A while ago I joined what at first appeared to be a local community goods and services scheme. It includes the sharing of skills and abilities in exchange for goods, or other skills.
What soon became clear, however, was that this collection of individuals, and the interactions that the organisation instigated, became stronger as a community. The differences became of less importance than the advantages of a communal approach.
People who would never, in other circumstances, share the time and space with each other, became at least cooperators, and at best friends and advocates.
Of course, each person entered the scheme for their own reasons, but the group advantage always outweigh any small negative that may impinge on an individual. Overall, all the members gained significantly more than they may have lost.
As with any successful scheme, more and more people wanted to join. This put more pressure on the structure, and required more intricately defined rules to ensure that it could still function.
And, although some of the original members weren’t overly impressed, they still saw the overall advantages the new members brought.
But life is never straightforward. And, although the members were generally positive about the scheme, some members of their families, with only a partial awareness of the overall structure, saw the scheme as the cause of other problems in their lives.
And the more they complained, the more complained. Even though their problems weren’t related to the scheme, it was an easy target.
And the more complex it became, the more time the scheme members had to give to keeping it working, and it started to become less clear how the balance of advantage was working, but it was still there.
And then the whole thing was thrown into doubt. The chairman, for it was a white, middle class male, decided that it would be a good idea to ask the family members what they thought the scheme should do.
The assumption that the status quo would always prevail, because it always had, was proved wrong, not by much, but wrong.
And all of a sudden all hell broke loose. All the petty little family feuds found a scapegoat, and slaughtered it.
Instead of taking a step back and looking to approach the dissention with rationality, both sides set their positions in concrete stubbornness, and proceeded to throw every baby out with the bath water.
And a community that had become a focus of peace, organisation and cooperation began to turn back into the divided and isolated world of previous years.
Diversity is unity, separateness is isolation.
When will we ever learn.
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