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From this week’s Postsecret
As I was retrospectively thinking one day, I remembered Carol Kendall’s The Gammage Cup. I first discovered this book in the fourth grade. The storytelling was fantastic, but I also remember being intrigued by some of the messages of the book–issues such as authority, conformity, and expression. I re-read the book a year later, enjoying it as much as the first time, and then it somehow ended up in a garage sale and disappeared from sight.
I just finished reading the book for the third time in my life (which for me is rare for any book), confirming my suspicions that I took to heart some of the themes Kendall brought out in her novel. As children the simple fact that our view of the world is limited allows our imaginations to think of worlds that might be, to examine things we do not yet take for granted–and to laugh about the absurdity of it all. A brilliant piece of cultural satire, Kendall’s novel touches some profound questions of society, religion, and being alive. This book certainly helped guide my thinking and critique of the world, which I’m certain was no mistake on the part of Carol Kendall:
Children are a marvelous audience…they remember what they have read! Sometimes they remember it all their lives!
Sometimes I think it’s easy for us to forget that we are part of a food chain. Granted, we have no predators and are therefore at the top of the food chain, but this position relies on an intricately connected system of support that allows organisms to persist. If the bottom collapses, though, the reprocusions will be felt all the way up through the top.
Part of this forgetfulness stems from the change in food production with the advent of civilization. Nowadays most people have no direct role in food production as these jobs are left for a small group of farmers, breeders, and herders, and even modern farming practices–which reserve land exclusively for human use–obscure our place in the food chain. Conversely, the hunter-gatherer way of life exposed most of the tribe to the process of collecting food–in land that was shared for food by humans and other creatures–emphasizing that our food comes from living creatures, who in turn get their food from living creatures, and so on. This realization is easy to escape when perusing a supermarket; but it is nearly impossible to avoid on the hunt.
Personal identification with a particular category–especially when concerning beliefs or lifestyle–is one of the ways we seek communal association.
There is a sense of security when identifying with a community. Instead of stating their own beliefs and opinions (e.g., “recycling is good”, “Shiva is supreme”, “erotic pie fights are fun”), many people will cling to a collective identity that encompasses these beliefs (e.g., hippies, Hindus, pie fetishists).
These communal associations are sometimes helpful but sometimes harmful. Certain associations provide real benefits of community, but others simply act as a security mechanism to keep people from feeling alone with their ideas. There is nothing inherently wrong with this (since we are, after all, social animals), but categorical association can sometimes lead to the diminishing of independent critical thought or the pigeonholing of others into categories of your own.
Communities in our society are more nebulous than tribes, yet we can still gain communal knowledge from these associations. This knowledge is more than descriptions of simple facts, processes, or techniques; instead, knowledge gained from communal membership applies to the way in which we should live.
Within each community, we are all continual teachers and continual learners.
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