This was really insightful, Myles. There are several directions I could comment on with this.
1. Community-based linguistics
First, in linguistics (especially missionary linguistics and Bible translation) these days there is a thing called participatory methods, where they gather stakeholders from an ethnic group and do activities to help them discover the needs of their language, the structure of their language, etc. so they can help make a group decision.
2. Consensus vs the father/patron
I lived in Taiwan for three years, in Thailand for six years, and in Myanmar for a year and a half. In Taiwan, the older generation was more oriented toward the father-figure, department head, or patron calling the shots like in the Confucian model (although the mother actually called most of the shots in things like family worship), whereas consensus was more valued among the 20s-30s generation. When I went on a trip to China with a fellow American and a group of Taiwanese, every decision (such as what hotel to stay at) took a long time because the Taiwanese had to discuss it at length and come to a group decision.
3. In the tribal groups of northern Myanmar that I researched for my linguistics MA thesis, there was an ideology of "unity is good", but in actual practice, groups were often very fractious, and would split off from each other when they didn't agree. Anthropologist Edmund Leach described two kinds of village sociopolitical system in Jinghpaw villages: gumlau (democratic, egalitarian, rebellious, anarchic, ruled by a council) and gumsa (hierarchical, ruled by a chief). Among the Rawang ethnic group that I studied, one of the most influential leaders in the 20th century, Rawang Bezidø, was the son of a shaman who converted to Christianity and helped missionary Robert Morse create an orthography and translate the Bible into his language. According to his daughter, Bezidø's house was a gathering place and lodging house for travelers from all over the region, and so Bezidø was able to learn the news from all around and use this to make wise decisions that led to peace.
4. The idea of personal boundaries is popular in counseling psychology. Its most famous proponents in Christian circles are Henry Cloud and John Townsend in an eponymous series of books. I think it comes from Murray Bowen and Margaret Mahler's models of psychological individuation as a way to separate from dysfunctional family roles. At the center, however, there is a conception of personal autonomy and choice that seems to be self-focused in a way that the Bible is not, and this often contributes to cross-generational estrangements in families where the older generation is not familiar with the new expectations and language of psychologists that the younger generation is using. In her book on friendship, Platonic, Marisa Franco summarizes research on a me-centered vs a we-centered view of boundaries that offers a helpful corrective to this.
Do you have any way forward on Item 4, especially from the monastic writings?
Interesting post. It seems that people today, both in and out of the church, see collective action/democracy as a way of achieving individuality and interacting with destiny.
I've been thinking a lot about Simone Weil's quote, “Only human beings have an eternal destiny. Human collectivities have not got one.” Elsewhere she says, “Idolatry is the name of the error which attributes a sacred character to the collectivity; and it is the commonest of crimes, at all times, at all places.”
I know Weil wasn't a Christian in the orthodox sense, but I think she's correct here. The church is a collective, but has an eternal destiny, right? But, mystically, the church is also an individual: the bride of Christ.
I think to the extent the church participates in the idolatry of democracy, it is a mere collective. To the extent it consists of those who abide in Christ and Christ abided in them, it is achieving its destiny.
Somehow this all seems relevant to what you're talking about here, but I'm not sure.
This was really insightful, Myles. There are several directions I could comment on with this.
1. Community-based linguistics
First, in linguistics (especially missionary linguistics and Bible translation) these days there is a thing called participatory methods, where they gather stakeholders from an ethnic group and do activities to help them discover the needs of their language, the structure of their language, etc. so they can help make a group decision.
2. Consensus vs the father/patron
I lived in Taiwan for three years, in Thailand for six years, and in Myanmar for a year and a half. In Taiwan, the older generation was more oriented toward the father-figure, department head, or patron calling the shots like in the Confucian model (although the mother actually called most of the shots in things like family worship), whereas consensus was more valued among the 20s-30s generation. When I went on a trip to China with a fellow American and a group of Taiwanese, every decision (such as what hotel to stay at) took a long time because the Taiwanese had to discuss it at length and come to a group decision.
3. In the tribal groups of northern Myanmar that I researched for my linguistics MA thesis, there was an ideology of "unity is good", but in actual practice, groups were often very fractious, and would split off from each other when they didn't agree. Anthropologist Edmund Leach described two kinds of village sociopolitical system in Jinghpaw villages: gumlau (democratic, egalitarian, rebellious, anarchic, ruled by a council) and gumsa (hierarchical, ruled by a chief). Among the Rawang ethnic group that I studied, one of the most influential leaders in the 20th century, Rawang Bezidø, was the son of a shaman who converted to Christianity and helped missionary Robert Morse create an orthography and translate the Bible into his language. According to his daughter, Bezidø's house was a gathering place and lodging house for travelers from all over the region, and so Bezidø was able to learn the news from all around and use this to make wise decisions that led to peace.
4. The idea of personal boundaries is popular in counseling psychology. Its most famous proponents in Christian circles are Henry Cloud and John Townsend in an eponymous series of books. I think it comes from Murray Bowen and Margaret Mahler's models of psychological individuation as a way to separate from dysfunctional family roles. At the center, however, there is a conception of personal autonomy and choice that seems to be self-focused in a way that the Bible is not, and this often contributes to cross-generational estrangements in families where the older generation is not familiar with the new expectations and language of psychologists that the younger generation is using. In her book on friendship, Platonic, Marisa Franco summarizes research on a me-centered vs a we-centered view of boundaries that offers a helpful corrective to this.
Do you have any way forward on Item 4, especially from the monastic writings?
Interesting post. It seems that people today, both in and out of the church, see collective action/democracy as a way of achieving individuality and interacting with destiny.
I've been thinking a lot about Simone Weil's quote, “Only human beings have an eternal destiny. Human collectivities have not got one.” Elsewhere she says, “Idolatry is the name of the error which attributes a sacred character to the collectivity; and it is the commonest of crimes, at all times, at all places.”
I know Weil wasn't a Christian in the orthodox sense, but I think she's correct here. The church is a collective, but has an eternal destiny, right? But, mystically, the church is also an individual: the bride of Christ.
I think to the extent the church participates in the idolatry of democracy, it is a mere collective. To the extent it consists of those who abide in Christ and Christ abided in them, it is achieving its destiny.
Somehow this all seems relevant to what you're talking about here, but I'm not sure.