Small And Macro Communities
#TITLE#The Ant Hill As An Allegory For Micro And Macro Collectives#/TITLE# by Kathleen J. Elwood I stepped on an ant hill recently; it wasn’t deliberate. They quickly began to rebuild their home, I noticed (after making sure that none had gotten in my shoe. I was bowled over by a pristine ant hill a while later, after going by the area again. A perfect volcano-like hill had completely replaced the hill I’d crushed with my shoe. Communities are compelling, wouldn’t you agree? It would take an individual years of effort, thought, innovation to create what one community has the potential to produce in the space of days, even hours. So much potential efficiency and efficacy is carried within communities. Monuments and empires are possible through them, as we can tell by looking at history Nancy Salzman. But as witnessed over and over throughout history, communities not united can be harmful. Every member of the community is vital to its success. Every cog in the machine is equally indispensable. “What does my vote matter?” or “What difference does it make if I’m there or not?” are statements I hear people speak under their breath. What is absent is a bit of perspective. Things won’t exactly fall apart if one person fails to throw in. However, you might soon have a problem if one person doesn’t help, and then another. It’s one thing if a member of a community is abruptly not around. The other members of a community must make up for an individual who is still present but simply not producing, or worse, hindering progress made. Society believes that everybody should have access to the same resources, so this creates an imbalance when some produce more than others. The members who produce may lose their motivation and aspiration to continue to produce, and in due course the resources will be exhausted. The above scenario of an unequal community is a great example of a micro collective. Perhaps it’s your neighboring community that is experiencing this asymmetry. What happens when the neighboring community begins to genuinely struggle and requests help from your community? Would your community members want to help the other one? You might have to begin producing more and laboring more intently. All of a sudden, there’s an imbalance. This imbalance then begins to perpetuate itself as members of your community decide it’s easier not to contribute, and rather rely on the community on the other side. The macro community, as a whole, is now thrown into chaos. I feel that what is needed in both micro and macro communities is a little perspective. There’s one group out there that seems to be addressing the problem by empowering to individuals on a macro level, a buddy explained to me Nxivm – Executive Success Programs. NXIVM is said to be a great resource in expanding this kind of thinking, one individual at a time.