Being Accountable

Let me clarify. I do not believe in free enterprise. Our human desires and the consequences of achieving those desires requires to be tempered, we each have to exercise restraint. Or have restraint imposed on us. Neither do I believe in some centralised state control, equality for all. We are all too varied in our needs, access to resources and aspirations. No, what I been flogging over many of these blogs is the need to get back to belonging to a community. A caring community that is accountable and responsible to those that relate to it. A community that is meaningful and able to better the quality of life for each of us that belong to it. In this globalised world we exist within, this matrix society, we may belong to a duplicity of communities with varying degrees of weak to very strong bonds. Our membership maybe often be transitory but in key communities membership is non-cancellable, it is lifelong. Our life has to governed by the communities we bond with, with the obligations, responsibilities and expectations that their membership entails. You cannot be honourable and a freebooter. Holding your head up amongst your peers seems to be a core value requisite in each of us as members of a civilised society. Whichever way you frame it, membership has its price but also returns in kind.

Tythings I knew of as a word. I have just finished a book where, for the first time, I encountered an explanation where the full significance dawned. A tything was a medieval unit of ten households where the heads of house looked out for each other head of house and was held to account for any misdoings by anyone within that tything. Not just his own household but anyone properly tied to the group. A collective reprimand for any one individuals failings but also a caring supportive framework for each group member. An automatic support response, regardless of status, wealth or worthiness, just dependant on degree of need.

In arriving at a new definition of community, relevant to our century, we too could do with a tything concept. A core group we are responsible and accountable too. A group of peers bound by familiar circumstances and backgrounds. Able to relate, respond and reprimand as the occasion demands without judgement or censure. Membership where the group can achieve far beyond that of any one individual and can reach out and be significant in a much wider network of like minded groups. That is beginning to sound like a community structure where we can have a voice, a voice that counts, a voice that is tempered by consensus, a voice able to give as well as receive, a voice that can rebuked if too extreme. No room here for smug pleasure seeking self-satisfaction and gratification. Time to stand up and be counted.

Free-Loaders Pt2

There are periods when there just is not time to spare for community services, but these periods do pass. To make amends we must make opportunities for these former free-loaders to pay back into the society they have been feeding off for free. Our contributions into our community needs to be continually monitored and evaluated by our peers. That stint as governor to the school, all those years trimming the hedges, keeping the play ground clean, picking litter, seeing the children cross the road, that period standing as parish councillor, all need to be recorded and a value-back to the community allocated. By our peers, by the people we live within and amongst an not by some bureaucrat in a remote disconnected office. We know who amongst us is making the effort and those who posture and only talk the talk.
That value should then return to the individual to be traded in for extra over care and resources as an when life emergencies descend. The longer time of contribution the bigger the benefit accrues. Late comers wanting to make amends for free-loading having to make significantly bigger contributions in kind or by bequest of a classroom or medical investigative procedure to earn back a comparable benefit.

Free-Loaders Pt1

You could say that by definition Society requires that we each individually contribute into it, to keep it meaningful, relevant and so pertinent that we would be at a loss without it. Not quite the Society you know and move in?

We are all so busy, busy building our careers, busy networking with all those contacts we encounter or so busy just keeping the family together under a roof. There is no time for any other commitments, not even to the foundations that we each stand on together, the basalt rock, the core that binds us and makes possible all the superstructures of Society we just take for granted to be there to support and help us when we have the need. Fortunately there are people who make gigantic contributions into their Society well beyond any return to them. Great we can just slide along, take what we need when we need it and there is always someone out there putting it about. Upto a point. When the freeloaders much exceed those contributing, suddenly those contributing realise the gross inequalities and stop and become freeloaders themselves. Its a tipping scale issue not a matter of tapping into a new generation of zealots.

Before concluding this post on free-loaders, I need first to make a detour.

To be continued.