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| <back | home Inventing the 'Hood: Our Need for Neighbors by Lauren Sullivan So, okay; the sky is falling. Chicken Little has her day at last; place your bets on which catastrophe strikes first. The long-anticipated implosion of the economy? Or H5N1, the horrific great-great grandson of the 1918 influenza pandemic? Global warming? The end of oil? The fallout from the 2004 election? How do we begin to prepare for any of these? We don’t know what we are going to need, how our infrastructure will fail us, where to turn for help and information and supplies. Fortunately, a lot of groundwork was laid in preparation for Y2K, which turned out to be a trial run. Much of that information is still available and useful. Most certainly, a basic need we will have is simply one another. Once upon a time, informal sharing, communication and support within neighborhoods was taken for granted in good times and bad. But after World War II, a transformation began. We became very busy, commercial, and mobile, and casual warm relationships with near neighbors began to disappear. We had no time. Credit became freely available to all for the first time, and the postwar economy was built on it. That meant more and more of us were working to pay for the goodies. Eventually, addictions to shopping, to substances, to trivial amusements, to thrills and even to war filled the empty places where once we had relationships with friends and neighbors. Now maybe we know one or two well enough to wave occasionally and say "hi." But in a time of major crisis, we may well have to depend on one another once again as the ultimate resource. We need to think about this now, because mental preparation ahead-of-time makes coping with crises a great deal easier. How can we develop the kinds of neighborly relationships we once had, and which still endure in a few fortunate places, so that we have supportive networks in place when we need them? And with whom? Here is one answer. Assistant Professor of Sociology Keith Hampton at MIT has created I-Neighbors (www.i-neighbors.org), a free and versatile Internet program by which relatively small groups of people who live close to one another can begin to network around mutual concerns, needs and interests. Started in August 2004, after a period of testing in various kinds of "neighborhoods," it has been received enthusiastically, and the movement is growing rapidly. It starts the old-fashioned way, with person-to-person contact or flyers informing people within a particular area of the idea and inviting them to participate. Interested people contribute their e-mail addresses for starters, create profiles on the web page provided, and a name is chosen for the "neighborhood." These new neighbors have used their sites to share such information as whom to call for home repair services, or who has excess produce to trade, or who wants to form a car pool, or trade baby-sitting services, and so forth. They announce neighborhood events and plan get-togethers. Discussions have started around community issues, and some have become community activists. As people use it, they get more creative with it. Relationships formed through I-Neighbors sidestep sticky issues of political and religious differences, which are not relevant at this level, and focus on the needs and resources the members share. The kinds of relationships that are formed tend to be what Hampton terms "weak," rather than "close," and this is ideal. The groups are rather fluid, as members move away and new people join, but newcomers readily get a feel for the area and a sense of belonging to a community. People don’t even need particularly to like each other to be "good neighbors." This program is available to everyone and flourishing now. A desire to create intentional communities motivated the development of numerous experimental communes in the 1960s and 70s. Many members, alienated from their families of origin, decided to choose their own "families." Generally these were started with great expectations and high hopes and failed for lots of reasons, perhaps, chiefly, poor communication. But people learn from their failures, and the experiments have continued. Co-housing, another kind of intentional community, is one solution. A group of people pool their resources, own certain areas of their development in common and their personal dwellings privately. Tierra Nueva in Oceano is one such project. Eco-villages are another type, emphasizing sustainability. Highly developed communication is a critical component for success in any of these. Agreements generally are based on reaching consensus, which takes work, patience and skill. The pay-off for the members is establishing that elusive sense of community. However we make the connections, eventually we will need to begin communicating with our neighbors about the deeper matters that concern us as Americans. When we know one another well enough to begin discussing the issues that create the most painful divisions among us, those marking us as "liberals" or "conservatives,"we can profit from the insights of George Lakoff, linguist and author of "Don’t Think of An Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate." Values are at the heart of the matter. He illuminates some key differences between liberals and conservatives by comparing how each thinks of "family values." We all think of our communities, states, and nation as ‘family," and even speak of a global "family of nations," says Lakoff. But what do we mean by ‘family’? He says that, typically, the conservative concept is that of a "strict father" model in which everyone is subservient to the father, the head of the household. The mother, a junior partner, helps him rule. Children are "born bad," have nothing of value to add to the family discourse, and have to be taught to be good, with painful "discipline" inflicted in the process. Obedience earns rewards. Internalizing painful lessons, that discipline is carried over into their work and the business world, leading to success and prosperity in adulthood. Those who fail are bad and deserve punishment. This model is outlined in such books as James Dobson’s "Dare to Discipline," sold by the millions in supermarkets and apparently valued nearly as highly as the Bible by its readers. Similarly, the United States is viewed as the "strict father" in the family of nations; the others are "children." Children are not allowed a voice in decision making. Disobedience will result in prompt and painful punishment. When George Bush said, "The United States doesn’t need a permission slip [from the U.N.] to defend itself," this model was his reference. By contrast, Lakoff describes the liberal model of the family as one of shared responsibility, nurturance and protection. The adults are equals; the children are important members of the family; what they say and think and feel are important elements in decision-making. They matter, in other words. They are not expendable. Painful discipline is not only unnecessary, it is abusive and harmful. What children have to contribute is valued. Helping one another to succeed is the way to make a better world. Because they go to the heart of a conflict, we need to understand the essence of these conceptual differences when we undertake to establish lines of communication and heal the rifts with our political opponents, some of whom dwell within our own families. Lakoff has much to teach us about the strategies conservatives have developed to frame language in order to persuade. These strategies are largely responsible for the rise of the conservative viewpoint which is so prominent in our society today, and we need to learn to use them to present our own progressive ideas and values to the world. And we most particularly need to find the areas where, despite our differences, we are united through our common needs and self-interest as humans. Here is where we will find our shared values and the base for rebuilding the nation. One remarkable project effectively doing just this is the Apollo Alliance (www.apolloalliance.org). Bracken Hendricks, its uniquely gifted executive director, has put together a broad coalition of labor and environmental groups by focusing on the question, "Where are the jobs in a green economy?" ("Power Ranger," by Ben Carlisle, Hope Magazine, July/August 2004). He has been able to bring together these two huge, often adversarial groups, including 17 major labor unions, representing over 10 million workers, and 15 environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Union of Concerned Scientists, by addressing the concerns of both groups. The aim is to "not only reduce our dependence on oil ... but also improve national security, clean up the environment, and generate millions of high-quality jobs." Now that is an example of great vision and wonderfully effective communication; and it is creating considerable attention in Washington. With those two groups working together instead of fighting each other, we can begin to create sustainable, "green" communities and high-paying jobs while meeting the needs of many different groups of people. These are a few examples of the ways effective communication is creating the connections between us that we will need increasingly as we deal with grave new challenges. Bill Moyers once said, "Sharing is the essence of civilization." He was referring specifically to his profession, journalism, but perhaps the deepest roots of civilization go back to prehistoric days with storytelling. The tradition of sharing continues today. Our own HopeDance is part of it. Please remember to support these "voices in the wilderness." We need them as we recreate our own civilization. Lauren Sullivan Resources: "I Once Was Blind but Now I See: The Amazing Grace of Y2K," by Margaret J. Wheatley, HopeDance, Issue 15, 1999. "A Family Survival Manual for Y2K and Beyond," Hugh Simpson, Granite Publishing, 1999. "Power Ranger," by Ben Carlisle, Hope Magazine, July/August 2004 (Apollo Alliance) "Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate -- The Essential Guide for Progressives," George Lakoff, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2004 "Who’s Knocking at the Door? Check Your E-Mail First," by Juliet Chung, The New York Times, August 26, 2004 "New MIT Web Site Encourages Neighborliness," Massachusetts Institute of Technology News Office, August 26, 2004 "The Serpent That Ate America’s Lunch," by William Greider, The Nation, May 10, 2004 (the economy) <back | top^ |