Conversation and Community in the Northfield House

After a draining and nit-picky week, many of our internships and research positions were finally coming to fruition. Matthew started his position at the Arts Guild, and many of us now felt more comfortable in our new experience.

Coming out of an intense Twin Cities seminar, many of us had the idea of community on our minds. What is community? What does it mean? What’s the goal of a community? What makes a good community? 

A rousing conversation followed.

We wonder, what makes a community? It was apparent there was much more to community that just geography and proximity, but those two things were very important in forming relationships. Also, as we see in our own house, the best way to form a community is to pit people agaisnt something, creating this ‘us’ v. ‘them’ mentality. This ‘rally’ around the flag concept (Chris) seemed apparent in forming many of the strong communities we see today. 

Turning the lens on our own community at St. Olaf, we see these forces at work. Many of us have similar values and upbringings, and we can see how this can perpetuate class inequality and segregation.It’s apparent that humans have tended to homogenize their own groups over time, but what does that really mean? The consequences of our own nature is contrary to many of our own values of diversity and acceptance. 

So we erred on the side that communities tend to homogenize themselves in some ways, but these communities do have goals too. Emily pointed out the idea of Ubuntu, and the value of community in other cultures. This idea that the community should be about giving and self-sustaining is important, and can be embodied in the phrase, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’.

Humans experience much fulfillment from communities, but how do we build diverse communities without introducing segregation? That’s where Leaders for Social Change comes in, working on community organizing, policy actions, and being engaged in our own communities.  A good community is one where people are willing to commit, are conscious about that community, and participate.

Yet, sometimes we see other communities which are so much better, like Holden Village. However, as leaders for social change, we can’t just take off, we must help here and now, in our own places. [Batman didn’t do any good when he disappeared from Gotham in Batman Begins]. Even though we must be vigilant and do our work, we must be wary of being too selfless. We have to balance selfishness and selflessness, yet be aware of that privilege that comes with our upbringing. 

So, in our own communities, how do we do the most good possible? We have to be wary of creating of hierarchy of issues. People have different talents and passions, and people should be given space to work on what they want to. 

But what do we do about the rest of suffering in our world? Our backgrounds deem us privileged so we must not fight for survival everyday, like so many others. Systems are messy, and we must accept that. We just have to be wary of our own actions and thoughts. So instead of stepping in for others, trying to insert ourselves into other communities to help, we must ask, ‘What are we going to do with our privelegedness? With our legacy? How can we take that into the world?’