Thursday, March 26. 2009"Success" and Neighborhood TransformationIn his latest book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell tells the story of two medical researchers, who in the late '50's and early '60's, stumbled across a Pennsylvania town where residents were far healthier than any other town/city in the United States. Their research concluded that these residents "were healthy because of where they were from, because of the world they created for themselves in their tiny little town in the hills." Gladwell describes the initial resistance of the medical community to their findings. "Living a long life, the conventional wisdom at the time said, depended to a great extent on who we were - that is, our genes. It depended on the decisions we made - on what we chose to eat, and how much we chose to exercise, and how effectively we were treated by the medical system. No one was used to thinking about health in terms of community."
The researchers "had to convince the medical establishment to think about health...in an entirely new way: they had to get them to realize that they wouldn't be able to understand why someone was healthy if all they did was think about an individual's personal choices or actions in isolation. They had to look beyond the individual. They had to understand the culture he or she was part of, and who their friends and families were, and what town their families came from. They had to appreciate the idea that the values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are." Not surprisingly, Gladwell goes on to tell multiple "success" stories that demonstrate why several things really matter: when people are born, where they are born, what their parents did for a living, the specific circumstances of their upbringing, the traditions and attitudes they inherited from their ancestors, the cultural legacies of which they are part, and a host of other "environmental" factors. He completely destroys the common myth(s) that individuals arrive at places of great influence and find success simply by being smarter, working harder, and having more ability than everyone else. This attention to multiple factors in a given context (or "environment") resonates with those of us who are involved in the work of church and community development. We know, first hand, that place and time and relationships and family backgrounds and cultural heritage and institutional histories and vocational opportunities/experiences and a host of other realities contribute (or not) to the "success" (shalom?) of neighborhoods and communities. In fact, an asset-based approach to community development involves identifying the best, most life-giving dimensions of diverse stories and varied resources. Paying attention to the many details of a given environment (and discerning what God might be up to) is vital to sustaining meaningful transformation. So then..........why does "looking beyond the individual" seem like "heresy" to many church, agency, and governmental leaders? What produces resistance to planning and acting out of a deeper awareness of multiple community narratives and systemic issues? How might we grow in our discernment of environmental factors and uncover "hidden" resources for community success? I have some hunches about all this, but I would love to hear from you via the comment section or e-mail. Trackbacks
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is it really heresy that the local leaders are perceiving in the invitation to address systems? I wonder if instead there is an assumed belief that approaching an individual appears manageable, doable and carries with it the perception that we will see transformation related to our efforts. Along those same lines, I wonder if local leadership catches a glimpse of systemic issues at play in any one community and reacts negatively to the seemingly unwieldly-ness of it all. Its a more involved, tangled mess than we can imagine making sense of. The reaction against systemic engagement and transformation then would not be due to perceived heresy, but to an expectation that we can't change the systems--perhaps similar to a learned helplessness.
Chris,
I am pretty much in agreement with you, especially since I used "heresy" as a metaphor to challenge the widely held belief that transformation only happens "one person at a time." Thus, to your point, we are easily overwhelmed with environmental complexities and focus our attention on individual betterment. However, in my view, the assumptions of individualism continue to shape our imagination, and those who work from a different set of assumptions can meet almost intuitive resistance.
Greetings from Tucson - beloved home of the rugged individualist:) Since my brother is a fellow "1" on the enneagram - I know it shouldn't be too difficult to create some interesting dialogue. Disclaimers and disclosures: I automatically rebel against words like community, systems, "the local church"... it triggers an automatic translation into words like group think, majority rules and sheep-like behaviors.
My thoughts would be more along the lines of Chris - though I would not call it a learned helplessness - I would call it a learned responsibility. I am responsible for my life, character defects, choices - when I really learn and take on the responsibility for those and change - there is an automatic, irreversible difference in the world around me. There can't not be. Context: 22 years of Social Work -actively working to change all kinds of systematic wrongs - to no avail - the only real difference I've ever made is in 1 to 1's. 30 years in "the local church" - a bastion of Stepford Wivery - the only thing that has ever made a lasting spiritual difference in my life is meeting someone(s) who is also on a spiritual journey - a 1 to 1. A lifetime in a biological family system that easily left me aside - which is changing - but only because of 1 to 1's - the family system never rescued me. A decade of working in a political party, to change the system - only to yet again be completely trampled on for the expediency of the political system. Systems and communities and churches are cruel and small-minded bull-dozers - people, individuals are not. I think there is an intuitive pushback because most people have been harmed by systems and communities - it seems like a healthy response to be skeptical and avoidant of the things that harm us. hmmmmm my first blog experience thanks for listening -
Pam,
It's great to "hear" from you in this format. We have yet to really experience Spring here in G.R. In fact, it looks like 3-6 inches of snow are coming our way on Monday. Thanks for your challenging thoughts! In some ways, I think it would be easy to "talk past" one another because of our different contexts. I write this blog out of a situation in which churches, nonprofits, and social agencies are focused almost exclusively on meeting the immediate/presenting needs of individuals. You write out a context in which you have experienced resistance and personal attack in your role as an advocate for those who are marginalized (and even demonized) by our social, political, and religious institutions. Let me simply clarify a couple of things, because I could go off in a number of different directions. First, when I refer to systems and systemic issues, I am not thinking primarily of institutions. I have more of an "organic" view of systems, with people-places-families-relationships-neighborhoods-etc. in mind. And the point I am trying to make (with reference to Gladwell) is that living environments really matter in the "success" of individuals, and leaders in particular need to attend to the details of environment. Second, when I refer to "looking beyond the individual," I am in no way undermining the importance of one-to-one encounters and relationships. As with you, I have experienced much joy and "life" in these relationships. However, I am advocating a more holistic way of working with individuals, a more nuanced way of working with families-groups-neighborhoods, and a more subversive (i.e. contextual-environmental) approach to overcoming systemic injustice. Camping out only on one end of the cultural engagement spectrum (e.g. fighting the unjust institutional systems) or the other end (e.g. meeting the pressing needs of an individual) will not lead to greater human wholeness. Actually, let me also offer a "third" response. "Systems and communities and churches" (understood as people in relationships who have something in common) do indeed become cruel and controlling and limiting. But this is not the only story. They also become generous and kind and courageous and affirming. Self-protection is an understandable response in the face of the former, but it limits the opportunity to create the latter. And it seems to be the case that human experience in any context usually involves a curious mixture of both. |
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