The Community Course
Part 4 - Concluding Observations
Part  1   2   3   4      Chapter 23  24  25

24. Freedom in the Community

Freedom from Bondage
Primitive communities had the virtues of mutual acquaintance and understanding, mutual regard, cooperation, equality, and unity of aim; but people in the primitive community was not free. His or her servitude to the community spirit was as complete as the servitude of any slave to his or her master. So long as he or she was like the others in the community he or she had an equal share in community life. If he or she departed from the community way of life he or she became an outcast.

One of the greatest achievements of modern times has been the freeing of people from bondage to the social group. This social group might be the primitive community, the feudal society, the church with its power over both mind and body, or the empire. The strong appeal of laissez faire, of free independent initiative, unhampered by government and society, can scarcely be understood unless we realize the servitude to community, church, feudal society or empire, which preceded it. The enormous burst of creative energy which resulted in modern intellectual, industrial, and technical civilization probably could not have occurred without that freedom.

Vital Qualities
If a large degree of freedom is to be an asset to society it cannot stand alone, but must be associated with other qualities such as social-mindedness, integrity, and self-control. Where the modern world was built upon pre-feudal democracy, as to some extent was the case in Switzerland, these necessary associates of freedom were present to a large degree. Where the modern world followed feudal society, whether political or religious, with its tradition of social stratification, exploitation, and physical or mental coercion, those evil traits continued in the new laissez faire society. Irresponsible individuality grew so rampant as to threaten the structure of society. The doctrine of everyone for himself has proved to be as destructive of social well-being as was the earlier servitude to social organization. Today the world over there is a swing back toward greater social control.

Avoiding the Extremes
Totalitarian government, as in Germany and Russia, has acted on the prin­ciple that social control should be absolute. The individual is relatively nothing, and society is everything. In an industrial society, where the intimate and refining influences of small communities are rapidly disappearing, and where great, centralized, impersonal organizations are in control, this process may lose many of the values of the old community, and may retain its worst feature, that of servitude and suppression of individuality.

On the other hand, modern “free initiative," such as has prevailed in England and America, through great concentration of economic power has robbed the average man or woman of much of his or her freedom, but has failed to retain a sense of mutual regard and responsibility. This form of irresponsible power is not the best defense against the evils of totalitarianism.

Freedom and Community Qualities
The problem of the community, as of all society, is to save and to enlarge the priceless values of freedom, while yet developing the qualities of mutual regard, mutual help, mutual responsibility, and common effort for common ends. That is the problem of democracy. Actual democracy cannot originate in large masses or by legislation. It is a way of life which must be learned by the intimate associations of family and community. While the community is developing a sense of mutual responsibility, and while it is working out common plans, there should be constant endeavor to save individual freedom and initiative.

Community Participation
Leadership in developing community interests is good. Coercion into community participation--beyond the sheer necessities of public health and safety, and the elimination of objectionable elements such as nuisances or immoral or anti-social influences--should not be used. Society has a right to insist that the contacts a person has with society shall be helpful and not harmful, but the number and intensity of such contacts should be for each person to decide for himself or herself. In the long run society will gain by that policy. Relatively solitary persons like Spinoza or Henry Thoreau by their very separateness may get new view points of great value to society. And who knows what degree of intensity of social contacts will give life its greatest value? A man may prefer to have as his intimate associates the great minds of all times in books, or the quiet beauty of nature, rather than his neighbors. Many great men and women have testified to the value of such solitude. Only a crude and insensitive society will force its intimate association upon its members.

On the other hand, the man or woman who lives much with nature or with books, if he or she is wise, will generally keep live contacts with his neighbors. He or she will find some common ground of interest, and will discover ways in which to bring to them some of the values he or she has found. Otherwise one may be a parasite, taking one's living from society, and giving nothing in return. The community may tolerate him or her, but will not love him or her.

Moreover, the community should exercise tolerance as to what constitutes anti-social attitudes, for otherwise it may be suppressing the pioneer. Society does not owe it to any person to allow him or her to be clearly anti-social or parasitic. It does owe the person the freedom to be unsocial if he or she chooses.

The genius of democracy is to eliminate compulsion to uniformity, whether that compulsion be physical force or social pressure and to develop common out­looks and aims by mutual inquiry, mutual interest, and mutual regard. That process seldom if ever takes place on a large scale  Rapid large-scale changes generally come by ignoring individual variation and by enforcing large-scale uniformities. True democracy results from intimate relations and understanding, with the emergence of common purposes. The community is the natural home of democracy, and it can be the home of tolerance and freedom.