Who's your friend?

Growing up where I did, I didn't have many friends but, this had very little to do with me as a person and a lot to do with something I could not change. As difficult as it was at times, it taught me a lot about society, people and of course, myself.

One of the lessons I learned was how a community attitude could be developed to guide their members into thoughts, words and actions that would effectively take away their independence. If one is raised in such an environment, there is little chance for freedom of thought, let alone opinion and this translated into hive mind behaviour.

In the corner

I remember being teased one day by a group of boys in the playground while a larger group stood by. I was perhaps seven or so. This wasn't the first time, I knew it wouldn't be the last so I had the ability to largely ignore the taunts and observe other aspects of the situation.

On this particular occasion I clearly remember the face of a girl standing in the larger group as they egged the boys on to increase the harassment. It was distressed. She was in a personally conflicted position and I could see that she felt for me but did not dare step forward to come to my defence as to do so, threatened her social standing and her own security.

It was because of these kinds of experiences that I behave the way I behave and approach life the way I do. What I learned over and over that groups are very poor at judging individuals and that it is very easy to stand by and support their condemnation of one through inaction, even if the desire to act differently is there. Group force is strong.

Times they are...

By the time I was a teenager, these types of events largely stopped as community attitudes changed through individuals banding together to change it. The people who, like this girl who by this time a friend, slowly got to understand that what they had believed about me, was flawed, ignorant and untrue. They were cultural lessons blindly passed down through society without critical review.

By this stage, I had also learned to be less condemning of people myself as many, like this little seven year old girl, were part of a group I disagreed with yet, were also fundamentally different. I found that with every group I encountered, there were always actors within who looked to behave like the group even though they disagreed with many of their beliefs. We are a social species and the safety in numbers concept is hard-wired.

This is something I was able to identify and exploit. In my current work, a large part of it is identifying future leaders out of a group that all appear largely the same. I have been doing this for a few years now and have been quite successful at it. Without those early life experiences, this skill would likely be an impossibility.

Group tells little

But, this also comes with issues as these types of people are not necessarily within the same groups but still hold certain group ideals. When young, this translated into me being a social butterfly of sorts that was a floating member of many cliques, even though between cliques, there were tensions.

As individuals, my friends would all be wonderful people but, layer their various cultural programming over the top and they would appear adversaries. At times, some of my friends would ask why I would hang around with such and such and my answer was generally, 'If you knew them as I know them, you would hang out with them too' but, this was hard for many to accept. They saw the group the person was in, and discounted the person accordingly.

It is very easy to take what one knows about a group and apply it to all members within, to make assumptions about who they are without ever getting close enough to even begin to know much of anything. In this current world where we can silo ourselves and filter out conflicting views, this is even easier.

Death & Glory

Having friends from various walks of life at times costs, as there are social stigmas that get carried through still. Death or Glory by association is a concept that still get judged in the moment and when these associations are in apparent opposition, the tendency for mistrust raises.

I have found at Steemit for example that there are many people wanting the platform to improve and these people, from the smallest minnows to the largest whales want it to be better for themselves and for everyone else. The conflict isn't in this, it is largely unanimous, the conflict is in how they approach the problem.

Being a decentralised and largely open platform comes with certain challenges as there is little authority to enforce behaviours and, disagreements in opinion and action are often public. At times, I feel like I am a child standing between arguing parents who both want to find the best solution to progress with.

With such complexity involved and no clear view of what will best satisfy demands, I find that I am in agreement and disagreement with both parties, many parties as the case may be. Each member wants their group to prosper but to achieve this means other groups must also prosper, as must the individuals within.

If every group becomes one, the platform will stagnate and wither, if every individual only looks out for themselves, it fragments and fails. The balance point is somewhere in between where there is enough room for individual benefit but not enough for monopolistic tendencies.

Tug of war

This is going to be a constant battle between assimilation and complete freedom as to be assimilated is death, and to be completely free means to have no community behaviour, which leads to platform death. This balancing act requires diversity of thinking and action to create continual tensions between as this will push for continual problem solving, continuous improvement.

For me, what should happen for the platform to evolve and refine is that people with long-term view should be supported within, even if their views differ greatly. I think this as it is these people who are likely to be invested in actually stepping back from their own group beliefs and investigating, questioning and perhaps eventually cooperating with people with like minds but different perspectives.

In the past and to this day, the companies and associations that are the strongest and most innovative aren't the one's that have people who agree with each other, they have people who discuss conflicts together. They continually poke holes in ideas but also give credit and support where it is necessary, even if it might cost them a little in the short-term.

Unlikely allies

Perhaps, they will even learn to like each other like I have found with many of my friends over the years. Some people separate their associations as they know there will be conflict between parties, I introduce them to each other instead. Sometimes it is bloody, often though, it is surprising what they learn of each other and of themselves.

Who knows how the grander experiment that is Steemit will pan out but, there is going to have to be a whole range of minor experiments along the way and they aren't always going to be easy. There will be failures, conflict, undesirable side effects and a lot of loss but, if that common goal of value for all is held, we should be able to work it out in time.

Who's your friend? Sometimes, it is who on the surface looks like an enemy.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]