Anyone who hangs out with any number of permutations of the tribe members will notice our propensity to turn everything to a "we" thing. One of the funnier and more absurd of these happened in the Great Smoky Mountains during a trip for our outdoor elective. During the hike in we stopped at a waterfall to check out the place and readjust packs. Josh, Brendan, and I decided to head toward the pool at the bottom of the fall and have a quasi-competition over who could best handle the 30-40 degree water as inevitably happens when you have a high density of testosterone in any place. We dunked and came back up and Brendan's prescription glasses were no longer on his face. Without missing a beat he says, "Josh lost my glasses." You may thing of that as a humorous accusatory statement or maybe even rude, but I see a strong bond that holds friends together.
There is a reason our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived in tribes. The more people you have in a group, the better chance for survival for the whole group. In a tribe, the skills of each individual works toward the betterment of the entire group. One guy may have a natural talent for hunting, so he provides meat for the tribe. Another may be knowledgeable about plants and so would gather and help the tribe hit its micros. One guy may be really good at building so he would take care of shelter. Likewise with other skills. These are the basics of a key concept that Adam Smith calls the "division of labor". Futher, not only does each individual improve his own talent, but he learns the talents of others and improves his skill set because he is a member of a larger group.
How does this relate to blaming something you did on someone else? Well, it doesn't really. But Brendan wasn'y actually blaming Josh. In a way though, he was sharing his defeat. Going back to the hunter-gatherer society, if one person failed to provide with his skill, the others would be able to help share the defeat so the one who failed would not suffer as badly. If the hunter could not bring home a kill, maybe the gatherer could gather more wild edibles and so the hunter would still get to eat. If the hunter were a lone wolf he would have gone to bed hungry and not hit his protons, resulting in death or worse... catabolism. Joking aside, sharing defeat is an important aspect of social bonding that I think our group does well. If one guy feels lonely or goes through a break up, or procrastinates on homework and ends up with a ton of work to do the night before the some of the other guys can help ease the load. This isn't exactly division of labor because it doesn't really split jobs. Rather, it is something I call "social charity."
On the surface, social charity would not seem to benefit the entire group. It is helpful to remember that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If one guy is particularly falling behind he risks weakening the entire group by either holding us back or by breaking off from the group. If he breaks off we lose the talents and skills that he has to offer. It is exactly like the mustical body of Christ that St. Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 12: "But instead, there are many parts, indeed, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need for your works.' And again, the head cannot say to the feet, 'You are of no use to me.' In fact, so much more necessary are those parts of the body which seem to be weaker... so that there might be no schism in the body, but instead the parts themselves might take care of one another. And so, if one part suffers anything, all the parts suffer with it. Or, if one part finds glory, all the parts rejoice with it. (1 Corinthians 12:20-22, 25-26 CPDV). Social charity seeks to strengthen the weak parts of the chain instead of expunge them, for if the weak parts are destroyed, there is no more chain.
Social charity also works on the opposite end of the spectrum. Say one guy has the potential to be set up pretty well going into college due to a good bit of money from graduation and no debt thanks to a full ride. Well then, "we" are set for college. We share in each other's successes as well as defeats.
Personally, social charity helps me to stay humble. It is rather easy to become prideful and greedy with wealth but sharing the success reminds me that goods are for the bettering of each other. In a world of greed and chaos, the "we" concept helps us survive as friends to enjoy success as well as help stave off depression, anxiety, stress, and loneliness. Reading these blog posts, we almost sound like a group of depressed teenagers, but really these guys are some of the happiest people I know when we are all together suriviving and thriving as a tribe. Together we are better by a power-that's exponents ladies and gentlemen, not your everyday multiplication- of eight than any of us could be on our own.
There is no "I" in "team" but there is a "we" if you screw around with the letters a bit.
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