We need each other. We need the Lord. We need the truth.
In our parent's generation there was a basic stability in the workplace and the community. Most people not only knew the names of their neighbors and co-workers, but had visited their homes for dinner more than once. The society we live in has caused us to become isolated from each other, our families and friends. Except in a superficial way people don't even know their neighbors and co-workers. Our struggles for survival and success and our fears keep us from caring about anyone else or experiencing the concern they might have for us.
Our problems seem overwhelming because they originate in large organizations over which we individuals have little control. We all want world peace, a decent standard of living for all people everywhere, an end to crime, drug addiction, a cure for killer diseases. Instead our jobs and communities, contain the ills of the world affecting the lives of our friends and families. The governments, corporations and organizations like the churches, political parties, unions and schools or scientific institutions have not been able to solve these problems even though the organization's original reason for existence is to help deal with these problems.
Our defense is to blame ourselves or each other. We lack the information to understand and the confidence to act on our problems. The ideas and facts we do get come from the news media, television and movies, our schooling and the leaders of governments, corporations and organizations, All these organizations are interested in maintaining their own positions of power. We find ourselves manipulated into believing what we are told to believe about ourselves, our neighbors and co-workers. Workers are blamed for inflation, poor quality goods and services and high prices. The poor, elderly and sick are blamed for rising taxes. Minorities are blamed for taking jobs, rising crime being lazy and ripping off the tax payers. Workers in other countries are blamed for war and taking away jobs. Some how the people who lead the various organizations are never to blame. We are told by these leaders not to trust our neighbors or co-workers or even ourselves. We are all selfish and unable to understand what is in our best interests, so just trust them.
For those in power the truth is whatever keeps them in power and a lie is whatever would empower you. All groups and organizations regardless of purpose or ideology use centralized information gathering, decision making and information distribution to carry out their purposes. On the positive side, it is agreed that this is more efficient than all the members making all decisions after reviewing all the facts. On the negative side, hierarchical organizations can serve to protect the decision making leaders from the consequences of their decisions. What often happens to organizations with the best purposes and leaders with the best of intentions, is the survival of the organization or the maintaining position of the leadership becomes the basis for decisions.
The leader appoints only yes men. Any objections are seen as opposing the organization and a threat. Disloyalty to the organization is punished by rejection by the leaders and members. If an employee of the corporation or the institution sees a problem they are unable to voice it because of fear of losing the job. When the organization falls apart the leadership, self servingly can say, in all honesty, nobody ever told them about the problem until it was to late.
When an organization or individual becomes too corrupt people find time to make a new hierarchical organization to replace or reform the old one. In the competition of business a company which failed to meet its customers needs would lose out to a new company. But today many corporations have become so large and so influential in the government that they don't have to worry about meeting customers needs efficiently. In effect companies can afford to contribute to both political parties so as to insure that no matter which party wins they will have access to the political process. They have eliminated the possibility of competition by cooperating with other companies in giant mergers.
The failure to accomplish real reform leads to cynicism and defeatism. What is required is not to replace hierarchical organizations with another hierarchical organization. It is not even the elimination of centralized decision making, but rather a new type of organization which can solve these problems. Formal interlocking groups on the job and in the community can act as a basis of information gathering and distribution which has no vested interest in maintaining the power of a few over the many. These groups do not replace the large organizations we are all part of. Instead they act on a check and balance on the power of those organizations. Where individuals need the support and information to solve some problems in their job or community they have a vast network of people like themselves available to them. Because there is no central headquarters or leadership there is no way to easily destroy the organization by removing or buying off the top. The very same strategy used by the Defense Department when it first implemented the Internet to reduce the potential of catastrophic failure if the centralized single computer took a direct hit in a war.
All of us have at least two and as may as four different groups we are part of: First the people in our immediate community, Second the people in our immediate work location. Even for people who work alone there are groups of friends or even family that we see regularly. There are certain things we have in common with the other members of these groups that effect the whole community or everybody who works in a particular department, office or type of job. We already share some of the information about our lives as we meet for lunch or coffee break or with neighbors at the store. These informal chats can degenerate into gossip or self pity. Rarely will there be a helpful suggestion made or would anyone take this information too seriously Even so people use these commiserations and announcements of good things to support each other. Advice is sought and given. People do share how they see the world and what they think people ought to do about it. There must be a degree of trust between people sharing aspects of their lives. You don't want the person to judge you. Nor are you anxious to have them going around spreading gossip about you. For these reasons many people only talk about safe topics with people they don't know very well. When major problems are discussed, the outcome of these talks is never taken anywhere.
The simple fact that many people are facing the same problem is often not available to help people from feeling they are only ones with this problem. We all have thought how much better it would be if everybody would just ............ ( you fill in the blank). What's missing is a way to get these ideas out there for constructive criticism and implementation. Everyone has good ideas about how too improve things. If people only had a means to get some feedback, their ideas could be improved upon via the input of different people. Certainly the newsgroups and Email on Internet are useful in accomplishing the information sharing, At this time the people who are experiencing the most difficulty with the way things are and the greatest need to be in dialogue, are often those least likely to have an Email address or access to the Internet.
One of the things that keep us dependent on leaders is their crisis approach to problem solving. They never deal with a problem as it is emerging. Often a hasty solution is produced which causes other problems. What could keep these leaders from doing more harm then good is a way for the people who are effected by a problem and the people whose job it is to correct it need to be able to talk to each other directly in an ongoing way.
All things, people and groups interact by exchanging components of themselves. This generalization is part of the theory of interlocking groups. The types of things exchanged include people, money, goods and services, information, emotional support and votes. What happens as a result of these exchanges? An exchange can be unbalanced in that one gains overall while the other losses. The result of exchanges can be a change in the rate of exchange. Two groups, people or things can become more or less isolated from each other. If we consider the group of groups of people in a community or a work place; there is the possibility that the more interaction between individuals in a group the less interaction between that group and other groups. But it doesn't have to be that way. Individuals which interact more completely can become a more effective group in their work place or community, thereby increasing their interaction with other groups and individuals.
Competition and cooperation are the two major modes of human interaction. No country, company, group or individual could function entirely in one mode or the other. The optimum ratio of cooperative to competitive activities varies with time and is different for different groups and organizations. An example is a company whose managers where so competitive among themselves that they sacrificed the company's needs to make their own personal gains would destroy the company's ability to compete. Alternately consider a situation where all decisions are made so cooperatively that all individual initiative to try something new or risky is stifled. If we consider all levels of things from the whole world, to different countries, to different classes of people, to different organizations or companies and to different departments within them or different regions of a country and communities within a region and ultimately to the individuals within these various groups; more cooperation at one level is sometimes associated with more competition at the levels just above and below it. Since we are all part of so many different groups and hierarchies of groups, it is not always obvious where the competitive and cooperative group boundaries are.
What are the components of ourselves we exchange in the course of our interaction with people around us? Mostly we think of our work where we exchange our physical and mental skills for money. We are also consumers of products and services which we obtain by exchanging money for them. People tend to measure their worth by how much they are paid. Some people who do valuable work in the society are paid less than others who do less important work. Money is not the only component of our selves we can exchange. We also vote. There is competition for our votes or our joining this or that group. People can and do listen to each other, encourage each other, do things for each other and even share things usually on a cooperative basis.
Another thing that people can exchange is prayers. By praying for each other they encourage faith. Some things we pray for like world peace, take a change in the hearts of people before God will answer our prayers. Though we think of prayer as asking God to act in our favor, I see God using our prayers as a way of uniting people and strengthening our submission to his will so that we can be used to accomplish the good things he wants to give us. Another thing we share is the information of our experiences. Some of the problems facing the unemployed and the under employed are finding out what skills a job requires, or even that such jobs exist and where. People are in need of finding apartments. Sharing these kinds of information can by itself make a major impact on someone's life.
A formal interlocking group is simply a group of five to seven people in a community or job who commit themselves to meet once a week or more often at a definite time and place to exchange information, encouragement and prayer What makes such a group effective is when each of the members goes and forms such a group in the opposite job or community location. What happens when people take information form one group to their other group? Can people in the opposite group be persuaded to take this information, question, answer, prayer request or idea to their opposite groups? Obviously all the information generated by a given group would not be transmitted to all other groups. Something would have to be pretty important to a lot of people before it would spread very far. In addition it would probably be modified by groups to meet their needs. What keeps information from becoming totally distorted as occurs in the children's game telephone is feedback and redundancy. Also it is possible using word processing and photo copying techniques to transmit the same material to people who then have the option of modifying it or copying it as is
The Gallop poll scientifically picks a representative group of people based on the proportion of different categories of people in the whole society i.e. by age, income, location and so on. They can ask a question of this group and be reasonable certain that the response is what the whole society would say if asked. What creates a problem is that it is possible to ask the questions in such a way as elicit a particular answer. When results of these polls are reported they end up shaping public opinion as much as measuring it. The people in any network of interlocking groups around a community or job location are not likely to be a perfectly representative statistical sample. Yet they offer a chance to find out what people think about the questions we have. If I had to chose between the integrity of the people around me and the integrity of those who own and control news media and poll taking companies, I would chose the people around me because I have more in common with them then with the owners of information companies.
It is easy to blame the ills of the world and our own problems on those in power. Certainly power corrupts. Yet there is an aspect selfishness and sinfulness in all people. Even people who try to be good, honest and caring find their ego gets in the way. The search for scientific truth has failed to answer our fundamental problems. Scientist's have had difficulty preventing the knowledge they find from being used to harm people. The political and economic analyses of society have failed to create an informed responsible electorate which exercises its rights. The union, the political party, the various church denominations, the government, the educational and scientific institutions and the corporations have all failed to live up to their original purposes and have often become self perpetuating tools of their owners and leaders.
One of the main ways that I personally have been helped by the various groups of my co-workers, neighbors. family and friends is that the have shared with me a broad range of approaches to the problems I/we faced. Certainly some of the underlying assumptions of the political, religious, union, educational, scientific and corporate groups are in contradiction to each other. What follows is a poor and superficial attempt to integrate some of these conflicting assumptions, in the hope of encouraging a wider range of dialogue. A scientist begins by examining all the possibilities.
It would be possible for interlocking groups to form a support network to use economic and political leverage such as a strike or boycott of a product or service or just to keep people enough informed to prevent leadership from lying about things. This assumes a common interest of people that they themselves do not yet see. Certainly we will need to encourage each other to become less selfish and self centered. The need is for people to be reconciled to God. I believe that Jesus Christ who was God, became a man, suffered in my place, for my sin and died so that all who believe in him could be reconciled to God. This doesn't make me a better person. In fact it was not because of anything I did but because of his love that we can have salvation. What seems to have stopped many outstanding and dedicated leaders in all different areas of life, is that their success became a basis for self righteousness. , Having a relationship to God helps us to take the focus off ourselves and helps us to see what is right and true and carry it out. It helps us to full fill that great commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. It helps to have a set of objective truths that originates outside the limitations of the finite mind of mankind.
What is truth? For me truth is not simply what works for me or us. Truth can not be defined by the majority. It is not the property of one culture or period in time. The Bible is given to man by God as a means of judging what is absolutely true. It states our value in the sight of God who created us. The Bible states our purpose for existence, to love and serve both God and humanity. It gives us rules for living so that we may enjoy all that God has given us. It offers us the choices of eternal life and empowerment to do God's will.
Science can not answer questions of value, worth and purpose. What scientists do is make observations, form a guess about the how of something and collecting data to prove their guess. The truth in science is found when a generalization can be inferred from a controlled experiment. These generalizations can not contradict the whole body of knowledge and theories we have already. Some times the new data cause scientists to revise the ways they have understood things before. It takes a lot of hard work to answer the most difficult questions. One motivation is that the knowledge gained will allow not only prediction but control of the forces involved. Indeed that is the main validation of a scientific guess. The assumption being that once you have isolated out and accounted for all the other variables the single remaining variable is controlling. and it is always so regardless of circumstance. There is nothing good or bad about the variable or its result. It just is. Obviously science runs into difficulty in the area of people. Not only are our actions and motivations more complex but a scientist's objectivity is affected by the fact of also being human. People act and react based on what they perceive as good or bad and these judgments themselves are affected by circumstance.
The Bible can guide us as to what is good or evil. It deals with the whole realm of the spiritual world. What happens spiritually is not so easily codified or objectified. A scientist might say a person gets sick because of the inability of the body to fight a germ. Spiritually one could view that same sickness as the result of some sin whether it be the person who is sick or someone else sin. The Bible speaks of the permissive will of God in allowing Satan to attack Job with disease. The Bible speaks Jesus healing many who were sick because they had sufficient faith. There is a word Rehema, which describes the fact the Bible is not just God speaking to all of humanity but that in specifics it is speaking to each individual according to their unique circumstances.
The role of formal interlocking groups whether they are on the job or in the community is to help each other find the truth by asking questions and receiving answers from diverse groups of people. The group may help people to be reconciled to God through Christ. Having been reconciled to God, we can seek the empowerment to do his will. God's will for us is that we be used by him to express his love and forgiveness and healing to those around us. It is by our actions that others will see Christ in us and have the opportunity to choose Him. The group may have nothing at all to do with either religion or politics or science. in some ways these are very abstract approaches for people whose lives are in great difficulty. I believe that when people receive affirmation and love from the people around them, when they receive the freedom to share what they know from people who may see things differently, then the truth will be revealed. Jesus said " I am the truth"
Most people will have a hard time understanding or agreeing with all of this. I would encourage you to either modify this document, summarize it, add your own comments or copy it as is and share it with people on your job or in your community, hopefully both. Use of a questionnaire is a means of finding others around you who have similar goals, or interests and needs.