Community as Salad

By Michael Sciarra
Creativity + Social Change, University of Connecticut
Waterbury, Connecticut

Characteristics of community can be illustrated with many different metaphors, but I have yet to find the metaphor that encompasses all the different characteristics of community that I can come up with. We've all heard of the United States as being a “melting pot,” a community where people of different backgrounds come together and create something new. Perhaps, but I see that all the elements have not combined to become a homogenous new creation. Instead, different people have different points of connection to others in their social group, and those others have still more connections to different others, in a sort of six degrees of separation that unites all of us, through the bridges of language, and traditions of culture, religion, food and so on. These bridges are like the dressing on a salad, bringing together the different elements to form a heterogeneous whole. The elements of a salad, like the people in a community, are different in limited ways, and are more alike than different: we may find vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains and a variety of other ingredients in a salad, but they are all foodstuffs (though I've seen the occasional gold leaf or flower petal in a salad, they were for decoration ...). With community as salad, the participants need to get in the mix ...

Whatever the cultural, religious, genetic, political, etc., background of the people in a society, all of these people are, well, people. I can recognize the differences, rather than denying or acknowledging these differences, while connecting through similarities. When I am making a salad, I don't ask the tomato to become like the cucumber. I check the freshness of the ingredients, and aim to create a balance among the different ingredients. As the available ingredients change, so does the type of salad that I can create. I use what I have available, and make the best salad I can given the available ingredients. As the members of a community change, the community can collectively redefine itself, rather than segregating and pining for what once was. If each community member is able to continuously respond to changes in the community, the community will remain fresh. Of course, the “community as salad” metaphor cannot convey all, or even most of the aspects of community. Unlike vegetables and other such foodstuff, people have the ability and desire to manifest their creative selves. We may submit to governance to avoid chaos, obtain the benefits of cooperative, lawful behavior, and find support through various social programs; however, the new governance is changing. No longer the chefs in the kitchen creating and serving up what they think is best (and not always what's best for the diners), the new governance is a responsive one, in which an unprecedented number of individuals are empowered with a means to influence the decisions of their government.

With access to the internet and other relatively inexpensive and pervasive tools for social communication, the model of social communication is no longer a hub-and-spokes model. I don't need to own a printing press, radio tower, etc. to broadcast my opinions. I can just log on at home or at the library, or pick up my cell phone, and start typing or speaking. It is because of these technological changes that society and government are able to become truly dynamic entities, not attempting to conform to some unchanging, unachievable ideal, but instead constantly changing in response to new input from constituents. Though I chose “community as salad” as my point of departure, I am thankful for all the metaphors for community, because no one metaphor is sufficient to convey all of what community is to each of us.

No one member or sub-group can contribute to a community as much as a group of members can contribute when the opportunity, ability and desire to contribute is present. Opportunity is systemic, and technology has changed the system. Ability is assumed (we each have something to contribute). Desire requires an object. The desire to live in the type of community in which I want to live motivates me to participate in it's creation, along with the supportive belief that I can participate. Thus, far from being an element in a salad, or the chef that creates the salad, I am becoming a member of a new community of thoughtful, vocal, responsive participants, empowered by technology to influence community leaders and connect with other community members to initiate changes to my community.