On Excellence as Morality - Part 8

F. Communities of Excellence


What are the components of a community of excellence? What do the members of communities need to bring to the table that will aid every other member achieve excellence?

I say there are five: Security, Courage, Justice, Tolerance and Celebration.

But before we look at these components individually, I want to stress that since the focus here is on human evolution, the factors considered must enhance some internal human trait. So I first need to offer my thoughts on us as individuals.

We exist on four levels: soul, heart, mind and body. What we believe, what we feel, what we understand and what we do. It is my contention that to advance humanity to our ultimate evolutionary destiny we are charged to develop a greater understanding (mind) of what we feel (heart) and believe (soul) and how we act (body) on this understanding. If you are Christian, Jesus suggests this when he cites, as the most important of the Ten Commandments, “to love God with our whole hearts, whole souls, whole minds and to love our neighbors as ourselves.”

It is through greater understanding of our internal components that will energize us to do the right thing for others to advance all of humanity along the evolutionary (moral) continuum.

Nobody’s perfect. We all created equal. We are at an incomplete stage of our evolution. The evolutionary distance we have yet to travel limits our understanding of Nature.

Mankind is a work in progress.

So what do we have to do to progress? We have to contribute to making our communities excellent by ensuring the five following traits are present in the communities we individually are members of.

1. Security:

This word suggests police action, German Shepherds, and, more recently, motion detection alarm systems. But all these ideas focus on external, or physical, security. Our advancement is predicated on internal factors, so the Security needed is internal.

Internal security grows from the idea that we are not alone. Mess with one of us, and you mess with all of us. Your problems are my problems. The members of a community need to feel secure in the fact that all will share the responsibility for a mistake of commission. That the community is delivering the message to all its members that it is okay to go out on that tight rope of life, we are your safety net.

Security is primary and basic. It provides the environment for any and all to sally forth and be excellent. Threatening environments can be energizing but the energy is couched in fear. It instigates a psychological fight for survival. People are apt to do enough to avert the threat but stay below the radar. A treading water strategy that will surely focus on activities that have been previously tried and proven safe. We would shun anybody who hasn’t proven himself or herself to us as someone we can trust. No one can be excellent alone.

Innovation and accomplishment require people to take chances, make tests, and experiment: all activities that would be overwhelmed by a survival strategy. When we take chances, test, or experiment we are compelled to bring in others, even if to only ‘bounce a few ideas off of’. Interaction increases and a network of contributors develops as new viewpoints and expertise are added to the effort. Inclusion is power.

2. Courage:

This is the act of actually sallying forth.

Again the focus here is on internal courage. Falling on a grenade is external. Audie Murphy ordering his men to cover while standing on a burning tank firing its machine gun while directing artillery fire on the advancing enemy was decidedly courageous. But it’s not what I’m talking about.

Each of us can be excellent at something. We are all born with its seed. Our role in the community is to see what our opportunity for excellence is, seeing the road we need to follow to get there, and, most importantly, go down that road. Go. Do. Act. Sally forth. Be excellent. Be not deterred. The rest of us are here with the safety net. Any problems you run into are our problems too.

People feel empowered when in a group. A branch of Sociology has grown around the concept of group dynamics, behavior changes of individuals when they are included in groups. The person has a tendency to become bolder, more outspoken, and energetic when he or she is surrounded by a population of supporters. The support feeds upon itself as more and more boldness is added to the energy of the group. The energy can become destructive if the aims of the group are insipid, i.e. a lynch mob, or incredibly creative if the aim is psychologically, intellectually, and emotionally demanding, i.e. the Manhattan Project that created the first atomic bomb, (I’m not passing judgement on the target of the creativity, just the fact that such a team could work together to invent completely new branches of science and technology).


3. Justice:

How does that community provide that safety net? One of the ways is by ensuring justice.

Not external justice, according to the laws of the governments. Remember, these laws are designed to restrict and to control. They're there to protect the power of the current rulers. We can, all of us, cite innumerable instances where justice was served, according to the courts, that left a lot to be desired when viewed from a general perspective.

Internal justice is each of us receiving what we earn. Not a penny less, but also not a penny more. As a matter of fact, I consider the desire for more than we earn, greed, the single greatest threat to mankind fulfilling our evolutionary destiny. The greatest of sins.

Governments are enacted among men to help secure the rights endowed by our creator, but governments rather quickly lose this focus and concentrate more on how to funnel more money into the pockets of the people who will help them stay in power. I consider money and power as the manure of the cultivators of greed and a cancer in the hearts, souls, minds and bodies of elitists, or the excluders. Greedy people limit other peoples’ involvement so they share production with fewer people without calculating that 50% of 3 would be more than 100% of 1. They cannot conceive of the greater accomplishments possible when more people share the responsibility for the outcome. Providing just rewards for community members not only energize those present to excel, it induces outsiders to seek entry. Inclusion is power, exclusion is suicide.

Wealth and influence are the moral antitheses of money and power. Money and power are only manifest if they are wielded, like a sword, to suppress and demean others with the mistaken hope that by lowering others, the wielder will stand taller. Treading water on the evolutionary trek. No one advances. No morality. A status quo for weak humans who cannot see beyond their next luxury purchase.

Wealth and influence possess a completely different character from money and power. Wealth and influence are sought out from those who are granted these attributes. They invoke interaction. You can’t have influence alone. Wealth is an indication of someone’s value to his or her community. If that community offers a safety net for its members to act, ensuring that each will receive what is justifiably earned, the members will more easily find the courage to go down their own road to excellence.

4. Tolerance:

This is the ultimate activator of excellence in a community. A community that is tolerant of its members’ idiosyncrasies allows each to follow the road to excellence as each individual defines it. Not how I see your road, but how you see it, using your courage and your wisdom. It allows for the empowerment of a person’s imagination and viewpoints. Allowing each of us to reflect on the possibilities we see.

It is through tolerance that a community will benefit from all the skills, knowledge, and talents of all its members. Basking in the accomplishments that come from vision and innovation unsullied by the intimidation of greed. If I’m to get what I earn and I see something in a way unknown to my fellow members I am more apt to speak up and offer my thoughts. Allowing others to assimilate these ideas with their own. Knowledge and understanding grow with the marriage of innovation and accepted practice being liberally applied to any problems that may arise.

It is through tolerance that we ensure a growing membership into the community. Adding the excellence of more and more members increases the benefits all receive from increasing number of oars pulling the ship of human evolution along. The United States is the country that has done this best, not to say we can’t do it better. We are the leaders of the political, military, and economic world because we are a nation that institutionalized the process of immigration and laissez-faire.

5. Celebration:

Every structure needs a substance to bind it together, mortar to hold the bricks together. It is through celebration that a community’s members proclaim their kinship. It is through celebration that a community ceremoniously welcomes new members. It is used to reassure current members that we are one community. Where we applaud your entrance or continuation. Offer enthusiasm for your input. Where we declare that you are not alone. We are here for you, we expect you to be here for us. The celebration is the forum where accomplishments are acknowledged, roles identified, ideas are exchanged, camaraderie is established, and new members are initiated.