Saturday, March 19, 2016

Community

What do these images have in common?

The Community as a Solution

Today in America we are faced with issues large and small, from microscopic health maladies to city and state wide upheaval and alienation.  Our response to those problems has focused on the individual failing in the system, in the case of microscopic health maladies the question is how do we cut out the malignant or potentially malignant cells and in the macroscopic level it is how do we eliminate or block the individual from being violent or unjust.. Are we neglecting to see the solution to these problems that nature has used to solve them for millions of years, and only focusing on treating symptoms due to an intellectual myopia?

In the cells of the body we are bombarded by destructive forces constantly, whether it is from free radicals, foreign bacteria in the food we eat, pollutants in the air or water.. How is any one living cell supposed to be able to resist all these forces bent on its destruction?  The answer is, it isn't - it is always part of a community of cells that distribute the load and seek mutual survival.  One cell contributes to the success of other cells in the tissue, and they in turn contribute to the success of the cell under attack.  In healthy systems of cells, they are able to resist most attackers.  Does our medical community analyze the system of cells, to make sure they are functioning correctly as a system that can resist foreign invaders, or does it focus on the individual cells that go wayward?

At the macroscopic level, at the city and state level -- do people feel part of a community, do they contribute to the well being of others in their community, and do the other members of the community in turn contribute to their own well being? Do you reader, contribute to the wellbeing of others and receive supportive treatment in return?  This is of course the historical role of the church or religious organization in American society; but more and more the religious community has been undercut by 'intellectuals' to replace it with a supposed government core community.

Unfortunately, the community centered around the government begins at the mailbox and ends at the courthouse. There is no genuine mutual interest on behalf of a member of society by an employed hourly bureaucrat. Bureaucracies have had to implement cash rewards (see the Department of Family and Children Services) to incentivize a sham of concern.  While the 'intellectuals' have undercut the religious or small community mutual support networks, they have replaced them with a fragile and unhelpful network that results in an alienated and genuinely unsupported people.

If we can work to create communities of people that can provide mutual support again, perhaps we can heal our populace.