A Grievance with Independance

For all our modern advances in medicine, government, technology, civil rights and the standard of everyday living there seems to be a certain something else, just below the surface that is sending the world spiralling toward the abyss. We may not all acknowledge it but I think deep down we all feel it. War, crime, poverty all grow worse every day. It’s not that these things never existed in the first place, as long as there has been man there have been wars. It's just that these things seem to be getting worse.

I have often thought of the reason for it and greed is often among my reasons. A new idea has struck me though, one that is not attributable to any individual but to us all as a whole. The book I am reading now is a fantasy story set around a close knit tribe. As with humanity in the past they all depend on each other for survival. Any disagreements between the members of such a tribe are weighted by their contributions to their society. As the saying goes do not bite the hand that feeds you.

This kind of mentality is all but gone from modern society. We all exist as independent members of society. Of course we are actually dependant on a lot more these days. It takes more to bring us food, power, clean water and such than in simpler times. It is just that now we are so far removed from those people on which we are dependant that we do not even notice them. These people have also become replaceable these days. If your baker dies, there are probably ten others in the same area. Actually you probably have never even seen the man who bakes your bread, which just proves my point.

With this new found independence our mentalities have changed. We no longer care for the circumstances driving other people’s actions. We see only their actions, the outcomes of their life and sometimes not even this much. If we see a mistake, it is no longer weighed against the effort taken to get that far or all the past good that that person has accomplished. We see only failure and we simply think to ourselves, there is someone out there who would have done this properly.

Of course the reverse is also true. We are often so far removed from those who depend on us that we do not often consider them. In the past a hunter was valued by his people and at the same time knew that if he did not have a successful day his people would go hungry. Now we tend to think, it can wait one more day. We are not motivated to help those people we do not know.

This kind of a shift toward independence serves to remove us from the motivation and responsibility our every action might warrant. We do not feel the impact of our actions because we do not know those people who are affected and they do not know us.

Of course in our modern era it is impossible to move back to this sense of community in that same way. Because of industrialization and the huge scale of life these days we can never be close to all those we depend on. I will never know the man who built my iPod. But maybe in some smaller way we can move back toward that mentality.

We all have groups to which we belong. We have work colleagues, teammates, friends, family, clubs, churches. These all have a community mentality to some degree. If we could only expand this to our everyday thought. I think it all boils down to one truth that we have all forgotten. “Love thy neighbour.” It doesn’t even have to be that hard. Just know your neighbour. Say hello. Ask him how his day was. Know how he contributes, and value his presence for it.