Lost in the crowd
Community. It is a pretty powerful word–a pretty powerful idea. I have to admit that it is also somewhat foreign to me. I am ever in contact with the idea because of my study of religion–in fact, one of the “not-definitions” of religion is community. But, when it comes down to it, I do not feel like I have much community.
I have some good friends who are very important to me and who I definitely do not spend enough time with. When I talk about community, I do not talk about individual friendships or groups of friends and associates. I am talking about being a part of something bigger than oneself–about having a network of people to invest in, to lean on, and to support. I’ve tried to find groups who share passions that I do: atheists, hockey fans/players, readers, etc… While I’ve met good people and even found groups to be a part of, I’ve never felt like I belong.
Some of that I attribute to my childhood. Until I got into the middle of my freshman year of high school, I moved every year or two–three times I moved states. Each time, I had to give up everything I knew–everyone I knew–and start over. I look at pride with being able to be self-sufficient and to find the strength I need to get through in myself, but I often wonder what it would be like to feel part of something bigger.
The other side of the coin, though, is that community often includes necessary exclusion–by definition, there are outsiders. Sometimes this is nominal and sometimes it is highly marginalizing. I have joked about this before, but I really do feel marginalized sometimes. A big issue is religion–not believing in God (and the lack of belief being important to me) makes me quite a pariah–and not being militant about it makes me feel distant from many, if not most, atheists.
There is something about atheism which breeds militancy. Someone very important to me recently said, on an unrelated but similar topic, “I don’t want to spend my life on the defensive.” I think that feeling plays into it–what better defense than an offense? I know I went through a period of militancy, but I just felt empty and hollow–I don’t hate religion, I don’t hate people who believe in God. I do hate ignorant group-think. I do hate blind thinking and perception. I do hate intolerance. But none of these are unique to religion or adherents.
Intolerance is something which can come along with community, especially community with boundaries of righteousness. And the greatest irony is that the stronger the walls that a community builds, the more they are at risk from isolating themselves from society, which in turns causes inward focus on the community, which in turn builds stronger walls…
One of the areas of religion I have studied is cults and one of the characteristics which people first identity as “cultish” is strong isolation. Give up your family, your friends, your past–they are tainted, we have the answer. That sort of stuff. But people are too heavy handed with their use of the word cult. It is, important I think, to understand how any strong community risks breeding this sentiment, especially from outsiders. The challenge is finding a way to balance community and interaction with the greater society.
I know I want to feel a part of a greater community–like I belong. But the honest truth is that I will never, ever give up my ability or interest in judging a person on his/her individual merit for a sense of belonging. I would rather be entirely alone and honest with myself and my relationships with others. I will never be a part of something which draws lines and says “you are in or you are out.” Those of you who know me or have been reading my writing for long enough know that among the top of my frustrations is either/or ideas. If my options are “all or nothing” then there is a serious problem with my options.
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Comments
Community doesn’t need to be about exclusion. Sometimes it’s about a group of people opting-in to socializing.
When I read Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point,” I came across the idea of people who are social connectors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connector_%28social%29
It really appealed to me, and since then, I’ve striven to increase that tendency in myself. Maybe the communities that I’m a part of would have formed without my efforts, but it felt so difficult to overcome people’s emotional inertia.
I never joined a cult, but I did go to Caltech, which is close. They put us under emotional stresss, give us bad food, messed with our sleep schedules, isolated us from our previous support structures, told us how to think, and made us have sex with the charismatic leader.
Well, maybe not the last one.
I don’t think you -need- to give up anything to feel like part of a community. Only really weird ones demand that of you. There are lots of communities that don’t fit the either-or model.
I find that in a lot of ways, I am as marginalized as I choose to be. Even as I struggle with my own religion and community, I am continually surprised by the support of my close friends in that community.
It’s impossible to predict how things will develop in the future, but I am encouraged by people’s willingness to be open to new ideas and love me even when I am challenging their world view. It is odd to me how I spent almost two years feeling so distant and cut off from all those people, including my family, while I was still very much in the thick of things and on the outside, everything seemed to be business as usual. Now that I’ve been able to be more open with them and with myself, I feel very connected to them, even if our ideas are so divergent.
It’s very hard to get me to commit or identify myself with a group. I’ve never had a bumper sticker on my car. Ever. I always seem to have one foot in and one foot out to try to maintain an “objective” point of view. So, being able to feel connection to community is a big deal for me. (Please see blog post: http://the-exponent.com/2008/05/22/the-mormon-who-would-be-atheist/ )
For the record, I did not intend to bad mouth community in this post. I may have ended up expressing more of my frustrations, but the ultimate point is that community should be a good thing, but it can be damaging when it is TOO inclusive (or perhaps, more accurately, TOO exclusive). What I see expressed in these comments, and what I feel myself, is that community should not be built around dogma, but around relationships. A healthy community, in my little mind, is one that respects individuals for what they bring, not whether or not they subscribe to a certain creed or idea (unless that idea is truly harmful).
catbonny: Thanks for your comments. I really need to get to a Quaker meeting. I feel a reluctance to do so that I don’t really understand.
John: Thanks for your comments. I think you are absolute right–there are a lot of, if not most, communities which do not draw hard lines. And community does not need to be, itself, hard defined–any group of interconnected people becomes community and even though in my post I tried to distance myself from the idea, even small groups of friends are community and, in fact, some of the most important community.
Zenaida: Thanks for your comments. Especially this one: “I find that in a lot of ways, I am as marginalized as I choose to be.” I find this idea very moving and it’s giving me a lot to think about. When I feel lonely, or like I don’t belong, often I come to the realization that it’s all in my head. I truly believe that most people are good and compassion goes much longer and farther than being able to repeat a motto and creed. The bond between people is not in shared doctrines but in shared values.
Ambiguity of belief and no need for ‘all or nothing defintions’ is definitely what draws me to Quakerism.
This makes me think about being part of a community of pretty strong evangelical Chrisians, and a community of undefinied and very accepting and tolerant Quakers.
My initial conversion into Christianity definitely made me very exclusive. I lost my best friend in fifth grade because she wouldn’t convert, and I thought I couldn’t associate with her.
I guess what I am trying to say is that it feels good to be a part of community that is so undefined belief-wise (other than by it’s values), tolerant, and accepting. I appreciate that being a part of a new faith community doesn’t alienate me from my former faith Christian faith community, it just encourages me to understand them more.
I am not trying to plug Friends as much as saying thanks for this post… it has me thinking a lot about my current community.