{"id":450,"date":"2010-12-09T09:31:33","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T09:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leedscd.wordpress.com\/?p=450"},"modified":"2010-12-09T09:31:33","modified_gmt":"2010-12-09T09:31:33","slug":"32-tentative-beliefs-about-community-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2010\/12\/09\/32-tentative-beliefs-about-community-development\/","title":{"rendered":"32 (Tentative) Beliefs About Community Development"},"content":{"rendered":"
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  1. Development occurs when people change their habits, patterns, attitudes and perhaps most importantly behaviours.<\/li>\n
  2. Community development is a function of the number of individuals who are changing their\u00a0habits, patterns, attitudes and perhaps most importantly behaviours.<\/li>\n
  3. Sometimes there\u00a0is lots of individual development but no community development – we have a steady state. \u00a0For example if the number of people that break an addiction are matched by the number of people that take up that addiction we have lots of individual development but no community development.<\/li>\n
  4. We only get community development when individuals’ personal development is in some way aligned. \u00a0This alignment is a process of finding common cause. \u00a0Negotiation of self interest is critical in developing community.<\/li>\n
  5. The ‘direction’ of both personal and community development may be progressive, regressive or neutral. \u00a0Sometimes it can be hard to tell.<\/li>\n
  6. Personal development is always in pursuit of ‘self interest’, which may, or may not, be ‘rightly understood’.<\/li>\n
  7. Long term self interest is frequently sacrificed on the alter of short term self interest: ‘live only for today for tomorrow may never come’.<\/em><\/li>\n
  8. People change their habits, patterns, attitudes and behaviours all of the time in relation to changes in their environment – development in\u00a0this\u00a0case is driven externally. \u00a0The locus of control is external and the\u00a0individual\u00a0is essentially manipulated by their environment.<\/li>\n
  9. This\u00a0externally\u00a0driven\u00a0change is the paradigm on which most personal development, community development and public policy is based – it is the world of nudging, nannying, infrastructure and service development in order to achieve behaviours specified and desired by ‘The Anointed’<\/a>. \u00a0It usually makes communities less enterprising.<\/li>\n
  10. Many of us are happy to work with an external locus of control,\u00a0because\u00a0it let’s us off the hook. \u00a0In this context my progress depends on others. \u00a0‘I’ am more or less out of the equation<\/li>\n
  11. While it is tempting to nudge, nanny and legislate to encourage ‘development’ it is a temptation that should be yielded to rarely. \u00a0It is in many cases, counter-productive.<\/li>\n
  12. Instead, perhaps we should choose to provoke reflection and the analysis of self interest.<\/li>\n
  13. People can also choose to change their habits, patterns, attitudes and behaviours\u00a0because\u00a0they recognise that such a\u00a0change\u00a0is in their self interest – development in\u00a0this\u00a0case is driven internally. \u00a0The locus of control in\u00a0this\u00a0case is internal and it provides the individual with a sense of agency and power over their own lives. \u00a0People with a primarily\u00a0internal\u00a0locus of control are usually experienced as ‘enterprising’.<\/li>\n
  14. Self interest\u00a0is\u00a0not selfishness. \u00a0Self interest is about ‘self amongst others’. \u00a0Pursuing\u00a0self\u00a0interest is about pursuing what matters personally in the context of a community. \u00a0It demands compassion, empathy and\u00a0values\u00a0if it is not to be merely\u00a0personal greed and selfishness. \u00a0Selfishness is self interest wrongly understood.<\/li>\n
  15. In order to achieve community development we must increase the number of people for whom an\u00a0internal\u00a0locus of control drives their personal development and help them to support each other in common cause.<\/li>\n
  16. Community development is accelerated when individuals learn to associate, collaborate and co-operate in pursuit of mutual self interest.<\/li>\n
  17. When people change their\u00a0habits, patterns, attitudes and behaviours we call this Learning.<\/li>\n
  18. Learning is at the heart of Personal and Community Development.<\/li>\n
  19. All real learning is driven by self interest.<\/li>\n
  20. If the rate of learning is greater than the rate of change in the environment then progress becomes possible.<\/li>\n
  21. If the rate of learning is less than the rate of change in the environment then regression is inevitable.<\/li>\n
  22. Learning depends on both the acquisition of \u00a0existing knowledge and the generation of insights and the creation of new knowledge through reflection and\u00a0enquiry. \u00a0Most of our communities and their education systems value the acquisition of knowledge over the processes of reflection and enquiry.<\/li>\n
  23. ‘The community’, or more\u00a0accurately\u00a0our peer group, shapes what types of learning are acceptable. \u00a0 This is an\u00a0important\u00a0aspect of community culture.<\/li>\n
  24. Swapping one peer group for another can be a powerful\u00a0catalyst\u00a0for personal development.<\/li>\n
  25. Building peer groups that have primarily an\u00a0internal\u00a0locus of control can be helpful. \u00a0These peer groups are ‘community’.<\/li>\n
  26. In some communities it is OK to be aspirational and\u00a0believe\u00a0in the power of progress and change. \u00a0These are communities with an internal locus of control – they believe they can shape their own futures.<\/li>\n
  27. In some communities such positive attitudes are, more or less, discouraged as they challenge the dominant\u00a0belief\u00a0that\u00a0things\u00a0are the way they are\u00a0because\u00a0of other people. \u00a0These communities\u00a0prefer\u00a0to blame others, including The Anointed for their circumstances. \u00a0This is one reason why so many communities see ‘The Council’ as outsiders. \u00a0It is ‘their’ fault. \u00a0It is the fault of other\u00a0communities. \u00a0It is the fault of the Government. Or Europe.<\/li>\n
  28. Development always happens in all communities – but its focus is often on the maintenance of the status quo in a changing environment rather than the pursuit of progress.<\/li>\n
  29. Community developers often avoid tricky\u00a0conversations about self interest by convening individuals around a ‘common good’ such as a project to refurbish a playground for example. \u00a0This\u00a0results\u00a0in the establishment of a local group of the anointed and further reinforces the external locus of control.<\/li>\n
  30. Much of what is called community development work these days is NOT community development. \u00a0It appropriates the tools and processes of community development in order to pursue the objectives of the state.<\/li>\n
  31. Much of what passes for ’empowerment’ is actually those with power nagging those without power to ‘pull their (metaphorical) socks up’. \u00a0We can create the conditions in\u00a0which\u00a0individuals and communities build their own power. \u00a0But we cannot easily give them ours.<\/li>\n
  32. Community development depends on the personal development of both self interest, rightly understood, and the power to pursue it<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I am sure that there is more. \u00a0Much more.<\/p>\n

    But perhaps there is enough here already to suggest a basis for radical and empowering\u00a0approaches\u00a0to community \u00a0and personal development.<\/p>\n