Communities of Circumstance

Photo by Joe Shlabotnik

Often when we use the word “community” these days, we’re thinking about a community of affinity, a community of people who have significant values in common. In A Bigger Voice we often refer to this kind of community as a “community of kindred spirits.”

But when we’re talking about changing something big in the world, another kind of community may also come into play. This is what I’d call a community of circumstance, or a community of common stake.

For example, I live on an inner-city block in Minneapolis. The people on my street are extremely diverse in many ways—in class, in race and ethnicity, in language, in political views. I don’t spend time with any of my neighbors—I like them fine, but we’re not close friends and we don’t share much about our lives. We have different ideas about what would make things better on our block. At a recent public meeting, it became clear that we all had different reactions to the barrier the city council and the police put up at the end of our street this summer. I have a “Peace Now” sign in my yard; my neighbor has a “Liberate Iraq” sign on his porch. We are not a community of affinity.

Photo by Sanjay Kumar

However, the people on my block are bound together by where we live. Our actions on the block affect one another. We have a common stake in our neighborhood. Unless we choose to move, we have to work it out together. In this case, our common circumstance is geographical. In other cases, it may be professional, or connected to a chosen or unchosen life circumstance (a child with cancer, an ethnic heritage, an abiding interest in agriculture or architecture).

When you want to create a big change in the world, you gather energy and ideas and comfort from a community of kindred spirits—from people who are excited by the same ideas or hold the same deep values, who see the world the same way. But to actually bring the change into being, you are likely to have to work with people you don’t agree with or whose values are different from yours. Finding the connection—the common stake—is crucial to getting things done. On my block, the common stake is obvious. On a bigger scale, it may not be quite so clear.

Who are your kindred spirits? And who else will you have to work with to get the job done?