We all need a higher power to believe in. Some type of hope. I just don’t believe religion is the right word. I prefer the word ‘community’.
According to the Cambridge dictionary online, the word ‘community’ means “the people living in one particular area or people who are considered as a unit because of their common interests, social group, or nationality“.
We all belong to communities of shared thought or ideals, shared local area, education style or faith. We can create communities on Facebook and Instagram. We create our own communities if we don’t like the rules of others. Communities blend and adjust as society does and as our needs change, so do the services of our communities. Just look at recent events. Many people have moved their communities online, or reduced them down to a fewer people. Some communities such as workplace ones, have ceased to exist altogether. And people are missing out.
Community gives all the benefits of religion. A sense of purpose. An opportunity to share thought with like minded individuals. Communication eases with people you can relate to. Something to believe in and hope and opportunities to enrich our lives. Yes, communities are the way forward for sure.
Yet there are some communities that still insist we belong to them, and insist we live by their rules for no reason other than for them to continue to exist. And they’re so obvious. Government, religion and school.
What makes these communities unique, is that unlike socially created communities, the communities do not exist for those who take part, they exist for those who created it. We see embellishments of this pattern fall every day in social communities: Facebook groups ousted by well meaning individuals noticing a selfish tyrant in control, Tik Tok moms blasting the accounts of young girls selling their souls for likes, lining their brains with a belief system that will get his hard on the head when their looks fade. But the government does not fall. Religions do not fall. We still have to go to school.
Ever noticed that these communities breathe fear into their subjects? Religion is self explanatory, from guilt tripping to lying. Government are no better, but they have an army, a Navy, a central intelligence service… pretty well equipped to protect their purpose. School use curriculums and league tables to tell you what your child should be doing based on what? Their own research. Research that also tells them smaller class sizes are imperative, but they studiously ignore that.
In almost a year, the word community has changed to so many. We used to need to trust those at the top to do what’s right for us. Their experience and education would have taken years of picking through dense libraries of information, writing out critiques and theories in long hand, with a quill… How on earth could Joe Bloggs ever hope to understand?
Then the internet was born. Now we can learn in ways that we never could before. And someone much smarter than me knew this a long time ago. But if you could just think about it for a second, maybe you’d wonder why it took a pandemic for the public to suddenly be offered the opportunity to learn how to learn themselves… Because it’s not in your nation’s interest for you to learn. If you learn, you won’t need them to tell you what to do anymore. Those holding the puppet strings aren’t stupid. They can see the way society controls itself on Facebook and TikTok and Instagram. They know the carnage that will unveil if they let people make their own decisions. They know the result won’t line their pockets.
I’m not even sure what would happen. And even if it did, maybe we need it? I read Lord of the Flies like many other 90’s English GCSE candidate. We may have internet now. But we are still humans.
My Utopian idea… every country sets up an online website presence, with their rules and laws and attitudes and beliefs up in transparent words and pictures. Every human in the world gets a bid. Countries intially are allocated land according to how many bids they get. The more people who want to live there, the more land they will need. Once set up, people can move about as they choose, but they must live in the land they live in and abide by the rules of that land.
Utopian is correct. This will never happen. But if we could choose our own communities more, rather than forcing people who live in the same post code to share the same views, maybe that will be a step in the right direction.
FaerieFalls 