Saturday, January 07, 2017

Start With Community



Progressives are pretty pessimistic these days. That's because, Murray Dobbins writes, they've forgotten the importance of community. Margaret Thatcher famously said, "There's no such thing as society, only individuals." That notion -- with a misguided push from Ayn Rand -- became the prime directive behind neo-liberalism.

Dobbins believes that renewal does not begin with a search for individual leaders but with a search for community:

Peter Block in his insightful 2008 book, Community: The Structure of Belonging, dissects the preoccupation of citizens with leaders and leadership:
"It is this love of leaders that limits our capacity to create an alternative future. It proposes that the only real accountability in the world is at the top…The effect of buying into this is that it lets citizens off the hook and breeds citizen dependency and entitlement."
When citizens don't feel accountable, they increasingly act as consumers. Beyond neoliberalism's obvious imperatives such as free trade, privatization, tax breaks for the wealthy, etc., its most pernicious impact on society is the destruction of community. The greatest weapon the 1% has is our isolation from each other. And all efforts to defeat neoliberalism, no matter how valiant, inspired, smart or sustained, will fail unless they somehow ultimately contribute to the rebuilding of community. Unless and until that process begins in earnest, the systematic isolation of individuals and families from each other and from community will make garnering significant citizen power impossible.

That's an important insight. Atomize citizens and they become powerless. Allow them freedom and a desire to assemble, and they become -- not consumers -- but a force to be reckoned with:

After 40 years of neoliberal social (and economic) engineering, we are at a stage where as consumers we have virtually endless choices -- a mind-numbing variety of choices streamed at us at a speed and volume that leaves us stupefied -- shell-shocked by choice, diverted from our possible lives by shopping. But our choices as citizens are now so constrained by the erosion and corruption of democracy and the endless promotion of small government that our citizenship has atrophied.

The dominant form of politics in fact reduces most people to passive consumers of politics just as they are consumers of goods. As consumers of politics rather than intentional citizens, we simultaneously abdicate responsibility and end up indulging in the culture of complaint. Says Block, "Consumers give up their power. They believe that their own needs can best be satisfied by the actions of others..." whether they be public service providers, elected officials or store managers. 

As long as progressives buy into the notion that politics is product and that salvation can be found in individual leaders, they are buying into neo-liberalism. The difference between individuality and individualism is the difference between -- in Mark Twain's words -- the lightning and the lightning bug.

Renewal starts with community.

Image: IM Publications


6 comments:

Rural said...

I agree 100% with this Owen, it needs to be a bottom up effort not a top down directive and that starts with community. As someone who has been trying to encourage increased communications (mostly online) in my small rural community I can say with some authority that it is VERY difficult to get folks to come together and discuss ideas to better the general well being of their community let alone anything broader.

Lorne said...

The fragmentation of society we are experiencing is clearly aided and abetted by the countless baubles that drive our consumerism, Owen. Until people decide to reengage in the real, as opposed to the virtual worlds offered by social media, which promote a destructive narcissism, little renewal seems possible.

Owen Gray said...

I'm one of five children, Rural. It's difficult to reach a consensus between the five of us. Getting a broader community to reach a consensus is a much more difficult task. Community is the place to start. But it's not going to be easy.

Owen Gray said...

I agree, Lorne. When you're drowning in consumer choices, critical thought takes a lot of work. A community based upon similar consumer choices will disintegrate at the first sign of a challenge. A society of values which have been achieved through critical thinking will survive -- despite challenges.

Anonymous said...


Re,
It is this love of leaders that limits our capacity to create an alternative future. It proposes that the only real accountability in the world is at the top…The effect of buying into this is that it lets citizens off the hook and breeds citizen dependency and entitlement.

This is the old false Gods and idols argument, only we still have to realise we have no God!

RE,
After 40 years of neoliberal social (and economic) engineering, we are at a stage where as consumers we have virtually endless choices -- a mind-numbing variety of choices streamed at us at a speed and volume that leaves us stupefied -- shell-shocked by choice,

Whoa!! endless consumer choices!
Go in to any mall in Canada or the USA and you will see the same rebranded products differentiated by logo and price.

With due respect; we have endless choices of the same colour coded bullshit; the same goes for Government...

TB

Owen Gray said...

You do have a point about rebranding, TB. Neo-liberalism has been rebranded several times. The faces who sell it change. But the product stays the same. That helps explain its longevity.