A few weeks back I posted about why I worked for community. My friend Karen posted a reply, indicating her distrust of community. I've been thinking about this the last few weeks and have a bit to say about that for my Saturday Morning Post.
We start with Hate, Pettiness and Cynicism
Hate
Years ago, when I was running the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, on the steering committee for the 1993 Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Parade March and Freedom Rally in Seattle June 28th (yes, that was the name), and generally highly visible - I received death threats from people who never carried them out (apparently). That year was one of turmoil all the way around in the US.
The death threats freaked my friend Ann out a lot. She wanted me to move or get a new phone number or something. But the threats weren't ominous, they were boring.
I told her "Hate is boring." And it is. Hate is a concept I just have no time for. I'd love to sit down and explore it with people, to deconstruct it. But it's just too boring.
Pettiness
That year as well, the Community of Endless Sexual Politics was living large in Seattle. For years, Seattle's Pride event was called the Gay Parade. Short, easy to fit on a shirt or a button. "But we're not Gay," Lesbians said. So they wanted to change it to the Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade. But then the Bi-Sexuals said, "Hey, you can't count us out, we're unique and this is an inclusive society!" So, it was discussed that the change should be made to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Pride Parade. And then the transgendered community showed up.
And then quirks in the City of Seattle ordinances made it clear that a Parade was a willful act of celebration and thus not a political event. That meant that the steering committee would have to pay for police time and the interruption of traffic on the streets.
But a political event would not be so taxed. So the motion was made to change it to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride March. "But it's always been a parade!" "Yeah, and it's not just a parade, we have a big rally at the end!" So ... it now became the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Parade, March and Freedom Rally."
By this time we had so many words it no longer mattered if we added some more. So, due to some amazingly bad leadership it ended up being the 1993 Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Parade, March and Freedom Rally in Seattle June 28th. I remember, because I made the logo that year. You try to fit all that on a pin!
No one liked my idea of calling it "Amblin' Homos."
In the march for inclusiveness, the community opened itself to pettiness. Pettiness is like an infection. The scope-creep from Gay Parade to the 1993 ... ... ... June 28th is appalling. I'm sure you would not be surprised to have heard that hours of mean-spirited debates that went on. Are bi-sexuals really gay? What is transgender? Let Lesbians have their own march, we've worked hard on this one!
Once we started arguing about that, it was easy for the process queens to show up and say "It needs the date, or no one will know when it is." "It needs to say Seattle in there somewhere, ours is special!" and so forth. The pettiness and unwillingness of the community to come together under a short name only led to the name getting longer and longer until we ended up with a 16 word monstrosity.
Cynicism
Nonetosurprising, this led to an immediate rise in cynicism. Because the name was designed by a massively dysfunctional committee, no one liked it.
When Harvey Fierstein stood in front of a huge banner of my logo in Seattle's Volunteer Park that year he said, "Welcome to the " [takes out a card] "1993 Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Parade, March and Freedom Rally in Seattle, June 28th!!!!!" He paused and said, "Wow, you guys really know how to name things up here!" Everyone in the audience, tens of thousands of them, laughed. They weren't responsible for the name. The steering committee members groaned.
I laughed.
One committee member says, "They have no idea how long it took to get to that name."
I replied, "If they did, they'd be laughing even harder."
He actually chuckled at that.
Another committee member, who has never said a word to me since I uttered the phrase "Amblin' Homos" three months earlier said, "You got that right."
So we had a steering committee that was now cynical about its own event because they had let hate and pettiness between groups of sexual minorities (their constituents) hijack a community process. In subsequent years, the Pride March in Seattle almost died - even though it was highly attended by spectators and marching groups alike. The steering committee was so cynical that they would gather and stall their own processes.
What We Can Learn From This
The Gay Parade was always fairly well attended in Seattle. But it really started to take off around 1992. There was a new militancy to the movement for recognition and acceptance by the sexual minority community. That militancy was encapsulated by four main individual groups (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender). The inward focus of these groups led to a lack of cohesion (at least initially) between the dominant Gay Male community and the others.
We see the same issues come up time and again with political groups, religions, races.
As I see it, in the end, we are all very insecure about who we are, what we have, how we've obtained self or goods, and what we perceive as threats. A threat is something that in some way may dissolve our individuality. The less secure we are, the more likely we are to fight to preserve our individuality by outlawing or threatening the actions of others. The less secure we are, the less like we are to form new communities with those whom we perceive as different.
This is not without reason, alleged communities are often fronts for people who do precisely wish to use the power of community (or at least the group) to control others. I have written previously on my views that the US Political Parties are power structures posing as communities.
So, how do we avoid these traps?
We adhere to a few rules that make good communities and community members.
- One, realize that by definition we are the only arbiter of our individuality.
- Two, we realize that power structures are inherently corrupt so even if we build one with the best of intentions we give it a sunset date.
- Three, we realize that we are social animals and if we withdraw from social interactions we merely become animals.
- Four, we realize that there is beauty on this earth and we only have so much time in life to enjoy it.
1. You Define You
There was a Visa ad a while back that showed a woman who was a kid, climbed trees, became a radical student in college, became a mom, became a business owner, became retired, became a radical retiree. You define you. Not your church, not your political party, not your job, not your parents, not your neighborhood, not your income.
The churches, political parties, professions, etc. that you find yourself associated with do not define you. You choose them based on your self-definition. They either extend your traits or help you learn ones you feel you might be lacking. If they do not, you are either an infiltrator, a wanna-be or self-loathing.
2. Nothing Lasts Forever
Without lifespans there is no urgency to either succeed or fail. Organizations of human creation are reflective of human foibles: greed, avarice, confusion. Organizations are almost always power-based. Power is like a bottle of Odwalla Orange Juice. It settles and you have to shake it up in order to enjoy it.
Over time, institutional entropy impacts all organizations. Their initial mandate - so clear at the beginning - begins to break down due to personalities in the organization, external catastrophes, changes in their vision or just plain complacency. This is the settling of power. As these things happen, some people in the organization concentrate their power and want to hold onto it. As a user of the system, this doesn't make the system useful. All the water is at the top, all the pulp at the bottom.
But for he who lives at the botton, he's got all the pulp.
Organizations need to be built with expiration dates or at least periodic times where the organization experiences a good "Shake Well."
3. I Miss You
When people are not around, we notice. Loneliness drives people to cabin fever.
We need institutions and community. We need them as much as we ever have. The Internet allows us tools to extend our communities and explore new ones. But we still need human contact.
In today's literal world, this often is thought of as putting ourselves in social situations. But people often talk about being in a roomful of people and still feeling lonely. That roomful of people is not a community for you, in that case. You need to feel welcomed. You need to feel active.
But, in order to feel active, we need to make ourselves open to others. That's scary to many because those others may try to control or change you. And being open means accepting that possibility. And that includes the possibility of rejection.
In the end, you define you, others may influence you, but you define you. When you accept that, other people become very important and utterly trivial. They become important when you and they combine to create. They become trivial when they try to harm.
The helpful boost you to amazing new heights (and you them), the malicious are merely boring.
4. Smell Flowers, Dammit
Good food, human contact,well written words, baseball, plays, unexpected turns of phrase - these are beautiful things. Hate, pettiness and cynicism is time consuming. It eats away not only at your soul, but at the very limited time you have on earth. Note for yourself what brings you joy and give them an extra few seconds when they come up to bask in them.
You only get so many of them.
But the nice thing is, beauty most often occurs naturally.
We are so amazingly good at manufacturing hate, pettiness and cynicism that it seems to be our current measure of worth. Our GBP (Gross Bile Product).
So I say unto thee, Get Off Thyne Ass And Smell Flowers.
Closing
Community is something humans have always done and have always sucked at. We've always been power hungry, violent, hateful, petty creatures capable of unspeakable acts. For any pretty good community I show you, you can easily show me an evil one that was more cohesive and more effective. I know that. You know that. And those bastards over there know that too.
Everyone knows that.
Perfection is unattainable, yet beauty is everywhere. Which would we rather strive for then? Perfection? Or the constant realization that we flawed, malevolent bags of flesh can, from time to time, be civil and enjoyable?
Perhaps our issue is that we see Community is an object, where it is actually a process.
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Posted by: mindfuldistraction.blogspot.com | 24 September 2006 at 23:35