We are a community. And before I get into that, let me say that I find words often fascinating. To me they are like language funnels, taking multiple meanings and time periods of totally different definitions, and narrowing them down to our present day words. And community is one such word. If we used that word, in whatever language suited the locale and age we were in throughout history, it would be understood in vastly different ways. In ancient Athens it would have one color, in 17th century Zulu another set of meanings, in an Hasidic village another understanding that may differ in great detail with the other two.

Yet we are here at the end of the funnel, so to speak, so we can use a more recent idea of what community is and what it is about. And it is an important word. It sums up in many ways what we are and are within. We are both a political community, a social community and perhaps even a biological community. It is, as I understand it, a word often dealt with under the heading of government, yet in a real sense it predates government. One can easily think about a Stone Age community, long before any form of government we would understand was in existence. Community at its base level simply means a group of people living nearby and with common needs or goals. Today, perhaps because of humanity’s control of time-distance relationships and interconnected political and financial systems, it can even be applied to the World as a whole.

Some have said that we presently deal with community more by ignoring it than by giving it homage. We gripe when we have to pay taxes for communal projects, attempt to block accepted but personally abhorred community laws or goals, and rush not to vote in ratios that are a true danger to a system based in part on the ballot. Those same critics would say that we seem to wish to use community only when we agree with it and can use its products, otherwise we demean it or actively fight it.
If that is true, if we have given up common goals and societal commonality, then we may be headed the way of the Dodo. As 9/11 reminded us, there are many forces out there which can do us ill, both actively, like terrorists, or passively, like the vast cycles found in Nature, cycles like weather, massive volcanism and disease pandemics.
Perhaps we have simply been dozing. America, after all, is a blest nation. It is like a long warm summer afternoon of history. An afternoon complete with almost 150 years without invasive war being fought on the homeland. An afternoon with ever ascending wealth and knowledge and health. One in which we can choose almost any type of diversion, go almost anywhere and access almost anything we desire. True, we may not all have equal access, yet except for the poorest of us, we command leverage and power that would be the envy of any ancient king or emperor. And like such a privileged afternoon snoozer, we swat at whatever disturbs our relaxation. We are perhaps a new type of man, Homo consumerabilis, a consumer of cornucopia. Never in history have so few had so much and been entrained by every means to want more. It seems we climb everywhere, a situation in opposition to the idea of the snoozer, yet not really. We have been formed to climb up social ladders, the ladders of goods, and the ladders of accomplishments. No wonder we wish to take it easy after such struggles. Community, and all that goes with it, is not as defined as the consumer impulse, it requires study, discernment and, worst of all, action. And after all that climbing we may not have the energy.

Perhaps we better find it. We may be in danger of losing our community. Our community of American values, American creativity and American vision. Is it not possible that in rejecting, or at least devaluing, community, we are throwing out the baby in the bath water? After all, in many long established community traditions, we have agreed to travel separate paths, to seek goals in divergent ways, even to agree to disagree. We do not find it strange that some choose to run to a destination while others ride. We have paths for both. Many try to find future security in personal planning and financial goals, others in everything from cloistered living to dependence on programs and dependence on personal strength and longevity. We have markets, monasteries and physical maintenance programs for these decisions. And of course we have enormous differences of opinion, some have half empty glasses, some have half full ones. We historically accepted that and community often has rules for each or may have conflicting structures that apply only to those who choose one way over the other.

In history, as far as I can discern, this has always been the case. Even in ancient societies, built upon state religions and brutal tests of community, there was recognition of difference. Pater familias was, to modern sentiment, a heinous yet accepted tradition that the head of the family exercised right of life and death over each family member. Yet little onus was attached to those who decided not to actively practice the right. And in the early life of our own Judeo-Christian heritage, the ancient - - and pagan - - societies often allowed the existence of Christians and Jews within the general community. True there were laws regulating and restricting them, yet they could live within those communities, work, play and plan within the structures there. It is as though there was understanding that diversity was part and parcel of life.
America, in part, was based on such diversity. In fact in our birth pains, we had one of the most glaring and egregious examples of diversity. One which grated directly on the beliefs of just about every precept we held dear - - Slavery and its attendant problem of enfranchisement. I wonder sometimes how we so marvelously sustained and threaded through the moral waters of this problem. True, Civil War was one result of the contradiction and a partial solution. Racism was another unintended result. Yet other unintended results were voting for women, lowering of general voting age and social programs to help make a stagnant portion of the population better able to take part in American community. And, yes, we must remember and bless the multitudes of persons who died within that system. Sacrifices, unwilling sacrifices, to the long path of working through the ideals America was born with. We were not the first modern society to abolish slavery, yet with an entire regional economy partly based upon it, the final resolution that we came to says much for our determination and principals.

If in our birthing, we sustained such contradiction, is it not possible that we can more civilly than we have, sustain our present disagreements? We should perhaps rethink the present habits of diatribe, vituperation and calumny that seem to be so easily practiced today. Treason, lies and disloyalty have become common parlance in our public speech. Accusation and counteraccusation fill even our legislatures. Civil speech and civil action, in the meaning of civility, seem to be fading from our dialogue. My Mom used to say you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and even if we consider our opponents (not enemies) as flies, still we have less chance to get them close to our “honey” if we substitute vinegar for it. Division and divisiveness seem to be growing. We seem a split nation, yet seldom think upon the base we stand on which allows even this perversity.

In France there was a revolt of the peasants, long before the Revolution, which ended with the nobles agreeing to meet with the leader of the revolt. Under flag of truce the gentleman went forth to parley and was immediately killed. In its simplest form this seems a disagreement, but it really was not. The nobles and peasants could not disagree, at least according to the nobles, since they, the peasants, had no base or ground to stand upon. They were in the wrong - - period. That is not what is happening in America today, though it might eventually come to that. Today we are in deep disagreement. We differ in certain values, views and visions. Not core values, it seems, but secondary and tertiary values. Not in the purpose of our views but the ways we wish to get there. Not in our vision for America but in our framework for the vision.

If I were to ask just about any American if they would wish an America at peace with the World, engaging in international exchange of goods, ideas and ideals, ready to help and be helped in bringing about greater morality, justice, wealth, health and freedom for every person upon this small planet, I believe they would agree. In fact I believe that almost any person in the world would agree with that vision for their own culture. And if we agree upon those statements, then it seems to me that the rest is just a discussion of means and ways. It is not an argument but a matter of disagreement, the difference being one of opposite views versus one of different ways to solve a series of problems. Unlike those poor French peasants, we start on common ground. It is perhaps better we make that ground a foundation to build on rather than a cemetery to do battle on.

Some would suggest we start small to diffuse this situation. Perhaps cooperating upon common projects, ones we can all agree upon. This would allow us to know that the other is not monster but companion. That they are not necessarily ideological but instead blest with a slightly different view and set of talents. If a problem does not fall before charity or compassion, perhaps, arm in arm with those virtues, it will fall before financial incentive and invention. If an intractable situation does not respond to rezoning or markets, perhaps, in tandem with those, it will succumb to mediation and demonstration. My Dad told me, to paraphrase, that it was a poor carpenter who chose not to use all his tools. We Americans have an immense amount of tools, not to mention talents and systems. Is it reasonable to reject some because they are Left or Right? Religious or Secular? Scientific or Holistic? If a man or woman is starving or thirsty, does it matter the hand which administers to them? Or better yet the multiple hands which minister to them. I would think all sides would be rushing to the aid of the “least of these” rather than fighting over how and whether to feed the hungry and slake the thirsty. Perhaps there is wisdom in setting up small projects manned by supposedly diametrically opposed persons who agree to work together to alleviate some situation both see as a problem.

Ah but the problem of time and resource and coordination. Might we have to restructure our lives a bit, maybe a lot? Would we have to give up leisure or new markets or goods to work at such a thing? The simple answer is yes. And I think about our forebears. They were living in a new country, distant from their homelands, strenuously engaged in forging a new society. Suddenly, a few rebellious elements decided to go to war against the great sovereign power which held warrant to these colonies. And even as reason and common good convinced many that the future lay with rebellion, there were those same problems, time, resources and coordination. In the midst of a far simpler and harder life than we, our ancestors found the solutions that allowed them to forge a new nation.

Can we do less?