditation. It | |
requires that we stop thinking before we are truly able to think with | |
any originality. | |
However, I use the word "contemplative" in the broader sense to refer | |
to a life style rich in reflection, meditation, and prayer. It is a | |
life style dedicated to maximum awareness. | |
In fact, it is not even necessary to believe in God. For God, should | |
you so choose, substitute the word "life." If you continually ask | |
questions of life and are continually willing to be open and empty | |
enough to hear life's answer and to ponder the meaning, you will be a | |
contemplative. | |
True communities are invariably contemplative: they are self-aware. | |
It is one of the primary characteristics of community. | |
The ultimate purpose of emptiness, then, is to make room. [Room for] | |
the different, the unexpected, the new, the better. Most | |
important... the Stranger, the other person. We cannot even let the | |
other person into our hearts or minds unless we empty ourselves. We | |
can truly listen to him or truly hear her only out of emptiness. | |
The unconscious is always one step ahead of the conscious mind, and | |
it is therefore impossible ever to KNOW that you are doing the right | |
thing (since knowing is a function of consciousness). However, if | |
your will is steadfastly to the good, and if you are willing to | |
suffer FULLY when the good is ambiguous, your unconscious will always | |
be one step ahead of your conscious mind in the right direction. In | |
other words, you will do the right thing even though you will not | |
have the consolation of knowing at the time that it is the right | |
thing. | |
Those who seek certainty, or who claim certainty in their knowledge, | |
cannot tolerate ambiguity. The word "ambiguous" means "uncertain" or | |
"doubtful," or "capable of being understood in more than one way." | |
And because that means not knowing--perhaps not ever being able to | |
know--we have great trouble with ambiguity in our culture. It is not | |
until we move into Stage IV of our spiritual growth that we even | |
begin to become comfortable with ambiguity. We start to realize that | |
not everything is "black or white," that there are multiple | |
dimensions to things, often with contradictory meanings. So it is | |
that mystics of all cultures and religions speak in terms of | |
paradox--not in terms of "either/or" but in terms of "both/and." The | |
capacity to accept ambiguity and to think paradoxically is both one | |
of the qualities of emptiness and one of the requirements for | |
peacemaking. | |
# Chapter 11, Vulnerability | |
Openness requires of us vulnerability--the ability, even the | |
willingness, to be wounded. ... The point is that if you were | |
deliberately to put your arm into a grinding piece of machinery, you | |
would be an utter idiot. You would be damaged for naught. But if | |
you attempt to live your life without ever being hurt, you won't be | |
able to live at all, except perhaps in a very softly padded cell. | |
There is no way that we can live a rich life unless we are willing to | |
suffer repeatedly, experiencing depression and despair, fear and | |
anxiety, grief and sadness, anger and the agony of forgiving, | |
confusion and doubt, criticism and rejection. A life lacking these | |
emotional upheavals will not only be useless to ourselves, it will be | |
useless to others. We cannot heal without being willing to be hurt. | |
# Chapter 12, Integration and integrity | |
We psychologists use a verb that is the opposite of the verb "to | |
integrate": "to compartmentalize." By it we refer to the remarkable | |
capacity we human beings have to take matters that are properly | |
related to each other and put them in separate, airtight mental | |
compartments where they don't rub up against each other and cause us | |
any pain. | |
Integrity is never painless. It requires that we let matters rub up | |
against each other, that we fully experience the tension of | |
conflicting needs, demands, and interests, that we even be | |
emotionally torn apart by them. | |
Since integrity is never painless, so community is never painless. | |
Community continually urges both itself and its individual members | |
painfully, yet joyously, into ever deeper levels of integrity. | |
Five years later still, early in my psychiatry training, I was | |
taught: "What the patient does not say is more important than what he | |
or she does say." | |
My favorite light-bulb joke is "How many Zen Buddhists does it take | |
to change a light bulb?" The answer: "Two: one to change the light | |
bulb and one to NOT change the light bulb." | |
Lest this seem silly rather than profound to the Western | |
one-dimensional mind, let me say that I do not consider that this is | |
simply "my" book. I have written it only because other people have | |
NOT written it: publishers, editors, booksellers, farmers, | |
carpenters, and others--all of whose labor was required to enable me | |
to perform this particular labor. | |
Behavior is the key. [Written like a true psychiatrist.] There are | |
atheists who behave like Christian saints and properly professing | |
Christians who behave like criminals--who are criminals. No one knew | |
this any better than Jesus, who instructed us: "By their fruits you | |
shall know them." | |
A consequence of this reality is that, while all forms of thinking | |
should be tolerated, some forms of behavior should not be. | |
... the attempt to exclude individuals because of their beliefs, | |
however silly or primitive, is always destructive to community. | |
# Chapter 13, Community and communication | |
Communication takes many forms: written and oral or verbal and | |
nonverbal. Similarly, there are many standards by which we can judge | |
the effectiveness of communication. Is it clear or unclear, verbose | |
or precise, thorough or limited, prosaic or poetic? These are just a | |
few of the parameters for such judgment. There is one standard, | |
however, that takes precedence over all others: does communication | |
lead to greater or lesser understanding among human beings? If | |
communication improves the quality of the relationship between two or | |
more people, we must judge it from an overall standpoint to be | |
effective. On the other hand, if it creates confusion, | |
misunderstanding, distortions, suspicion, or antipathy in human | |
relations, we must conclude it to be ineffective... | |
The overall purpose of human communication is--or should | |
be--reconciliation. It should ultimately serve to lower or remove | |
the walls and barriers of misunderstanding that unduly separate us | |
human beings from one another. | |
But the principal purpose of effective communication needs to be | |
borne in mind. If it is not, the communication becomes task-avoiding. | |
The rules of community-making are the rules for effective | |
communication. The essence of what occurs in a community-building | |
workshop, for instance, is that the participants learn these rules. | |
Since communication is the bedrock of all human relationships, the | |
principles of community have profound application to any situation in | |
which two or more people are gathered together. | |
Not only are there basic equations between community, communication, | |
and peace but also between them and the concepts of integration and | |
integrity. | |
# Chapter 14, Dimensions of the arms race | |
Unfortunately, the arms race is very much an institution. It has | |
buildings, bricks and mortar, and real estate aplenty. When I was in | |
the army, one of its basic training centers, Fort Leonard Wood, was | |
the fourth-largest city in Missouri. As for budget, the arms race | |
has the largest in the world... to which the citizens of the United | |
States contribute approximately a third. It is not only big | |
business, it is the biggest business, employing tens of millions of | |
men and women. | |
Recently I had the opportunity to reread a book written in 1961 by | |
the political scientist Mulford Sibley, Unilateral Initiatives and | |
Disarmament. We speak of "future shock" and "megatrends" and bemoan | |
the rapidity of social change. Yet every word of Sibley's book is as | |
appropriate to the situation today as it was when written. As far as | |
the arms race is concerned, NOTHING HAS CHANGED. There is something | |
about this lack of change that not only smacks of | |
institutionalization but also inherently smells foul, even malicious. | |
It is a quality of institutions that they tend to perpetuate | |
themselves regardless of their appropriateness. The arms race is not | |
just going to go away. If it is ever going to end, it is going to do | |
so only by being ACTIVELY TORN DOWN. | |
Peacemaking, therefore, requires a call to action. | |
Ultimately all that is required for peace is that we overcome our | |
lethargy and resistance to change. To do that, however, we much | |
encounter our first enemy: this sense of helplessness. | |
The strongest and most insidious root of the arms race is the | |
extraordinary lack of concern about it. This apathy in response to | |
gross insanity is itself multirooted, but perhaps the most | |
significant factor involved is the general sense of helplessness | |
among us. | |
----- | |
The root of helplessness that I believe to be the strongest is | |
ignorance or lack of knowledge. People feel most helpless in the | |
face of the arms race, I suspect, simply because they do not | |
understand it. And because they do not understand it, they cannot | |
see the way out. It is not well understood by most psychologists and | |
theologians because they lack the knowledge of politics and | |
economics. Worst of all, it is even less understood by the | |
politicians and business people who are primarily "in charge" of it | |
because they don't understand the psychology or theology involved. | |
And, finally, none of them has much understanding because most of | |
them lack the knowledge of community. With that knowledge, combined | |
with an understanding of the many interrelated factors that | |
perpetuate the arms race, we need no longer feel helpless. There is | |
a way out. | |
Narcissism is the psychological side of our survival instinct, and we | |
could not survive without it. Yet an unbridled narcissism--what | |
Erich Fromm called malignant narcissism--is the principle precursor | |
of either group or individual evil. | |
How to discern between healthy and unhealthy nationalism is a | |
critical task in our shrinking world. For the reality is that there | |
are some places on the globe where the development of nationalism | |
needs to be encouraged while simultaneously there are others where | |
further development of nationalism needs to be vigorously discouraged. | |
The key to the discernment between healthy and unhealthy nationalism | |
clearly, then, centers around this issue of identity development, in | |
which the notion of the self--the "I-entity"--as a separate entity is | |
an illusion. We are all, in reality, interdependent. Ultimately we | |
are called out of a national narcissism and away from purely local | |
identities toward a primary identity with humanity and a state of | |
global community. Still, one must possess something before it can be | |
given up. We cannot begin the work of forsaking our identity until | |
we have developed one in the first place. So it is that the proper | |
pattern for the development of nations is, first, growth into | |
nationalism, then growth out of and beyond nationalism. The | |
discernment between healthy and unhealthy nationalism, therefore, | |
requires that we have an accurate sense of where a nation is in its | |
historical course of development. | |
Beyond that, the tests for healthy as opposed to unhealthy | |
nationalism as much the same as those to distinguish between good and | |
bad thinking: What is missing? How integrated is it? How much has | |
the person consciously tried to include all the relative variables | |
into her or his thinking? [Basically, critical thinking skills.] | |
# Chapter 15, The Christian church in the United States | |
The arms race is against everything that Christianity supposedly | |
stands for. It stands for nationalism; Jesus practiced | |
internationalism. The arms race stands for hatred and enmity; Jesus | |
preached forgiveness. It stands for pride; Jesus said, "Blessed are | |
the poor in spirit." It is supported by the weapons manufacturers and | |
the bellicose; Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." Its | |
central dynamic is the search for invulnerability; Jesus exemplified | |
vulnerability. | |
Why then has the Christian Church not fought against the arms race | |
from the beginning? What happened to Jesus? | |
How could the Church so easily have lost Jesus' legacy of community | |
and fallen away from his commandment that we love one another? | |
The answer is fear. To be a true Christian one must live | |
dangerously. The battle against evil is dangerous. | |
By what failure of Christian doctrine did Christianity become largely | |
empty ritual and no longer a way of life? | |
But I can with certainty answer it in relation to the Church in the | |
United States today. For it has become apparent to me that the vast | |
majority of churchgoing Christians in America are heretics. The | |
leading--indeed, traditional--heresy of the day I call | |
pseudodocetism. It is this predominant heresy that intellectually | |
allows the Church to fail to teach its followers to follow Jesus. | |
The majority of American Christians have had enough catechism or | |
confirmation classes to know the paradoxical Christian doctrine that | |
Jesus is both human and divine. What is meant by pseudodocetism, | |
however, is that they then put 99.5 percent of their money on his | |
divinity and 0.5 percent on his humanity. It is a most comfortable | |
disproportion. It puts Jesus way up there in the clouds, seated at | |
the right hand of the Father, in all his glory, 99.5 percent divine, | |
and it leaves us way down here on earth scratching out a very | |
ordinary existence according to worldly rules, 99.5 percent human. | |
Because that gulf is so great, American Christians are not seriously | |
encouraged to attempt to bridge it. When Jesus said all those things | |
about being the way and that we were to take up our cross and follow | |
him, and that we were to be like him and might even do greater things | |
that he did, he couldn't possibly have been serious, could he? I | |
mean, he was divine, and we're just human. So it is, through the | |
large-scale ignoring of Jesus' very real humanity, that we are | |
allowed to worship him in name without the obligation of following in | |
his footsteps. Pseudodocetism lets us off the hook. | |
# Chapter 16, The United States government | |
What politicians chiefly do in Washington, I came to learn, is fight. | |
And they fight hard. They also fight dirty. And, finally, they | |
mostly fight each other. | |
What they fight about mainly is money in the form of budgets. A | |
budget is a concretization of priorities. But... Most of it is to | |
preserve or enlarge one's own slice of the budgetary pie at the | |
expense of someone else's slice. Deals may be cut, but I have | |
otherwise never saw a budget worked out cooperatively. Cooperation | |
is not big in Washington. | |
Nor is communication. The very first thing I was taught on the job | |
was the number-one unwritten rule: "Be very careful whom you | |
communicate with..." | |
One of the few things that keeps our government even vaguely sane is | |
the practice called leaking. One may think it generally occurs when | |
a government official leaks some piece of information to the press. | |
That, of course, does happen and is important, but actually the major | |
part of leaking consists of leaks within the government itself--when | |
an official from one department sneaks across the territorial | |
boundaries to provide information to another department. Indeed, | |
there is a special name for this kind of leaking: "whistle blowing." | |
Within the system it is regarded as the most serious offense and its | |
commission is dangerous. The penalties can be severe. | |
Such is the overall pattern of communication within our government. | |
As communication goes, so goes community. ... There is no community | |
within the government. It is pervaded by an atmosphere of constant | |
competitiveness, hostility, and distrust. | |
"That's just the way the world works," the so-called realists would | |
proclaim. Indeed, they would argue that it is downright | |
constitutional. They [our founders] very deliberately built conflict | |
into the system. | |
No, the Constitution does not require us to have a government totally | |
at war with itself, a government devoid of cooperation, staffed by | |
the mindless at the bottom and the predators at the top. | |
... government executives behave as if their purpose in being | |
together in Washington is to fight with each other. | |
Yet that is not their purpose. Their task is to govern. And it | |
could be presumed that their task could better be accomplished if | |
they generally worked with rather than against one another. A group | |
bogged down in a task-avoidance assumption--in this case fighting--is | |
remarkably inefficient. | |
Since the time of the Roosevelts we have developed a macho image of | |
the president as a superman who can know everything, who can be | |
almost everywhere at once, who can be single-handedly in total | |
control of the entire ship of the state. An image is exactly what it | |
is, and it is utterly unreal. No wonder that in 1980 we finally had | |
to elect an actor to fill the role. | |
The macho image of the president as a kind of superman has been | |
created and maintained because the people have wanted it. We have | |
wanted a Big Daddy who has all the answers, who will take care of the | |
bully down the block, who will not only give us a safe and secure | |
home but one that is luxurious and where we will be protected from | |
all hard knocks. The American presidency is the reflection of the | |
task-avoidance assumption of dependency, a creation of our own | |
childhood fantasies. | |
I look forward to the day when, asked at a press conference something | |
such as "Mr. President [or Ms. President], what do you plan to do in | |
El Salvador?," our Chief Executive will be able to respond: "Frankly, | |
I don't yet know much about El Salvador. I've been studying it for | |
several months, but it's a complicated situation down there. The | |
people have a long history and a culture very different from our own. | |
To the best of my knowledge their situation doesn't seem to be | |
critical, so until we have a more complete understanding of things we | |
won't plan to do anything in El Salvador." | |
We are all confronted with the task of achieving maturity. | |
# Chapter 17, Empowerment | |
We know there are rules for good communication. These rules work. | |
Yet they are seldom either taught or practiced. Consequently most | |
people, including government, business, and religious leaders, do not | |
know how to relate to each other. | |
The rules of communication are best taught and only learned through | |
the practice of community-making. | |
What to do now? | |
Start communities. | |
Start one in your church. Start one in your school. Start one in | |
your neighborhood. | |
Start your own community. | |
It won't be easy. You'll be scared. You will often feel that you | |
don't know what you're doing. You'll have a difficult time | |
persuading people to join you. Many initially won't want to make the | |
commitment, and those who are willing to [they] will be as scared as | |
you. Once you get started it will be frustrating. There will be | |
chaos. Most will consider dropping out, and some probably will. But | |
hang in there. Push toward into emptiness. It will be painful. | |
There will be anger, anxiety, depression, even despair. But keep | |
going into the night. Don't stop halfway. It may seem like dying, | |
but push on. And then suddenly you will find yourself in the clear | |
air of the mountaintop, and you'll be laughing and crying and feeling | |
more alive than you have in years--maybe more alive than you've ever | |
been. | |
But don't feel you have to do anything. Remember that being takes | |
precedence over doing. | |
But as you search for people to join you, there are two guidelines. | |
One is to be wary of people who have a very big axe to grind. All of | |
us have our little axes, and it is proper that we should have pet | |
causes and projects. We do not have to give these up to form | |
community, but we do have to have the capacity to lay them aside, | |
"bracket" [contain] them or transcend them, when appropriate, in the | |
interests of community. A person who lacks the maturity for such | |
bracketing or transcending will not make a good candidate. | |
The other guideline is to seek out people who are different from you. | |
If you are a dove, try to find at least one hawk for your community. | |
You need hawks. Since birds of a feather tend to flock together, it | |
will not be easy to find women and men different from you. Only | |
remember that genuine community is inclusive and that if you are a | |
wealthy white Democrat, you have the most to learn from the poor, the | |
blacks and Chicanos, and the Republicans. You need their gifts to be | |
whole. | |
Once your community is established, there is yet another guideline: | |
remain inclusive. | |
One of the things a calling to be an individual of integrity means is | |
a calling to speak out, to be outspoken. We are called to overcome a | |
psychology of helplessness, of reticence. If we see a lie, we are | |
called to name it a lie. If we see insanity, we are called to name | |
it as such. Don't avoid the subject of the arms race at a party just | |
because it might be divisive. Yes, there are some who might find it | |
upsetting, but perhaps they need to be upset. There are others who | |
will respond to your outspokenness with gratitude for that leadership | |
that gives them the courage to speak out in turn. | |
author: Peck, M. Scott (Morgan Scott), 1936-2005 | |
LOC: HT65 .P44 | |
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/M._Scott_Peck | |
tags: book,community,counterculture,non-fiction | |
title: The Different Drum | |
# Tags | |
book | |
community | |
counterculture | |
non-fiction |