Navigating among the diverse we's that claim our loyalty has grown harder as
our lives have grown more complex, but understanding how to do it well has never been more important. Too many of us have
watched with a feeling of powerlessness as the selfserving have taken control of our economy, the self-righteous our politics,
and the selfindulgent our culture. The self, the individual, stands at the center of our contemporary moral despair. Isolated
and lonely, the self cries out for community--for a real experience of we beyond friends and family. If we are to solve our
contemporary moral dilemmas--the pervasive conflict between a concern for value (profits, wealth, winning) and a concern for
values (family, environment, religion, and more), an eroding democracy, the weakening of the rule of law, and growing poverty,
to name just a handful--we must look beyond the individual to the group. We cannot and should not, of course, forget the individual.
But there can be no reform of our terribly troubled society until we identify the truly meaningful we's in our lives and take
action in them together.
No Longer a World of Places
The French political philosopher Alexis
de Tocqueville observed in the 1830s that the genius of American democracy resided in its small towns. "The native of New England is attached to his township,"
he wrote in Democracy in America, "because it is independent
and free: his cooperation in its affairs ensures his attachment to its interests; the wellbeing it affords him secures his
affection; and its welfare is the aim of his ambition and of his future exertions."
American democracy depended on human
relationships based in places. The experience of self-governance in small towns helped democracy flower in the country as
a whole. In the towns, people who were not necessarily friends or family learned to participate together democratically and
effectively because they shared fates--because they had to. They were born into a place and, for the most part, stayed there.
Their shared fates meant they had no choice but to find some way to share responsibility for balancing their values against
one another; the well-being of the place--of the community--depended on shaping and pursuing some common good together.
Most Americans no longer live in that world. Yes, there are millions of people
in the United States and beyond who still have an everyday,
tangible, and gritty sense of sharing fates with others mostly because of the places they live. For those of us who no longer
live in a world of places, our most significant relationships beyond our friends and families--the ones based in a sense of
shared fates, the ones we mean when we say "we"--have moved from places to organizations.
Thick and Thin
In thinking about what has happened to we in our
lives, I have built upon the concept of thick and thin relationships introduced in contemporary Israeli philosopher Avishai
Margalit's The Ethics of Memory. What is it in our relationships--in our we's--that gives them different depths of meaning?
Thin we's have abstract bonds: all humans, all Spanish speakers, all Roman Catholics--or, in the parlance of demographers
and pollsters, nascar dads, soccer moms, and red or blue voters. Thin we's share a description of motive and interest but
little else. We may identify strongly with labels of religion, politics, or personal passion, but by themselves these identities
do not reflect essential relationships in our lives. Nascar dads might vote for the same candidates and buy the same beer,
but their connections with each other remain thin.
In contrast, thick we's inescapably, consciously, and meaningfully share
fates.
Try making a list of twenty people who play an important role in your life, even if only by phone and e-mail.
How many live within walking distance? In your town? In your state? How many live even farther away? One hundred and fifty--or
even fifty--years ago, nearly all twenty people on your list would live in your neighborhood or town, and they would show
up in multiple parts of your life: school, work, church, volunteer and social groups, the business of your day-to-day life.
Today, chances are, a good number do not.
A World of Purposes
In the past, getting involved with neighbors
and townspeople was a necessity. Place was like a forge that melded us together and provided the purposes we shared. Today,
place has lost its heat. We participate with one set of people at work, another in worship, still another in our kids' events
or voluntary organizations--all the while trying to keep up with family and friends we've made along the way. We must intentionally
seek purpose in our commitments and relationships. We can no longer rely on the hidden force of place to fuse our lives. Today,
most Americans live in a world of purposes, not a world of places.
In this new world, organizations are now our towns. What the Greeks called
the polis, a political community of people with an everyday sense of inescapable and tangible shared fates, has been uprooted
from place and replanted in organizations. Indeed, organizations are the only thick we's in our lives where we throw in our
lots--our fates--with others who are not friends or family.
None of this is a bad thing in itself. But it is a different thing. And
unless we understand the consequences of this profound cultural shift, it will continue to fragment our lives in ways that
thwart democracy and our ability to use our values to make a difference in our world.
Is Your Congregation a 'Thick We'?
Significantly, Unitarian Universalism
is rooted in the same culture of small New England towns that de Tocqueville identified as the foundation
of American democracy. Americans have always placed a strong focus on the individual, from the rights and responsibilities
that were the concern of the Founders right up to the recent marketing concept of customizing products for "a market of one."
The liberal religious tradition, too, has emphasized individual choice, tolerance, and respect for differences. For centuries
liberalism has protested oppressive we's. The Puritans (the unlikely parents of American Unitarianism) struck a blow for individual
freedom in leaving the Church of England. But in celebrating these hard-won individual freedoms, we too often forget that
the Puritans struck this blow as a group--as a thick we. They set up places--New England towns--to
practice their values, and however oppressive they turned out to be, they planted the seeds for generations of conscientious
freedom seekers.
The intellectual tradition of liberalism is anchored in an assumption that
is no longer valid, however--namely that individual choice and respect for differences are rooted in place-based we's that
share values and fates. In twenty-first-century America, that's
a bad assumption. Today, choice and respect for differences happen on TV and at the mall--but not necessarily in towns and
neighborhoods. Choice and respect have little meaning in the absence of thick we's who practice them. In our concern for individualism,
we have neglected the other essential element to human fulfillment: we.
Think about the groups that give meaning to your life--where you find basic
security, satisfying friendships, material and spiritual well-being. Many of us think of friends and families, and perhaps
our congregations, as our only thick we's. That is not enough. We cannot grow as individuals and society cannot thrive unless
we embrace all the thick we's that are central to our lives--the people with whom we work and learn as well as those with
whom we pray and play.
Many of us are better at being true to our values as individuals than at
conscientiously linking our values across the many organizations in our lives. The social action committee or minister in
your congregation may encourage you as individual consumers to do business with locally owned stores instead of large corporations,
for example. Or perhaps you encourage each other to make sure your retirement savings are invested in a socially responsible
way. As laudable and important as these choices are, they nonetheless remain the actions of individuals acting in markets.
In contrast, imagine that your congregation asked each member to begin
a discussion in his or her workplace about living wages or affordable health insurance. Yes, such an action would be taking
a kind of individual step--but, and this is key, it is a step taken as an employee, not a consumer, and within the thick we
of an organization, not a market. Could you, for example, challenge your workplace--where you have a thick involvement and
must take a much greater risk--to adopt a living wage, humane layoff policies, and a commitment to local job creation? Could
you then work as a congregation to persuade large employers in your area to do the same? Would you be agreeable if your congregation's
leaders said, "We've decided we want to persuade other churches in our community to adopt more welcoming policies toward gay
and lesbian people--and we want all adult members to come along on a visit to a minister of a local church?" You might not
feel nearly so comfortable as making consumer choices in markets. You might think, "I could get fired," or "My church has
no business telling local companies, other churches, or me what to do."
But there are churches across the nation doing these very sorts of things.
Many conservative churches make no secret of how they'd like their values and priorities to contribute to what they see as
the greater good of society. Their congregants take their shared values into other thick we's in their lives, such as charter
schools, local political parties, and workplaces. These organizations are reshaping society in ways that affect you and your
future. You--and your thick we's--ignore them at your peril.
In more liberal churches, many of us are ill at ease with these approaches.
A commitment to individual liberty has invested us with a belief in individual will and freedom of action. We have a deeply
ingrained conviction that it's oppressive for the group to put strictures on the individual. But that attitude is not serving
us well in this age.
We must see that the organizations that matter most to us--and for many,
the most important are our workplaces and our congregations--are our new towns. We must demand more self-governance in our
day-to-day real lives and use our organizations' values, especially our congregations' shared values, to shape our world.
Otherwise, we will be left to live in markets and networks dominated by values we don't share and where we have no voice.
Organizations as Thick We's
Each of us can--and, I argue, must--make
some organizations into communities for ourselves. Our thick we at work can be among the most important in our lives, a community
where we both make a living and bring our values to the table. At many workplaces, however, creating financial value and winning
at all costs are the answer to every question. Certainly, profits and competing to win are essential to every successful business.
But if they always trump every other value, then the values promoted by our thick we at work will overwhelm and overshadow
all the other values we'd like to think we care about.
If your work organization has a great deal of openness, or if you have a management
position, you may be able to raise questions about the values and practices of the organization at staff or executive-team
meetings. Low-ranking employees can find ways to introduce beneficial changes, starting with conversations with fellow employees.
But it takes courage, and it takes support. In order to put our deepest values to work in the world, we must get involved
thickly with other organizations as well.
Congregations and the Common Good
I challenge you to turn your congregation
into an essential thick we that takes explicit action together. It is no longer enough for churches to adopt a circle-the-wagons
mentality, to provide a Sunday sanctuary for a group of people with shared values without taking action together throughout
the rest of the week.
No thick we is taking its responsibilities seriously unless it defines
its common good and the performance it seeks to achieve. That last phrase may scare you. "Performance" is a word we don't
often use at church. We're more comfortable saying, "We wish to do good." But too many nonprofit organizations--including
churches--assume that intention will somehow translate into results. Too many congregations assume they know what values their
members share. Failing to be explicit about values and goals, however, prevents church members from taking themselves seriously
as a thick we connected by shared values in their work both inside and outside the church.
I urge your congregation to
do some soul searching, to discover the soul of your "we": What do we want to do? How do we want to influence other "we's"
in our larger community? Involve your entire membership in this three-step process: What is our mission? How do we accomplish
it? And how do we know if we have succeeded?
First, identify your common vision, your shared purposes and values. Some
congregations have a mission statement that does this. If your congregation does not, write one. If respect for the inherent
dignity and worth of every person is the value that defines the heart of your congregation, ask yourselves how you can express
that value not just in worship on Sunday mornings or in your interactions with each other, but in other groups in your community
as well. Perhaps you will decide in talking about this core value that your mission as a congregation is to empower people
to spread respect through every group in your community.
Mission statements are abstract, however, so don't
stop there. Next, in order to make your mission real, define the strategies you'll use to achieve it. Do other people know
what your congregation is about? Some of your strategies will focus on the public face of your congregation--the programs
it sponsors, the way church leaders talk to the media and participate in community events, how the congregation advertises
or market itself, the way your congregation spends its money and interacts with neighbors. In talking about your congregation's
strategies, though, don't focus simply on things like marketing or publicity, as important as these institutional activities
are. The strategies that matter most are ones that involve you as members. What can you do as members of your congregation
to bring your values into other groups you're part of? How can you spread respect, for example, in your workplace and other
organizations? How can your congregation empower and assist you--and hold you accountable (IMPORTANT!)--for bringing this
core value into your other thick we's? One strategy might be simply to ask each member to initiate a conversation about respect
in their workplace, community, or school with a coworker, neighbor, or classmate.
Third, set measurable performance goals that will tell you when you've
succeeded. You might set an ambitious goal: Within eighteen months, we will help persuade two other organizations in our area
to adopt more respectful practices toward their gay, lesbian, or transgender employees.
Too few churches now have this
degree of explicitness. But to be effective in this new world, churches must do this kind of soul-searching organizational
work and actively seek to inject the values they share into the other thick we's of their lives as well as the world beyond
their doors.
The question now is: Will you? Will your congregation commit to supporting one another as you take shared
values into the workplace, the school, state, local and federal politics, and so on? Will you risk your participant status
in other thick we's on behalf of the shared values you profess? Will you insist on respect in your workplace as well as in
your church work? Will you join with others at work to argue that all your company's employees should earn a living wage and
have access to health insurance? Will you bring your Sunday concern for truth-as-accuracy to influence your parent-teacher
organization's position on choices in textbook purchases?
We awake each day to a world that substitutes certainty for faith, marketing
for democracy, celebrity for leadership, profiteering for economics, and selfishness for charity. No single church or organization
alone can change this world. But every church--and every thick we in our lives--can ensure that its shared values contribute
to the greater good of humanity. They can do so if their members will do the hard work of all successful and effective organizations.
This discipline (YIKES!) will ultimately strengthen both our communities and ourselves and bring us closer to the kind of
society we want.
The final post in this series will deal with Conceptual Levels: Bringing
It Home to Values.
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