An Alternative to Organizations II

An Alternative to Organizations – II   IF  NEIGHBORS GATHERING IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION, WHAT IS IT?   What do I mean by an ‘organization’ ? I don’t mean an alternative to organizing.  For instance, if I have knives, spoons, and forks in a drawer, I don’t mean an alternative to separating each according to … Continue reading “An Alternative to Organizations – II”

An Alternative to Organizations – II

IF  A NEIGHBORS GATHERING IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION, WHAT IS IT?  

What do I mean by an ‘organization’ ?

I don’t mean an alternative to organizing.  For instance, if I have knives, spoons, and forks in a drawer, I don’t mean an alternative to separating each according to its kind and giving each kind its own compartment.  There is, I’m going to argue, a difference between organizing things and organizing people, or perhaps I should say, allowing people to organize themselves or a group of people to self-organize.  Or, using different terms, organizing objects and organizing subjects.  The objects in a drawer cannot organize themselves.  But subjects can and do organize themselves – IF they are allowed to do so.  By subjects, I mean all life forms.

What do I mean then?  I mean by “an organization”, every group of individuals who decide to work together in an organized way for a common purpose such that they become an organization.  This includes religious groups, charities, businesses, social clubs, homeowners associations, political parties, environmental groups, clubs, etc.,.  The key words here are “an organized way”.  The “organized way” of organizations is to treat others as objects or things rather than as subjects or persons. I suggest that an organization is a machine which we create composed of people.

An organization is created when a group becomes organized in a way that creates these characteristics:

  1. Membership.  A boundary is established between those who are in the group and those who are outside.
  2. Hierarchy.  Members are ranked according to levels of decision making and/or control and derive status according to position and label (boss, chief, owner, manager, foreman, etc.,).
  3. A corporate identity: A name which separates the group from other groups, often including additional symbolic representations, ie., a flag, logo, song, handshake, lifestyle, etc.,.
  4. Organizational links.  The group becomes related (as a group) to other groups, within the group, without, or quite often both.  The group may develop sub-groups such as committees, boards, staff, etc., or it may have horizontal relationships with other groups in a network.  (So what’s wrong with groups?)
  5. Imposed order.  Order is established through obedience/submission to a controlling authority such as rules, constitutions, by-laws, etc., and/or the decisions of other members.

There are pros and cons to creating an organization.  It is my belief that, all things considered, the cons are many times greater than the pros and that before a group decides to become an organization, they should consider an alternative.  An alternative that I offer as an example is the neighbors gathering that my wife and I held in our home in a suburban neighborhood in North Port, FL.  The gathering adopted certain principles which can be found here:   https://neighborsgathering.net/home/principles/

Neighbors Gathering

So, let’s take a look at our Neighbors Gathering and these five characteristics and see if they apply. We can look at what I intended for the gathering to be when my wife and I invited our neighbors into our home, and I can discuss what the gatherings were from my experience.  

(1.)  Membership.  The first article in the list of principles of gatherings shows my intent to be inclusive, to not put a boundary between us and them.

Neighbors are welcomed without regard to religion, politics, race, social status, wealth, gender, age, sexual preference, or ability to tell jokes.

Coming out of a fundamentalist Christian background and having been persuaded to accept and then later reject the theology of 5-point Calvinism and the division of humanity into the elect and non-elect, I wanted to see if it was possible for humans to get along with each other in spite of differences.  If we couldn’t, I thought,  there was no hope for global peace and an end to war.  I’ve been called an idealist and have been accused of being naive about “human nature” but my experience of the gatherings convinces me that it is possible, and, I might add, preferable.  Our soul is enriched by having a diversity of friends and neighbors that we care deeply about who differ from us.  A diversity of worldviews, when added together, provides a much bigger view of the world.  And yet, I’ve been told, that if we want to have deep intimate sustained relationships with one another, we must be “like-minded”.  This assumes that if one’s mind changes while in a relationship, the relationship becomes estranged, families become separated, friends are shunned, couples become divorced.  This assumption, I believe, is like a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Gathering only with others who are like-minded leads to (1) dogmatic beliefs and opinions, (2) a lack of critical thinking skills, (3) alienation, and (4) isolation -all evil attributes of tribalism.  

It takes both practice and teaching, I believe, to learn how to relate to those who don’t share our customs and traditions, beliefs, ethnicity, and worldview.  In our suburban neighborhood, neighbors lived for years next door to each other in ignorance of one another’s first names.  And they would drive several miles to attend different churches. In spite of proximity, they were strangers to one another.  It’s why, in order to experience intentional community, people will relocate in order to live next to like-minded folk.  This is why I described our purpose in creating a gathering as learning to be neighbors rather than being neighbors, and that becoming a neighbor involved caring for those who differ from us.

The purpose of these Gatherings is to learn how to be good neighbors; to create intentional communities of neighbors within walking distance.

Our gathering consisted of neighbors who were Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, New Agers, agnostics, atheists, liberals, conservatives, anarchists, and a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds.  One family barely spoke English.  One first time visitor, mistaking our gathering for a Christian meeting suggested that we pray following another neighbor’s emotional sharing of a recent experience.  There was an awkward silence of not knowing how to deal with the suggestion until I explained that not everyone there shared the same idea of what or who God is and so, therefore, a prayer would be uncomfortable for some.  But, those who shared  the common belief that God is a caring benevolent Being would probably also be of the opinion that this God is aware of the needs of each of us and of what we share with one another when we gather, and so we could consider the telling of these stories of our experiences with one another as a form of prayer.  That seemed to satisfy the visitor – especially when followed by hugs all around.  Politics were discussed but not argued over. Strong opinions were tolerated, not encouraged, and tempered by friendship which we did not wish to risk losing.

(2.)  Hierarchy.  At the very first gathering of neighbors in our living room, neighbors were kind enough to allow me to give a rough outline of why we had invited them into our home and our vision for future gatherings.  At the second meeting, I took ‘charge’ again and handed out my prepared agenda.  We gave each neighbor a three-ring notebook into which I hoped they would put each week’s agenda and any other materials handed out at the gatherings.  Fewer and fewer neighbors showed up each week until, at one point, only one neighbor from across the street (“Faithful Joe”) came to keep us company.  I stopped printing up agendas and we continued to hand out invitations door-to-door which included some neighborhood ‘projects’ for neighbors to participate in.  Rather than an agenda, we did continue to maintain a simple structure of meetings which allowed me to step into the background and facilitate the self-organization and spontaneous order of each gathering.  More neighbors started to show up. Later we suggested and introduced the idea of a ‘talking stick’  as an aid to storytelling.  The stick was a symbol of our “Egalitarian” ethos, the shared authority to speak and share ideas.  On more than one occasion, when I would try to interrupt a neighbor holding the stick, the sharp end would be pointed at me in a threatening manner.  Humor was used as an effective means to keep me and others from trying to dominate.  Anthropologists have noted the place of humor and other methods used in egalitarian “primitive” societies to resist the efforts of those attempting to gain a dominant position in the community.

(3.)  A corporate identity.  We did have a logo of sorts –

It was intended to convey a message of inclusivity rather than an identifying symbol.  And the name, “Neighbors Gathering” is generic, more of a description than a label.  The closest we came to a particular identity was to call ourselves the “La France Area Gathering” – which we seldom used because there was no need to distinguish our gathering from others.  There were no others – although it was our vision to have a network of gatherings throughout the world.  

(4.)  Organizational links.  We almost became linked with another organization (SCOPE) through my recruitment and assignment as a VISTA volunteer.  The organization was interested in my community creating activities and wanted to exploit our gathering as an example and as a project under their purview.  Many non-profit organizations depend upon government grants to fund their expenses such as staff salaries.  SCOPE applied for and was awarded a grant to improve neighborhoods and wanted to channel money to our neighborhood through me and, of course, under their supervision.  When I refused to accept the money for our neighborhood, I was “fired” (how do you fire a “volunteer”?).   When I asked what we were expected to use the money for, it was suggested, that we could buy food for our weekly potluck dinners.  Of course, that would have been completely contrary to the sharing ethic I was trying to foster, and the metaphorical significance of the food – that sharing food is sharing life.  Besides, some of the food came from our neighborhood garden.

The question could be asked about the status of our relationship to other gatherings if others were created.  Would we have become an organization?  My vision was for a “Rhizome Structure of Organization” with each gathering interdependent yet self-governing.  I hadn’t yet given thought to the nature of organizations or why groups should avoid becoming one.  At no time, at least as best as I can remember, was there a conflict between the gathering and the autonomy of individuals.  There was cooperation between neighbors on projects and events, but no binding commitments.  And I think that is one of the lines that are crossed when a group becomes an organization.  When an organization has an organizational link with other groups, it has the power to make binding commitments on behalf of individuals within the group.  At that point, the group transcends the individual.  It becomes a ‘machine’ and the individual merely a part.  I hinted at this relationship when I wrote,

An organic organization is dynamic and open to unpredictable changes.  A mechanistic organization, on the other hand, attempts to control input and output. A machine is efficient and controlled, but it is also dead.

(5.)  Imposed order.  As I wrote above, there were no binding commitments between neighbors and the group.  There were times when requiring certain commitments were suggested, such as the requirement that a neighbor work in the garden before they could help themselves to part of the harvest, and that only neighbors who showed up at the gatherings consistently could participate in any group decision making.  Those suggestions were never accepted.  However, again, there were no group decisions which were binding on any individual neighbor.  Before I was even familiar with the term, our gathering operated on the basis of stigmergic collaboration.  In other words, neighbors self-organized themselves and nobody told anybody else what to do.  Order emerged, it was not imposed.

So what?

Well, so what if a neighbors gathering is not an organization?  For many, if it is not an organization, it doesn’t count as anything.  When a group enjoys doing something together or wants to do something as a group, it’s almost automatic – someone will try to organize them and appoint themselves as the leader.  Only a short time will pass before rules for the group will be created and criteria will develop to decide who’s with us and who’s not-us (them).  A name for the group will be chosen. Eventually titles will be given to leaders to give them ‘official’ status. ‘Business’ meetings will be governed by Robert’s Rules of Order (possibly disturbed by snoring!).

The “way of organizing” is a well-worn path leading to increased productivity and efficiency.  It creates order out of chaos.  It is also the path to boredom, alienation, imprisonment of the soul, loss of innovation and creativity, control and domination, and away from the Spirit of Community.  The increased productivity and efficiency found on this path result in increased consumption of the world’s resources and the destruction of habitat for all humans and our non-human kin. The “way of organizing” is a mimicry of life by a machine with human parts.  It is a fairly recently discovered path relative to the existence of humans on earth.  We’re discovering that it is the path to extinction.

Another path is usually ignored, hidden, or rejected as too ‘primitive’ or lacking certain qualities such as ‘leadership’ or having someone ‘in charge’.  This path also produces order from chaos, but not at the cost of individual autonomy.  It is the self-organizing way of all organisms. It is the way of life.  

An Alternative to Organizations – I

As I wrote in my last blog post, I have been putting most of my thoughts in writing on Facebook.  I have been surprised lately, to see how often my thoughts are repeats of what I’ve written before.  Usually, when I post, my ideas seem like they are fresh creations of the moment, rather than something which has been pulled up from the past.  The theme of ‘power’ has been a constant.  I wonder sometimes, if I’m like an uncle of mine who I remember as having a one-track mind.  On Sunday mornings, he would stand and offer a sermon with the same topic based on the same biblical passage –

A woman shall not wear men’s clothing, neither shall a man put on women’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to Yahweh your God.” (Deut. 22:5).  

Apparently, in his mind, all social problems were related to the disobedience of this law.  OK, so I admit that, in my mind, there is nothing  that isn’t in some way related to power.  But that is because I see the universe as constituted by experiential relationships which require power to come into being.  Therefore, power is absolutely related to everything. I also believe many of our ideas about power are fundamentally flawed which isn’t necessarily sinful (maybe pathological?), and I do see a connection between our ideas about power and social problems.  And environmental problems.  And economic problems.  And, as it goes without saying, political problems.

Well, this blog is dedicated to Neighbors Gatherings and therefore, staying consistently in my track, requires me to write about power in connection to my subject.  There are hints of this connection on my Neighbors Gathering website (which I will exploit in future blogs), but I discovered it this morning in a post on FB from three years ago. >> I am an anarchist.<<

I didn’t understand the connection at the time, so when I was asked in the comments following by my friend, William,

As a ‘REALIST’ AND PRAGMATIST I need a model of a society that impliments relational power. Cultural inertia is a fact. That fact opposes any sudden change unless there is a compelling change in the social environment, eg. a Pearl Harbor kind of incident. Perhaps the soon to be experienced global effects of climate change would bring about the conditions where the need for cooperation is paramount….  I do NOT have a model to even suggest which is why I need to have one.”

it didn’t even occur to me to suggest Neighbors Gatherings as a model of communities based on relational power.  I knew that Neighbors Gatherings were different from other forms of neighborhood associations (usually legally defined) and what I have experienced in organizations in general.  Now I’ve come to realize that Neighbors Gatherings is not an organization. But, I didn’t necessarily have the language tools to describe the difference.  For instance, I’ve always used the term “community” to describe what I was trying to create but recently ran across the term “communitas” which helps to describe the difference.  And, several years ago, I didn’t know anything about what ‘anarchy’ meant (other than the popular misconception), and now it has become a self-label.

So, with new tools, and hopefully more clarity, I’ll go back to what I’ve written in the past, make some revisions, and perhaps come up with something new and fresh.  And, I have to admit, I do it with a sense of urgency, or a sense of mission which may be due to the apocalypticism I was exposed to as a child. But be that as it may, it is part of me, I think it is justified, and I cannot help but express it.

The Worship of Power

When we lived in Kansas City, Terry and I joined a church whose primary mission was to integrate blacks and whites in one church community. I was on the Leadership Team and met weekly with the co-pastor – a young guy who had recently graduated from seminary. Most of our conversations seemed to revolve around the issues of leadership and authority and the nature of Divine Power. I tried vainly to persuade him that the ultimate form of power is synonymous with love. In other words, the assertion that “God is Love” is an assertion about God’s power. I’m convinced that this is true from personal experience, from rational thought, from biblical and theological studies, from science, and from philosophy. All of these provide important perspectives on the nature of reality. A single perspective should not be trusted. A perspective from Classical Theology (or traditional Christian theology) is in contradiction to my understanding of Divine Power. Using theological language, it asserts that “God is Omnipotent”. In commonly used terms, it asserts that God is in total control of all events. It asserts that God’s power is like the kind of power a king has – the kind of power that the Caesars used to control the citizens of Rome – a power exercised in force and violence, domination and control. It is a type of power that legitimates control under an ethic of “Might makes Right”, and which has produced male-dominated social structures (including the human family), and competing national armies. Religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam base their dogmas on an understanding of “inspiration” as the domination of human writers by a Divine Spirit in a puppet-like manner. These writings continue to justify the infliction of tremendous suffering and environmental damage to humans and animals. A glaring example of this justification of inhumanity on biblical authority can be seen in this quote from John Henry Hopkins (1864):

The Bible’s defense of slavery is very plain. St. Paul was inspired, and knew the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, and was only intent on obeying it. And who are we, that in our modern wisdom presume to set aside the Word of God … and invent for ourselves a “higher law: than those holy Scriptures which are given to us as ‘a light to our feet and a lamp to our paths,’ in the darkness of a sinful and a polluted world?”

More examples could show how this misunderstanding of God’s power led to the subjugation of women and other races, and equating those with a different religious view with demons and forces designated as being “against God”. It is the kind of power that Jesus and the early Christians rejected.

Until recently, power was not differentiated into its two modes: power as love (or subjective influence), and power as force (power applied to objects). Also, adequate thought has not been given to God’s status as the unique Divine Individual. By ‘individual’, I mean any entity which can influence and be influenced by others.  An ‘individual’ as I define the term, acts as one and responds as one to the actions of others. Therefore, in describing God as an ‘individual’ I understand that God shares the attributes of individuality purely as such.  However, there are two categories of individuals that are related in the same way that the universal is related to particulars:

  1. Non-divine individuals with contingent non-universal existence. All individuals in this category have bodily existence which can interact with other bodies, and all the interactions between bodies can be defined by the science of physics studying the phenomena of objects.
  2. The unsurpassable Divine Individual (God or Spirit). The individual in this category has necessary universal existence, is the ground for all other forms of existence – but has no individual form or body with which to interact bodily with other bodies.

It is impossible for the individual in category (2) to use power in the mode of control and domination. That kind of power can only be used in the interaction between bodies or objects. Just as it would be impossible to move a rock with your hands if you had no hands, Spirit cannot move rocks. This limitation of Divine Power is often referred to when it is stated that we (humans) are God’s hands and feet. Subjects (like biblical authors) can be influenced by other subjects, but cannot be controlled by other subjects (although they can be forced to submit by the threat of violence to their bodily existence). Therefore, we can see God’s influence (if we have eyes to see) throughout the universe in forms of order, creativity, and beauty. We do not need to, nor should we, credit God with the evil that we see all around us. When we are sick, impoverished, or oppressed, we should not be asking ourselves why God is doing this to us or to others we love. We should not become angry when it doesn’t seem like God is answering our prayers. And we can stop trying to defend God to the atheists. Instead, we can agree with them, that the ancient mythological controlling God who jealously protected his Divine Supreme Ego, never existed except in mistaken human mythologies. That God and the Santa Claus who climbs down chimneys at Christmas have the same ontological status. Unfortunately, it is that mythological god which is often worshiped on Sunday mornings, rather than the God that Jesus spoke about and for which he was accused of blasphemy and executed.

Worship of the mythological ‘Omnipotent God’ has produced an eschatology with the universe ending violently – an end which could only be applauded by an audience of demons.

Worship of the God of Jesus, on the other hand, leads us to belief in the Divine Eros, the Spirit that calls us to love our neighbor as ourself – to be perfect in our love as God is perfect (all-inclusive). It is under the influence of that Spirit that nature conceives and brings forth life. It is the influence of that Spirit that works to transform ‘that which is’ into ‘that which should be’.

At this point in the evolutionary path of the universe, a path that has led up to creatures with the ability to be aware of, reflect on, and respond consciously to Spirit, and thus be co-creators of the future, a sort of crossroads has been reached. As co-creators we are also co-responsible for the future. It is imperative, it seems to me, that we wake up and grow up, to become spiritually mature, to put away childish and foolish ways of thinking and acting, to take our place in the community of life forms existing all around us, to become channels of Divine Power, working in partnership with God and with one another (it’s the same thing), to build the Body of Christ (which has nothing to do with a particular institutional form or belief system).