The Different Drum

Community Making and Peace

M. Scott Peck

• Publisher: Touchstone
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781439144657
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Communication & Public Speaking

'The overall purpose of human communication is - or should be - reconciliation. It should ultimately serve to lower or remove the walls of misunderstanding which unduly separate us human beings, one from another...' Although we have developed the technology to make communication more efficent and to bring people closer together, we have failed to use it to build a true global community. Dr M. Scott Peck believes that if we are to prevent civilization destroying itself, we must urgently rebuild on all levels, local, national and international and that is the first step to spiritual survival. In this radical and challenging book, he describes how the communities work, how group action can be developed on the principles of tolerance and love, and how we can start to transform world society into a true community.

PART I

The Foundation

CHAPTER I

Stumbling into Community

Community is currently rare.

Certain words become distorted over time. When people ask me to define myself politically, I tell them that I am a radical conservative. Unless it is Thursday, when I say I am a radical moderate. 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 superficial, 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, as if a radical were necessarily some left-wing, bomb-throwing anarchist and a fundamentalist automatically some right-wing primitive thinker.

“Community” is another such word. We tend to speak of our hometowns as communities. Or of the churches in our towns as communities. Our hometowns may well be geographical collections of human beings with tax and political structures in common, but precious little else relates them to each other. Towns are not, in any meaningful sense of the word, communities. And sight unseen, on the basis of my experience with many Christian churches in this country, I can be fairly confident that each of the churches in your hometown is not likely to be much of a community either.

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. We mourn the loss of community. I am not enough of a historian to know whether back then our forefathers did indeed enjoy the fruits of genuine community more than we do today or whether we are simply yearning for an imaginary “golden age” that never existed. Still, I know of some hints that indicate we humans may once have known more of community than we currently experience.

One such cue is contained in a sermon preached by John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1630. Speaking to his fellow colonists shortly before they set foot on land, he urged, “We must delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our community as members of the same body.”^I

Two hundred years later the 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.^II 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.

Very recently—another hundred and fifty years later—the highly respected sociologist Robert Bellah and his colleagues wrote a most striking follow-up, “Habits of the Heart,”^III In this work the authors compellingly argue that our individualism has not remained balanced, that De Tocqueville’s direst predictions have come true, and that isolation and fragmentation have become the order of the day.

I personally know of this isolation and fragmentation. From the age of five until I left home at twenty-three I lived with my parents in an apartment building in New York City. There were two apartments to a floor, separated by a small foyer and elevator. As there were eleven stories above the first, this building was the compact home for twenty-two families. I knew the last name of the family across the foyer. I never knew the first names of their children. I stepped foot in their apartment once in those seventeen years. I knew the last names of two other families in the building; I could not even address the remaining eighteen. I did address most of the elevatormen and doormen by their first names; I never knew any of their last names.

More subtly yet devastatingly, the strange geographical isolation and fragmentation of the society of that building was reflected in a kind of emotional isolation and fragmentation within my own family. For the most part I feel blessed by my childhood home. It was both very stable and comfortable. Each of my parents was responsible and caring. There was plenty of warmth, affection, laughter, and celebration. The only problem was that certain emotions were unacceptable.

My parents had no difficulty being angry. On relatively infrequent occasions my mother would become sad enough to cry quietly and briefly—an emotionality that seemed to me then uniquely feminine. Never once in all my years of growing up did I ever hear either of my parents say that they were anxious or worried or scared or depressed or anything to indicate that they felt other than on top of things and in total control of their lives. They were good American “rugged individualists,” and they very clearly wanted me to be one also. The problem was that I was not free to be me. Secure though it was, my home was not a place where it was safe for me to be anxious, afraid, depressed, or dependent—to be myself.

I had high blood pressure by my mid-teens. I was indeed “hypertense.” Whenever I was anxious I became anxious about being anxious. Whenever I felt depressed I got more depressed over being depressed. Not until after I had entered psycho-analysis at the age of thirty did I come to realize on an emotional level that, for me, anxiety and depression were acceptable feelings. Only through this therapy was I able to understand that I was in certain ways a dependent person who was in need of emotional as well as physical support. My blood pressure began to come down. But full healing is a lengthy journey. At fifty I am still completing the process of learning how to ask for help, how not to be afraid to appear weak when I am weak, how to allow myself to be dependent and unself-reliant when appropriate.

It was not just my blood pressure that was affected. Even though I yearned for intimacy, I had major difficulties being intimate, which was hardly surprising. Had someone asked my parents whether they had friends, they would have replied, “Do we have friends? Good gracious, yes. Why, we get over a thousand Christmas cards every Christmas!” On one level that answer would have been quite correct. They led a most active social life and were widely and deservedly respected—even loved. Yet in the deepest definition of the word, I am not sure they had any friends at all. Friendly acquaintances by the droves, yes, but no truly intimate friends. Nor would they have wanted any. They neither desired nor trusted intimacy. Moreover, as far as I can see, in an age of rugged individualism they were quite typical of their time and culture.

But I was left with a nameless longing. I dreamed that somewhere there would be a girl, a woman, a mate with whom I could be totally honest and open, and have a relationship in which the whole of me would be acceptable. That was romantic enough. But what seemed impossibly romantic was an inchoate longing for a society in which honesty and openness would prevail. I had no reason to believe that such a society existed—or ever had existed or ever could exist—until accidentally (or by grace) I began to stumble into varieties of real community.

FRIENDS SEMINARY, 1952–54

At the age of fifteen, much to my parents’ dismay, I adamantly refused during my spring vacation to return to Phillips Exeter Academy, the New England boarding school that I had been unhappily attending for the preceding years. Exeter at the time was perhaps the nation’s leading training school for rugged individualism. The administration and teachers quietly prided themselves on not coddling their students. “The race belongs to the swift,” they might have said, “and if you can’t cut the mustard, it’s too bad.” Occasionally something of a relationship might develop between a student and a faculty member, but such unusual instances were not encouraged. As inmates will in a prison, the students had their own society, with norms that were often as vicious. The pressures for social conformity were immense. At any given time at least half the student body occupied the status of outcasts. During my first two years there virtually all my energy was unsuccessfully expended in attempting to compete for a position as part of the “in” group.

In my third year I got “in.” And as soon as I was in, I realized I didn’t want to be there either. On my way to becoming a well-trained WASP, I dimly had the wisdom to know that I would soon suffocate in the exclusive air of that culture. It was not the thing to do at that time and place, but it was a matter of breathing for me: I dropped out.

In the fall of 1952 I began to repeat the eleventh grade at Friends Seminary, a little Quaker school on the edge of Greenwich Village in New York City. Neither my parents nor I can now remember how this fortuitous choice was made. In any case, Friends was the opposite of Exeter: it was a day school, whereas Exeter was a boarding school; it was small, whereas Exeter was large; it encompassed thirteen grades, from kindergarten up, whereas Exeter had four; it was coeducational, whereas Exeter was all male at the time; it was “liberal,” whereas Exeter was purely traditional; and it had something of a sense of community, whereas Exeter had none. I felt I had come home.

Adolescence is, among other things, a strange blend of heightened consciousness and dramatic unconsciousness. During my two years at Friends Seminary I was surprisingly unconscious of the wonderfulness of that time and place. Within a week I felt immensely comfortable there but never gave a thought as to why. I began to thrive—intellectually, sexually, physically, psychologically, spiritually. But this thriving was no more conscious than that of a parched, drooping plant responding to the gift of rain. For the eleventh-grade compulsory American History course at Exeter, each student was expected to produce a ten-page, neatly typed original research paper by the end of the year, complete with footnotes and bibliography. I can remember what an impossible task it had seemed to me, a dreaded hurdle too high for my fifteen-year-old legs. The next year at Friends, repeating the eleventh grade at age sixteen, I encountered another mandatory American History course. For that course I effortlessly produced four forty-page papers, each neatly typed, with abundant footnotes and bibliographies. Within a mere nine months a dreaded hurdle had become an enjoyable form of study. I was glad of the difference, of course, but hardly aware of the almost miraculous nature of the change.

While at Friends, I awoke each morning eager for the day ahead. The fact that at Exeter I could barely crawl out of bed rapidly receded into the dimmer recesses of memory. I simply accepted my newfound lot in life as the natural course of things. I am afraid I took Friends for granted, never stopping to analyze my good fortune. It is only now in retrospect— more than thirty years later—that I am sufficiently aware to make that analysis. I wish I could remember more. I wish I had taken note at the time of sociological details, now forever lost, which might have helped to explain why or how Friends was gifted with such a unique culture. But I did not. I cannot tell you the whys and wherefores. But I can remember enough to tell you that it was indeed unique.

Despite the hardness of the wooden benches in the Quaker meetinghouse, which was an integral part of the school, I remember that all the boundaries between people were soft. We did not call our teachers by their first names, nor did we “socialize” with them. It was Miss Ehlers, Doctor Hunter. But they gently teased us, and we students gently, but gleefully, teased them in return. I was never afraid of them. In fact, most of them were able to laugh at themselves.

There were perhaps twenty in my class. A few of us boys wore ties; most did not. There was no dress code. (Strangely, I cannot remember any codes—possibly there were some— yet no one ever seemed to get in trouble.) We were twenty differently dressed adolescents—boys and girls—from every borough of New York City and from utterly different backgrounds. We were Jewish, agnostic, Catholic, Protestant. I remember no Muslims, but had there been, it would have made no difference. Our parents were physicians and lawyers, engineers and laborers, artists and editors. Some had splendid apartments; others lived in tiny, cramped walk-ups. This is what I remember most: how different we all were.

Some of us had A averages and some C—. Some of us were obviously brighter than others, prettier, handsomer, more physically mature, more sophisticated. But there were no cliques. There were no outcasts. Everyone was respected. There were parties on most weekends, but no one ever drew up a list of whom to invite and whom not to invite; it was assumed that everyone was welcome. Some hardly ever came to the parties, but that was because they lived far away or worked or had something better to do. Some of us dated; some did not. Some of us were closer than others, but no one was ever excluded. Subjectively, my profoundest memory is a nonmemory: I can never remember wanting or trying to be anyone other than myself. No one else seemed to want me to be different or want to be other than herself or himself. Perhaps for the first time in my life I was utterly free to be me.

I was also, unconsciously, part of a paradox that will pervade these pages. Friends Seminary created an atmosphere in which individualism flourished. Yet, regardless of our individual backgrounds or religious persuasion, we were in truth all “Friends.” I remember no divisiveness; I remember much cohesiveness. Some Quakers in a quaint way will refer to themselves as being “of the persuasion of Friends.” Except for a very occasional and brief silent meeting, Quaker principles were not even taught, much less crammed down our throats. It is a rather safe guess to conclude, however, that its identity as a Quaker school profoundly contributed to its extraordinary atmosphere, although I have no idea how this came about. Certainly we students—individuals all—were unconsciously infected with a “friendly persuasion.”

So there was individualism in all its glory, but there was absolutely nothing “rugged” about it. The word “soft” comes to me again. The competition associated with ruggedness was totally absent. Even our own cohesiveness as a class was soft. There was no interclass rivalry. One final detail returns to mind about parties. A number of us dated people in the class above us or below us, as well as graduates or people from other schools. They were all included in our parties, as were, not infrequently, older or younger siblings. The strange thing is that, utterly unlike my previous mind-set, I cannot remember looking down on anyone who was younger or up to anyone older.

Even allowing for the distortion of memory, these were indeed golden years. Yet if I said everything was perfect, it would be a lie. Although wonderfully softened, all the usual adolescent insecurities still plagued me. My blossoming sexuality sometimes caused me agonizing confusion. One teacher, although lovable, was blatantly alcoholic. Another, although brilliant, was blatantly unlovable. And I could go on. But even though it was unconscious, even though it was muted by many factors, even though I had no idea what to make of it at the time, one thing is clear in retrospect: during those two years I experienced my first real taste of community. It was a taste I would not have again for another dozen years.

CALIFORNIA, FEBRUARY 1967

Midway through my three years of psychiatry training at the army’s Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco, a senior career army psychiatrist, Mac Badgely, joined the faculty. His coming was preceded by rumors. Most indicated that he was incompetent, insane, or both. But one faculty member I highly respected described Mac as “the greatest genius in the army.” I have previously recounted the difficulty I had coming to terms with this handsome man and remarkable teacher.^IV The fact that I was in analysis at the time—among other things because of an “authority problem”—helped me with this difficulty. In any case, by early autumn 1966 Mac had become for me a true mentor.

In December of that year Mac offered to run three marathon groups for those thirty-six of us on the staff—one in February, one in March, and one in April. Mac, we knew, had spent some time at the Tavistock Institute in England, where the theories of the British psychiatrist Wilfred Bion about the behavior of groups were taught and promoted. These groups, Mac announced, would be led according to “the Tavistock Model.” Each would be limited to twelve participants. It was all voluntary. Until that time my training and experience in group therapy had been mediocre at best. But I had come to esteem Mac so much that I was eager to participate in anything with which he was involved. Consequently I was one of the twelve who signed up for the first available “group experience” in February. Twelve others volunteered for either the March or April group. Theirs was eventually held in April. The other eligible twelve decided to turn down the opportunity.

We first twelve—all relatively young male psychiatrists, psychologists, or social workers—began our weekend meeting with Mac at eight-thirty on a Friday evening in February in an empty barracks at an air base in nearby Marin County. Each of us had worked all day and was already tired to begin with. We were told that the group would end early Sunday afternoon. It was not specified how much we would sleep, if at all. Nor was it specified what we would do. Yet three incidents occurred in the course of that weekend which made an indelible impression upon my very life. The first was the most profound mystical experience I have ever had.

Seated next to me in the group was a drafted young faculty psychiatrist from Iowa, who quickly made no bones about the fact that he disliked my East Coast mannerisms and “effete” clothes. I countered that I wasn’t particularly keen either about his ...