Rediscover the joy of in-person community.

Photo credit; Braxton Apana

We human beings are social creatures. We are designed to live in community. This is not just an occasional activity. It is who we are, the way we are born. It is our immutable, unchangeable nature. Put a man in solitary confinement and he will go mad. It runs against his nature and contradicts his identity.

Human beings are not only social creatures. We have other commonly shared and unchangeable traits as well. Health and sanity require that we live in such a way that all of these aspects of our nature be respected. Just as surely as we need air and water, human thriving also requires a well-ordered community. That’s where governments fit.

Good governance understands human nature and legislates in harmony with it. Bad governments don’t. Bad governments tell lies about human nature and create human misery. The roots of all societal evils are lies about human nature.

We can use the terms good and bad because they have objective content. These are not merely value judgments. Human nature is what it is. To have a nature means that some things are natural and others, not. Some things are in keeping with the way we were born, and their opposites are unnatural. 

Just as external governments are either good or bad depending on their accounting for human nature, so also self-government—personal choices—are either good or bad depending on whether they contribute to your health and welfare, or not.

Both governments and individuals must give an accounting to realities outside of themselves that cannot be denied, changed, or wished away. It is a lie to say that we can be anything that we want. A zebra cannot change its stripes. Nor can a man become something other than what he is. The One who made both man and zebra must be acknowledged and obeyed.

The punishment for disobedience does not usually involve thunderbolts from heaven. More often, it comes in the form of sickness, sadness, broken relationships and run-down neighborhoods. Rebellion against our nature as social creatures is the direct cause of broken societies.

Sociality and community have to do with gatherings of people. When people gather in person, communities arise. They arise organically. They arise out of love and affection, friendship and marriage. When these communities break down, the cure is to return to their roots. That means in-person gatherings.

For the past three decades, we have increasingly experimented with ways of doing community that do not require bodies. By connecting minds, interests, and ideologies through electro-magnetic waves, we have not succeeded in improving communities. We see degeneration, instead.

On a personal level, we have all experienced the empty dissatisfaction of virtual business meetings, virtual school, and even virtual church. That hollow feeling in your soul is not something that is wrong with you. It is your perfectly natural human nature crying for recognition and respect. It is the hunger for community that remains after you have tried to satisfy it with imaginary food.

Every attempt to replace bodily gatherings with technology fails. And it fails for two reasons. One reason is that the warmth, body language, facial expressions and human touch that bodies make possible are cut off and denied.

The second reason is more sinister. Technological “gatherings” destroy community because they ignore the bodies of your real neighbors while devoting time and energy to those who do not share your space, but only your ideology. Real neighbors keep us sane because they keep us grounded. The real needs of real neighbors keep us human by keeping us accountable to human nature. 

Any community that does not take into account every single person within its boundaries, is a community off the rails. So-called “global communities” consist only of ideologues who have no accountability to real human beings or any actual geographical community. Such anti-communities are responsible for untold human misery.

The good news is that you already have the cure. Since every community was built by people who gathered together, any community can be rebuilt by people who gather together. Turn off your computer. Pocket your phone and lace up your shoes. Walk across the street and introduce yourself. Invite your neighbor to a cook-out. Call a community get-together.

In a time of crisis, these are the people who will come to your aid. After Armageddon, it won’t be pundits and politicians who show up at your door. It will be you and your next-door neighbor who will either live or die together. So, it’s not too soon to start talking now. 

As you talk and build side by side, you will be pleasantly surprised to discover an incredibly deep satisfaction. That’s the feeling social creatures have when they rediscover the joy of human community.