A Community Manifesto

Chris Wright

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000151862
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Aménagement urbain et paysager

Civilizations fail when they become trapped in a way of looking at the world that no longer works. For many, globalization is pushing us to the edge of disaster - an onward march of blinkered vision, encouraging passivity, moral blindness and a culture of dependency. A Community Manifesto is an elegantly written polemic offering a new way of looking at our social, cultural and economic realities. Tackling the crucial dimensions of personal responsibility, consensus and community, it shows how we can find a new language through which we can reinvigorate our individual and social lives, developing the resourcefulness we need but which proves so difficult to cultivate. The vision it presents is persuasive and very timely - only by building community can human society evolve and progress.

Regaining a Sense of Direction

Most people view the prospect of taking a personal stance against the institutional juggernaut with the same enthusiasm that they might exhibit if they were confronted by a battle tank, armed only with sticks. It simply does not seem possible. Surely, they say, we must fight fire with fire. We need legislation that will outlaw speculation, ensure that farming returns to sustainability and creates more local accountability. It is the responsibility of government, not us as individuals.

Although government can clearly help or hinder the struggle to create a more humane society, it should be clear that only a fundamental shift in the way in which we all think about, and act in, the world will be sufficient to break free from our current, disastrous course. At this stage, new laws might create a more aesthetically pleasing tank — brightly coloured, with swathes of flowers around its turret — but they would not alter the nature of the machine. Our increasing dependence on legislation is, after all, one of the main consequences of the way in which currently we perceive reality.

Only a completely different approach to solving what is essentially the problem of being alive will do: a way of acting in the world that relates to the industrial/technological complex in the same way as that did to the feudal system that preceded it (both of which, in their time, provided some kind of answer to the question of how to pursue the good life). And, just as the Industrial Revolution did not spring ready formed on to the social landscape, so we need to begin to create the prototypes of the new age within the body of the old. The Coalbrookdales, and the Abraham Darbys, the Adam Smiths and the Richard Arkwrights are already in our midst if we could but recognize them.

To be sure, the Industrial Revolution could not have happened unless the social and political conditions existed to allow it to take its first tentative steps. Once established, it was unstoppable, but it is clear from experience elsewhere in the world that its emergence was by no means assured. The same is true of the changes that are necessary today. There are many conscious and unconscious forces that will be deployed to prevent them taking place. We should be grateful for, and do our best to support, the quasi democracy that allows us a significant freedom of expression and action. We should also push for the changes that will encourage a local emphasis in all aspects of our lives, but we should not use that commitment to blind us to the need to review and change many aspects of the way that we each personally engage with the world at large.

The nature of language suggests that, if I behave differently, the world is, literally, a different place. By implication, if enough people behave differently, the world will have changed forever and all the structures, ways of organizing social relations and laws that existed before will simply have become redundant. All that will be left will be a shell. Like a factory that has been closed down, the potential to create a product remains, but life has moved elsewhere, leaving the buildings and plant to decay and turn to dust. Ultimately, they will be pulled down and the land will be used in a new and more appropriate way. What once seemed so permanent and impossible to challenge will have been forgotten. Many may mourn the passing of the familiar for a while, but their nostalgia will be transitory as the claims of today take precedence over the memories of yesteryear.

We start the process of significantly changing our behaviour when we begin to look at the world through different eyes. The symbiotic relationship between language and perception begins the subtle shift, altering what we see and the words we use to express our experience. Priorities then change and we do things differently. Thinking and doing have combined in a way that ensures that there is no going back. To think in another way without that transformation being reflected in our actions is to fail to implement the new potential that we embody; to act other than in our habitual ways without pondering on what we have done is to waste energy and miss an opportunity to act consistently and with a sense of purpose.

Language is the key, and trying to evolve a set of concepts that pulls together and moves us on from the jumble of overlapping insights outlined in the previous section is the challenge. From that analysis it should be clear that the aim is not to work out a coherent thought-system (something that becomes fixed and inflexible in its turn), but a way of facing reality that acknowledges the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of impression and interpretation. These are the difficulties that are inherent in being and, by their nature, they are best confronted at the individual level because it is there, and only there, that they are wholly manifest. To continually address the issue of what is best for me and those around me from London, Washington or Brussels is manifestly absurd. The question then becomes, how can we best orientate ourselves towards this new way of thinking about ourselves and the world we inhabit?

We are looking for a new track, leading in a new direction. Inevitably, we have, as yet, only a hazy view of where we want to get and a less than perfect knowledge of the terrain we will have to cross. Worse still, we are encumbered by the assumptions that make following our current course so apparently natural and straightforward. Before we can learn to recognize and name the many rewards and dangers along our new route, we will have to jettison much of the useless baggage that we have accumulated in making sense of where we are now. First and foremost, we will have to recognize just how poorly equipped we are for the expedition. Such humility will be necessary if we are to learn the ways of the world that we are entering quickly enough to save us from the ravages of the one we are leaving.

Just as it is possible to hint at the frailties of our current approaches without comprehensively defining them, so we can suggest the alternative through another four dimensions that indicate how a vicious circle can be changed into a virtuous one. None is new and all are currently being lived and explored in a diverse range of experiments and initiatives up and down the land. It will be in the drawing together of the threads and intertwining them into a strong, consistent skein that will lead us in a different direction entirely.

The Strength of Personal Responsibility

Imagine that you are driving down the fast lane of a motorway (which probably means that you are exceeding the speed limit!) and you glimpse a figure apparently leaning over a bridge ahead. What do you assume that the person is doing — are they preparing to drop a brick through your windscreen or getting ready to jump? What do you base that assessment on? What can you do about it?

Almost as soon as you have registered the scene, you are beneath the bridge and beyond. It is a scenario that somehow encapsulates life today. The speed, the lack of information, the making of assumptions that cannot be checked, the anonymity and the residual feeling of power-lessness are all around us. Suppose that you later learned that someone — a person you had never heard of, did not even know existed — had indeed committed suicide on that stretch of road. Would you feel a sense of responsibility? You cannot even be sure that the figure you saw and the suicide were one and the same, yet you are perhaps left with the knowledge that you may have witnessed a fellow human being’s last, lonely and miserable moments and you could do nothing to help.

Of course, for most of us, these questions probably would not even have risen to consciousness; the awareness of the incident and its possible significance are almost immediately swallowed by the desire to get on and reach our destination, resentful of anything that might slow us down or stand in the way. That obsession with our own business, to the exclusion of all else, is not selfishness or a lack of awareness (although those may contribute) as much as a reasonable and learned response to circumstances in which our ability to influence events is remarkably limited.

The extent to which we are able to exercise personal responsibility (to act morally by accepting responsibility for our actions, or lack of action) seems to diminish by the day. It is not uncommon to feel that your motives are suspect in offering help to a stranger or that you are risking life and limb when you give even neutral advice. ‘Don’t get involved’ is the motto of the age.

Integrity is a word that is out of fashion, and one reason may be that it means, at its simplest, ‘wholeness’. In human terms, that implies a sense of coherence, consistency and a feeling of being at one with one’s self which, in our fragmented world, is hard to achieve. At best, we present different sides of our character in different circumstances; at worst, we can appear as two, or more, entirely different people. Our expectations about what is acceptable in public and in private can differ markedly, and there is often little link between what we say and what we feel or believe. It is known as ‘survival’ and we slide from one situation to the next, seeking the line of least resistance.

How often, for example, when we say ‘sorry’, do we actually mean it? Organizations employ people to deal with complaints (professional ‘sorry-sayers’) and their function is to soak up the anger and frustration on the other end of the line in an attempt to defuse the situation so that it won’t escalate any further — like taking the company to court. The only way to cope in such a job is effectively to divorce what you are saying from what you are feeling. You become skilled at saying sorry in a hundred different ways while you, yourself, remain untouched.

Unfortunately, it is not actually possible to detach yourself in such a way. At some level there is always a connection and to deny it is damaging to your psychic health. Becoming hardened and unfeeling is one consequence and is usually a precursor of burnout. You either cease to be in touch with your real feelings (which has obvious implications for your closest relationships) or you can find yourself overcome with the very remorse that you have been so careful not to reveal to the customer. And the irony is, of course, that you as a person have nothing to feel sorry for; it is the organization that should be feeling the pain.

To a lesser extent, that attempt to control the feeling content of our conversation characterizes every aspect of life today. We have all become skilled at superficial interrelationships (‘have a nice day’, ‘how are you doing?’, etc), but find getting beneath this veneer increasingly difficult (research has shown, for example, that we have fewer close friends than in previous generations).¹ One consequence of continually separating what we say from what we mean is that it becomes harder to hang on to what we do mean — that is, what is important to us. To actually take a stand on anything makes us feel uncomfortable because we are stepping outside our normal blandness and we are unsure how people are going to react. It becomes easier to let things pass until we reach a point where very few things trouble us. We stop questioning why things are the way they are. We cease to be moral agents and any integrity we might have possessed has long since disappeared.

It is a feature of the bureaucratic monoliths that surround us that they are run by rules, and ‘going by the book’ is another way of avoiding difficult questions about what we ought to be doing in any set of circumstances. ‘I was only doing what I was told’ has been a justification for malpractice or lack of action down the centuries, but is perhaps more prevalent and less warranted (in view of the general level of education and attitude towards authority) than ever. It also represents a relationship with the external world that is based more on contract than on covenant.

A contract between two parties is designed explicitly to protect and/or entitle one or both parties. It focuses on means rather than on ends and its natural tendency is to limit action that can be taken without mutual consent. A covenant, on the other hand, is an agreement based on mutual trust and goodwill and a desire to work towards a shared goal or vision. It is a joint commitment to set out on a journey, the limits of which may be unclear at the outset. In that sense it is an ‘opening up’ of potential rather than the ‘tying down’ that is implicit in a contract.

Traditionally, the word ‘covenant’ had religious overtones, as in the covenant between God and the Jewish people. The crucial fact about a covenant, however, is that it is based on values, and it is those values that will determine action and behaviour rather than the letter of the law (Jesus of Nazareth’s contempt for the Pharisees — the custodians of tradition and the law — clearly showed his commitment to a way of life that is based on that most fundamental value of all — love).

Most of everyday life is conducted on the basis of covenant, with an implicit acceptance of values such as ‘good neighbourliness’. Indeed, it is difficult to see how it could be otherwise. Covenant enables rather than restricts, releases time and energy rather than consuming them and emphasizes relationships rather than procedures. It implies reciprocity and a willingness to accept responsibility for one’s actions. Daily life would become very difficult on any other basis.

Increasingly, as we have seen, we are moving towards a contract-based culture. The emphasis on ‘rights’ rather than ‘responsibilities’ is one aspect of this shift. Rights tend to be guarded jealously (and may have had to be fought for) and to be protected in law — in other words, they are out in the open for all to see, objective, and therefore less dependent on the whim and interpretation of the powerful. Responsibilities, on the other hand, are more difficult to pin down. They are inclusive rather than exclusive in the sense that, once accepted, they have ramifications that are difficult to predict. Rights can be sat on — this is my entitlement, nothing more, nothing less — whereas responsibilities tend to become meaningless when they are approached in a similar fashion.

The distinction between rights and responsibilities becomes easier to see when the link with contract and covenant is set alongside the characteristics that distinguish the masculine and feminine principles. Comparing the traditional masculine virtues (order, hierarchy, competition, objectivity and compartmentalization) with their feminine counterparts (going with the flow, reciprocity, cooperation, subjectivity and inclusivity) shows the way that things are moving. As already noted, we live in a culture that is dominated by the masculine principle and, in the absence of any corrective measures, it should be no surprise that life is becoming increasingly legalistic and litigious. Such trends will inevitably produce a passive stance towards the world and a consequent reliance on experts to tell us what to do. We need to re-establish the appropriate balance between contract and covenant.

The increasing emphasis on contract is, in part, a reflection of, and response to, the lack of control that people feel. When competing with and doing down your neighbour is seen to be a greater virtue than cooperating with them, contracts at least limit the damage than can be done to you. When it is a question of the weak ranged against the strong, they become a vital bulwark against exploitation and victimization. The paradox, however, is that, in most situations, contracts work best when they don’t need to be invoked, when both parties are prepared to operate a degree of give and take — which, in its ultimate form, amounts to a covenant. Once that trust vanishes, the letter of the law becomes the only measure of what is possible, with its attendant restrictive practice, paranoia, soured relations and cheap-mindedness. To imagine everyday life based solely on the drawn out and painful processes of the legal machine is soul-destroying. It is time that we began to agree the ends that we are working towards rather than perpetually disputing the means.

What is pushing us in the direction of legalism is the increasingly fragmented nature of our relationships. Our experience of others tends to be based on their roles — shop worker, teacher, engineer — rather than who they actually are as people. That wouldn’t be a problem if we then had time to get to know them in the round, but the reality is that either we never see an individual again or it is in such limited circumstances that getting to know them is not an option. We automatically fill in what we don’t know about someone by making assumptions based on appearance, dress and mannerisms. With more and more people we never get past that stage.

Making assumptions is a natural feature of everyday life. When we walk into a room and sit on a chair, we don’t check that it is what it appears to be. We see the chair, assume that we know what it is and sit on it. Life would be simply impossible if we had to test everything before committing ourselves. The problem is that our assumptions about people tend to reflect what is going on inside us as much as what is actually happening out there. Whether we like or dislike people, trust them or feel uncomfortable in their presence, often depends on who we are, the circumstances we find ourselves in and how we are feeling.

The more hostile the environment, the more likely we are to feel threatened by others. Our tolerance of a friend who gets drunk in our local bar is likely to be high. Confronted with the same belligerence from a stranger, late at night on a deserted street, however, our response will be very different. In a society that is depersonalized and fragmented, people feel vulnerable and vulnerable people seek protection which, in the absence of anything else, has to be provided by the law and the law-enforcement agencies.

Fragmented social relations lead inevitably to a fragmentation of language, and the increasing incidence of people living in the same town or city using words differently only compounds the problem. ‘Difference’ becomes something to be wary and distrustful of, rather than a potential asset to be valued for the fresh perspectives it might offer. We retreat ever further into safe enclaves that lead, ultimately, to the walled estates of the super rich — complete with armed security guards — or the complexes that are designed to provide a safe environment for the elderly. A society that is on the run from itself will never find the resources to face up to the problems of life — it can only create even more difficulties.

These trends have nothing to do with actual danger but are a direct reflection of diminishing social cohesion which has an inevitable knock-on effect on our ability to exercise personal responsibility (the ability to sort out our own problems). Once in train, insecurity f...