Introduction
In a recent Facebook posting my daughter used #bringbackthevillage, it was a concept that had resided in my mind absent a handle for some time. The village as perceived by me was an intimate place to live, a horizontal community where the whole family unit found a place of existence in, and with, an integrated entity. The village was never created, it was forged by necessity, the need to work together and respond more or less as a unit in response to environmental realities and threats largely. It existed bound by love in the face of often harsh realities – that was the foundation of the utopian element of the village, the people near were the people you loved, cared for and were most invested in.
Where the Village Went
In contemplating how to bring the village back, perhaps some contemplation on where it went is in order. It is clear that societal evolution since industrialization and the accompanying specialization has generated both the consolidation of the population and then, in an effort to manage massed populations institutions came into being and in consolidation to urban settings and with institutionalization came the stratification of the population. Combine this reality with the transient workforce, our built environment, and our urban infrastructure and you have millions of people within feet of one another alone, detached and then the most wrenching element of modern society, redundancy – a reality boar of oversupplied labour markets and technological advancement rendering people literally “useless”.
The Misdirected Substitute
It is important to note; that the village was a construct of individual actors – the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker – going about their daily life as artisans. This contrasts greatly with the “commune” where everyone is managed by a committee or an administrative body – the village found harmony through real demand for services and people provided a solution for those service requirements.
Paradoxically the communitarian movement, or the socialists, tend to wax about community as a village substitute and yet their policies tend to eliminate, or at a minimum, compete with the imperatives that made the village in the past; that is to say, that in the provision of social services the need for cohesive community is reduced and so people tend to get pushed into isolation. Social services have a place; it is just the mechanics of their distribution that effects, or perhaps finances, fragmentation and isolation.
Marx gave capitalism a bad name, he viewed the consolidation of capital to a few as the source of societal inequality, what was at play in the massing of the population was the natural inclination of people to gain stature in society, and then a consolidation of the emerging social strata supported by institutionalization. It is true that capital does mass to capital, however, it is unclear which force created the ill Marx set out remedy – the natural state of mass attracting mass OR the capacity for those of influence to mass capital in a time of change. Marx witnessed and was affected by, the disintegration of agrarian society, the vacating of the village and the massing of ill-prepared people to urban settings ill-prepared for their arrival – squalor ensued. The point here is that the “financial” system is an adjunct to the human endeavour; it merely brings resolution to the ills of humanity and at its most powerful an exuberant tool for those human inclinations. The reason for referencing Marx is that people often yearn for the village, and Marxist Communitarianism tends to fill the vacuum, the danger here is that Marxist ideals actuated have always provided the same outcomes as any other government structure because they have humanity as their only substrate. The village never lived in the European welfare state and the village never will, it will wither there as humans do – subordinated by a little more than enough.
Defining the Village
Village life was innately “communitarian” as opposed to “institutionalized community”. In the time of the village, people knew one another, when their neighbour was ill they never said there should be more funding for medical, they did what they could to help – there, then and in an immediate way. This contrasts greatly with the circumstance we find ourselves in today, where the government extorts in excess of half our income and spends it – the money we put into social services tends to be consumed by the administration and the imperatives of professionalism.
The point is that the village grew into being in large measure around agrarian capacity, it was the first point on the road to urbanization, it emerged out of tribes becoming stationary – extended family units coming to rest around a technology. It is important to note no one engineered the village, it came in existence, firstly, out of capacity to come to rest in an improved state of being relative to being nomadic and secondly, in response to the commerce that emerged and lastly, the culture that evolved from an excess of goods, relative needs. Villages need reasons to be, real reasons to be, other than a few people to pick a place on a map to congregate.
The agrarian Canadian society that existed prior to Canada’s de-ruralization was a society of community with near village-like qualities, the “building bee” community if you will. It held as inherent in existence being known, everyone knew your name “who you were”. It held intergenerational continuity. It was stable, inherently non-transient. People congregated, largely around a church of some sort – even people who were unreligious attended church because it was a social venue, a means by which to connect. The desirable elements of these communities hold commonality with the desirable elements of the Village.
I think there are means to regain some of the elements of the village, the connectedness of that way of life. The structure of the “village physical” is very hard to recreate, but the human structure, a horizontal association of people connected in common interest is possible. It is possible in a large urban centre to begin your day as a lawyer – speaking to lawyers and finish your day socializing with lawyers never having had contact with any other “type” of person. This stands in contrast to the richness of a rural community or the village, where on any given day you would “socialize” with people from all walks of life on a personal basis, knowing who they are and perhaps even what their dreams are about.
The village was a place of knowing and being known – that is the essence of connectedness. The waitress has a name; as opposed to someone you abuse a little to get better service. You may even take the time to ask how she is, where her brother is … you get the picture – the village is where acceptance is the first order and class is addressed through the progress of an individual. There is merit in taking the time to encounter the full array of humanity, that is to say, the segregation that has emerged out of the “large urban center” is unhealthy for us all – all people can contribute to the richness of our experience, one only needs a forum by which to access the extraordinary among the ordinary.
“Equality” is in no way a prerequisite for the village, just free association between people is required. The communitarian concept grew from just two paragraphs in the Bible – I remember reading them and thinking – this is where it all started. On the banks of the Sea of Galilee, the concept of the “communitarian community” began, it was in no way a place of equality – it was a place of sharing. Inherent in the human condition is inequality, yet somehow, out of the communitarian ideal came equality. If we hold equality as a prerequisite for the modern village, then we are sure to fail as all other attempts at equality have done. The important thing is “sharing” each other, knowledge, and dreams – real attempts at accessing resources, the capacity of our neighbours and then mustering resources to ensure a full and rich life.
Contemplation on Creating the New “Village”
It could be that most of the interest in the return of the village lies in connectedness, one wonders if some of the attraction might be as strongly anchored in cadence. The pace of life now is extreme compared to people’s contemporary perception of village life; a desire akin to the slow food movement – a chance to simplify life and have time to enjoy each other. One contrasts a mother in the “old” village wandering around the gardening, child in tow – with the mad rush to putting kids in daycare and to get to work. There is more than cadence at stake here, there is parenting, there is a challenge to the “phenotypes” that emerge when a specific family culture, or village culture, meets a given environment. The village provided an ever-generating source code for the reprogramming of humanity. Massing populations to urban settings, a single state school system and mass media have effected a degree of societal homogenization unprecedented in human history.
The sheer mass of society – from institutions to infrastructure – generates inertia that is antithetical to “village life”. Society fragments family, Mom goes one way, Dad the other and children the other – villages were constituted of family, innate humanity bore of intimate association facilitated care for those who were struck by miss fortune in a way the left them, absent family. While it is critical that we protect family or proxy structures and that we are compassionate and generous in our administration of society, we need to give a mechanism to the reconstitution of the village, where necessity forged the village before we only have a desire now.
In business when there is a perception of a need or desire among a population segment, one contemplates the requirements to satisfy that need and then develops a business model that suits. As I contemplate the challenge of bringing back the village, of developing a model to achieve a modern village, the realities of modernity seem to present an overwhelming barrier. Clearly, the ability to co-inhabit a specific geophysical space is challenged for most people located in large centres.
When I think of village life, I think of living in a connected way – like Cheers (TV Show) where everyone knows your name –, in a socially vertically environment – all walks of life in conversations- and at a cadence that permits effective interface with family and other villagers. At the point of actuation one needs to think through how to motivate people to make the life changes requisite with moving from the masses to the village, how one might facilitate “congregation” and on what basis association would be initiated and maintained. The modern village then would take place with the association as the adhesive element rather than a place.
To some extent, “quasi-villages” are here now, in that, people have a collection of people they are in association with, they offer some degree of connectedness, but fail to provide for other elements of village life. The challenge is that modern society fractures human association in unhealthy ways, parent from children, grandparents from grandchildren, one occupational group from another – much of this reality is culturally driven – by way of example – people work hard to differentiate themselves in our society, there is very little cultural support for broadening association across occupation types, age types or “cultural” types.
For people with young families, constructing a village which has extended families, and broad occupational contribution, gives support for all aspects of life. Children, instead of being dropped off at government institutions while parents attend to occupation, can be part of joint childcare, either pooled resources to a centralized facility or actual multi-generational multi-family childcare at homes OR better integrated into the “working” life of parents. The objective is to develop an association that broadens social cohesiveness, effects a truly connected life and one that reduces the burden on individuals. The modern village would be an organized co-existence within society.
The creation of a village there requires an initiative to “start” the village; I had stated that one of the primary reasons for having a village was to “recreate” the vertical “social” construct (vertical social construct with a horizontal organization) that the early village had, the assertion being that more exposure to various walks of life makes a richer life. I began to ask the question, what would prompt people enjoying the fruits of our stratified society to verticalize their association, especially, in the face of a cultural inclination to elevate and exclude, rather than, to make horizontal and include. The thought challenges my sensitivities, I have been conditioned to want exclusivity, so how does one overcome, harmonize or in some way effect a circumstance that would encourage the development of a village within the larger urban space by people one might describe as social innovators.
Absent the imperative of religion, association in the nature of the Church seems to offer a mechanism. Church as an association model pulls people from disparate social strata, occupations and circumstances to a single organization. It gives a point of the congregation, a “reason” for the various social strata to mingle, to network, to seek common interest and benefit. The church is a stronger association than a mere “network”, the church tends to develop stronger “concern” for its participants and in many cases generates a sense of connectedness. Church also provides a “common” place, and offers some physicality to an association. There may be promise in a secular version of the Church, whereby, a collection of people purchase a “place” in the urban setting, congregate, and forge a co-existence together.
The vagaries that forged the “old” village provided association that we all crave now, we are social beings that require, one hesitates to use the term, ”love” to nourish us – it is a question of building a forum to gain access to each other.
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