COMMENTARY
July–August 2015 41BEN SANDERS
Then there’s the IT revolution, which,
while appearing to connect us, actually
makes it easier not to see each other.
The list could go on, but the
consequences are obvious: we are in
danger of becoming more fragmented
and that, in turn, fuels our insecurity.
We become more wary (an Edith
Cowan University study recently
revealed that only 35 per cent of us say
we trust our neighbours). We are less
trustful of institutions, less confi dent of
the meaning of that elusive thing called
‘society’ and more of us are saying, “We
don’t know our neighbours.”
None of this is inevitable – in many
parts of Australia, people are resisting
these pressures and maintaining a
strong sense of community where they
live. In fact, the tide might be beginning
to turn as more of us realise that ‘the
state of the nation’ starts in our street.
It’s not so hard to engage: smiling at a
stranger, chatting with a neighbour or
joining a book club are simple acts that
help to build the social capital that
makes communities strong.
Although some of us belong to
several diff erent communities, our
local one is special, because the role of
neighbour is unique. Our morality is
strengthened by learning how to get
along with people who may be quite
unlike us and who might never other-
wise become friends.
Engaging with people in this way is
not only good for the community, but
also for us, individually. After all, we
don’t really know who we are until we
fi nd an answer to that nagging question:
where do I belong?R
ECENT AUSTR ALIAN history has
not been kind to communities,
partly because it has not been
kind to ideas such as cooperation, altru-
ism and even self-sacrifi ce. For the past
50 years, we have been living in the Age
of Me, bombarded by propaganda that
persuades us to believe nothing is more
important than my material comfort and
prosperity, my personal happiness, my
rights and my entitlements.
Consumer mass-marketing has been
the most sophisticated contributor to all
of this encouragement of self-absorp-
tion. But political strategists have also
jumped on the bandwagon, ‘selling’
|politicians and their parties like brands
designed to appeal to our self-interest.
The ‘happiness’ industry has not
been far behind, with its relentless
emphasis on positive outcomes for me
and the dangerous concept that self-
esteem is the greatest gift we can give
our children. Even the meditation
movement, for all its value, sometimes
encourages a degree of self-awareness
that can morph into self-absorption.
We are in danger of forgetting that
the most interesting question about us
isn’t “Who am I?” but “Who are we,
and what kind of society do we want to
create?” All that ‘me’ talk can easily
distract us from the deepest truth about
ourselves, which is that we are social
creatures who need communities to
support, sustain and protect us.
The story doesn’t end there. The
beautiful symmetry in human nature is
that those communities themselves
must be nurtured if they are to survive.
As social creatures, it is our responsibil-
ity to build and maintain communities
where people can live harmoniously,
creatively and productively, based on
mutual kindness and respect.Yet many of the changes that have
been so relentlessly reshaping our
society have been distracting us from
that noble purpose, by threatening the
stability and cohesiveness of local
neighbourhoods. For example, the
new patterns of marriage and divorce
demand diffi cult adjustments for many
families and friendship circles, while our
low birthrate reduces the role children
have traditionally played as a kind of
‘social lubricant’ in the neighbourhood.
And, with single-person dwellings
accounting for more than 25 per cent of
all households, there’s an increased risk
of isolation, and the rise of the two-
income household means both partners
are often too busy, or too tired, to
devote much time to nurturing their
local community. We also move house,
on average, once every six years, and
often commute in our own cars, so the
chance of incidental, unplanned
encounters with people diminishes.HUGH MACKAY is a social researcher
and author, most recently of The Art
of Belonging (Pan Macmillan Australia).Being a good neighbour
It’s not where you live, but how you live, that makes
a difference, says Hugh Mackay.
HUGH MACK AY