It is an easy mistake to make. \u00a0The argument for it goes something like this…<\/p>\n
If we want to make Big Society work we have to get more citizens ‘connected‘ <\/em>to ‘place’ and ‘people’. \u00a0We have to encourage civic pride and a\u00a0culture\u00a0of helping for the common good. \u00a0We need to get more of us running libraries, volunteering and generally being good eggs. \u00a0We need more people to be more selfless.<\/p>\n But I think this is wrong thinking.<\/p>\n The primary challenge is not <\/strong>about connecting us to ‘people’ and ‘place’. \u00a0This maybe necessary but is certainly not sufficient, and if done without the right pre-conditions will only result in rustling up the usual overburdened suspects and urging them to ‘do more’.<\/p>\n The challenge is to tackle apathy and hopelessness. To help people who currently see themselves as ‘victims of a broken society’ to become active architects of a better one.<\/p>\n To connect more of us to our own sense of self: our own sense of potential, aspiration, vision and possibility. \u00a0Armed with a sense of agency and purpose in relation to our own lives then\u00a0association, mutuality and cooperation, all of those factors that lead to the emergence of community will surely follow, as we\u00a0realise\u00a0that our own progress is tied up with the progress of our neighbours.<\/p>\n It is when we have given up on ourselves that we also give up on our communities.<\/p>\n How does this wrong thinking manifest\u00a0itself\u00a0in practice?<\/p>\n Well, for example, when we ask ‘communities’ what they need. Almost inevitably they will agree on a lowest common denominator project that makes a little difference to a lot of people but ducks the real issues that really blights lives. \u00a0So we get a community group lobbying for a new playground instead of tackling the real challenges that they face – like how to put breakfast on the table every morning, or how to get their children to study at school, or how to escape from violence. \u00a0These things are just too painful and personal to talk about in group meetings with well-meaning strangers.<\/p>\n We have to recognise that communities appear when large numbers of individuals are working on what really, REALLY matters to them, working\u00a0collectively\u00a0in pursuit of their own self-interest, rightly understood.<\/p>\n When we get the balance right between looking after yourself and looking after your neighbour.<\/p>\n