We have explored many aspects of anthropology in the previous Sub-Chapters. I hope that this post might throw some light on how it is relevant in community work.
In this respect, I will explore the origins of the kind of power that keeps people who are poor (in particular the Focus Group) in their place. (At this point it might be helpful to read – if you have not done so already – the Sub-Chapter on Power and Control in Society).
‘I think therefore I am’ is the statement that the philosopher Renée Descartes claimed separated humans from the rest of species. It means that because we can think we cannot deny our own existence. (I don’t suppose animals put a lot of thought into this, one way or another, but I cannot be sure)!
While it sounds simple – and obvious – it brought big changes to humanity. It was one of the sparks that lit the fuse of The Enlightenment which ultimately led to people raising the status of thinking, thereby leading to the world finding favour in reductionism to solve problems.
This, in turn, led to the great inventions that allow me to travel from Ireland to Australia in 20 hours or have my body opened up and my heart replaced with a new one, or to cut and paste on this laptop (which I just did now – which is why I thought of it) rather than, laboriously, use a pencil and rubber to change things when I am writing.
I believe that ‘I think therefore I am’ is undoubtedly true – but in respect of our existence – in particular how we perceive our place in the world – it’s a bit more complicated when we unpack it.
Our ability to think (and it’s implications regarding our awareness of self) gives us the ability to symbolise. The ability to symbolise gives us the ability to create, and then invent.
And the ability to invent gives us the ability to try and banish uncertainty, discomfort, inconvenience and insecurity from our lives. Ultimately it leads to us becoming food producers that use long-term strategic planning (over years or even decades) rather than hunters and gatherers who use short-term, immediate, (over days, weeks and months) tactical methods of acquiring food.
Ultimately, it leads us to esteeming left-brain technologists.
I propose that when we strategise and plan, we begin to view power in a different way.
Now let me expand on this a little so it makes some sense in respect of community work.
An immediate response to a problem that has to be solved – containing a high level of emotional energy – is completely different to a response that, of course, includes our emotions, but also includes our ability to think something through and imagine (symbolise) a solution that will bring long-term benefit.
In this, it will be helpful to introduce the notion of psychological safety.
We have the ability to think about what other people think of us and if we think that other people think ill of us, or hold us in low regard, we will feel psychologically unsafe. (Unlike animals, that only have to worry about physical safety, we worry about psychological safety. [1])
One way of keeping ourselves psychologically safe is to do a lot or to own a lot.
And doing and owning are a result of the ability to strategise and/or plan long-term. The dominant belief among humans is (certainly since we started farming) that if we do a lot or own a lot we will feel powerful.
The ability to strategise, symbolise and imagine (i.e. plan long-term) gives us a kind of power that appears to help in keeping ourselves psychologically safe.
And it also gives us the ability to have that very human and debilitating emotion, shame, as we imagine what others think of us. Fido with his head hanging low after eating a foolishly-left-out cooked chicken notwithstanding, I believe that no other animal has the same feeling of shame as humans.
Some of this shame comes from comparison of what we do and own with what others do and own. (This gives rise to the exhortation that to look good in the eyes of others we have to keep up with the Joneses)!
At another level, our ability to symbolise, think etc. means that we can invent something that will contribute to the comfort, security, convenience, longevity, emotional and physical well-being etc. of our species, (e.g. a passenger aeroplane, a great piece of literature or an anaesthetic) or something that will have a destructive effect on us (e.g. napalm that will burn people alive or a system of discipline that will scorn, hurt and shame children).
Owning very little and/or doing very little implies poverty – a potential source of shame. (See this post for further discussion on how comparison in an unequal society is very harmful to families in the Focus Group, and also the website of the equality trust – full of interesting information on the subject).
Our abilities also mean that we can choose to use our ideas, inventions, initiatives etc. in a way that makes us all collectively better off or in a way that will make some of us better off – but at the expense of others.
[1]. An animal has the power to kill another animal and eat it, or defend itself from a more physically powerful animal by running faster, or changing colour, or not! If an animal kills and eats another animal to stay alive, it doesn’t worry about whether it has done right or wrong. Some humans do – e.g. vegetarians and vegans.