Social dominance or effective leadership is always contextual. It requires the leader be aware of the contextual nuances of what people take for granted so that they convince others to follow. If folks don’t follow, you aren’t a leader. It requires a certain leverage to get folks to do things different from the inertia of their personal inclinations. Even the use of force itself has to follow certain contextual protocols or you’ll end up having to kill everyone and no one is left to follow. Fear of harm is a matter of social conditioning and communications.
It really doesn’t matter much if you approve of social fashion; it moves without your permission based on a host of factors about which most folks aren’t entirely conscious. It’s those who pay attention on some level and process the implications for moving large groups who become the social elite. For we who follow Christ, it’s less about exploitation for control and more about exploitation for His glory. Lecturing people about your preferred flavor of etiquette isn’t a gospel witness; it’s snobbery. The witness God blesses either moves across all social boundaries with consummate ease or carefully avoids situations outside the boundaries of individual calling. You don’t have to like the contextual etiquette; you have to understand it and use it.
The primary factor is communication as the means to communion. In the ideal situation, you encounter someone already awakened of heart so as to recognize each other as soon as the sensory fields merge (starting roughly 30’/9m). By now you probably know that’s quite rare. A significant minority of humanity develops with some heightened awareness of it, but our culture tends to crush it. Of those, precious few are comfortable with the conflict in the sense of pushing ahead with obeying their heart’s moral wisdom. We are left with a lot of folks suffering some internal conflict. And then there’s a huge mass of folks who have no clue at all, for whom our mission is starting from scratch explaining the sensory heart and heart-led living. We have to communicate on multiple levels and it’s our divine duty to develop as much facility as we have for that.
Had we a physical church gathering, we could teach these things and develop them into a high art. Sadly, we who know these things are currently thinly scattered around the world and facing a veritable tsunami of resistance, such that our biggest problem is the resistance we have already absorbed internally. The burden of internal change is indescribably large against the need to reach outward to others. That’s part of why I have published so many books and posts addressing the cultural and epistemological differences. Just the simple act of walking in Christ’s footprints is a massive undertaking. On top of that, our learning and communion takes place in virtual space.
That in itself becomes a major issue, both in the learning and in the mission. The social setting is rooted in the nature of the nascent Networked Civilization. We cannot simply bring our social expectations across the boundary; we have to understand the nature of communications itself. We dare not mistake the oddities of “netiquette” for sin that needs repentance. On top of that, the netiquette is a moving target that requires some conscious awareness of the underlying nature of things or we’ll never quite understand. Just listing the basic rules is almost a waste of time because they are always contextual. Different segments of society on the ground will participate in the underlying essence in different ways, not to mention we have the difficulty of identifying how people see themselves in that context. To which of the numerous varieties of the day does this or that person imagine themselves belonging?
One of the first elements of this essence we need to recognize is the greatly reduced importance of physical proximity. It’s not gone altogether, but considerably less significant. My closest spiritual coworker in this virtual parish lives 1300 miles (2100km) away; I’m near OKC and she’s up around Ottawa. Other active supporters are scattered equally far, if not farther away. So far as I know, there is not a single regular reader within reasonable visiting distance of my home. There is something about this ministry that builds on the cultural milieu of the Internet. That’s the essence of the future social shifts we see already: Physical proximity is not much of a consideration any more.
The reason people are often glued to their cellphones these days is that’s the single best way to stay in contact with their virtual social group. That there is a high likelihood of a physical element to this social connection is actually immaterial once that network connection is made. People still want and need that physical element, but the need is greatly reduced by the network linkage. The social value is kept alive virtually, whether there is ever very much physical reinforcement.
Along with this is the complete shift in affinity. That is, the bonds of affection have almost no connection to actual family kinship. The mandatory social rituals of holidays with the kinfolks are dying rapidly, not because people don’t care — they never did. But they were required to pretend they cared about people they actually couldn’t stand. Now they suffer a greatly reduced expectation of pretense. This is peculiar to Western society, particularly the dominant middle-class culture. Arising almost entirely from the grouchy Anglo-Saxon tribal society, it was once necessary to act nice to your kin because no one else would fight at your side against the neighboring clans, who could be counted on to look for any opportunity to take your stuff. In a world where life was so dreary in the first place, fierce competition for material resources was about the only reason to keep on living. Thus, the social discipline was severe to match that need. Nowadays, your threats are entirely different in nature; your social needs are totally different.
It was bad enough that the public schooling system disrupted (by design, I might add) the extended family social structure. It turned folks from cross-generational blood ties to age-group ties, which made it possible then to pull them off into other forms of social affinity. But the Internet was a quantum leap farther along the same path.
With a global network opportunities, you can form social bonds on entirely different grounds. It’s more than simply cosmopolitan; that concept itself arises from the physical domain. Rather, you can be entirely clannish on entirely different grounds from DNA. Though I make much of the hard-wired tribal urge in humanity, I also note often that God says covenant affinity is stronger, and He can make our hard wiring act differently when we submit to His mercy on the matter. Thus, churches in Jerusalem began as little extended households but quickly included to the more cosmopolitan Diaspora families with smaller households. Then it became entirely a matter of proto-Western Gentile individuals drawn by faith. There’s nothing wrong with that, and in the Network Civilization, it becomes the essence of things.
We have to recognize the essence of things and value them accordingly. We can’t rely on social tradition; it was virtually always anti-spiritual. All the more so should we learn to recognize that our personal preferences were often shaped by something that is itself a major hindrance to faith. I personally am especially aware of Anglo-Saxon influences, since that is my personal demon. It shouldn’t be hard for you to look in the mirror and assess your own.
That networked essence extends in all directions. I’ve noticed in the past how the new virtual society elites are geeks. That is, if you know about the network protocols and can use the hardware and software with a high degree of “literacy,” then you are de facto a social leader. Do you know anything about firewalls? Then you can assert your individual wishes against the social context as if you had some kind of military authority. The cyber knights are the nobles of today. Some elements of Western feudalism will never die, as will a wide range of middling social (middle-class) bad habits that allow them to pretend they are classy, but without the actual investment in expertise and elegance. We have to maintain an awareness of how these things cross over from the dying Western Civilization.
But that’s enough for today. Mull this over and pray that God guides you to your proper service in His glory.
