This-essay is a7709292.htm which is available at the web-site www.essayz.com. See more notes at the bottom. Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay By-Months By-Years By-Words Webs of Like-&-Un-Like ESSAYS <==> Like-&-UN-Like This-One ========================================================== %DISTINCTIVE GROUPS 770929 Many people like being unique, distinctive, different. To them it is depressing to be just a member of a crowd and like all other members of the crowd. Conformity is something to be avoided like the plague. At the same time such people like to have company, they have the gathering instinct--like to be with other people who appreciate them; i.e., with people sufficiently like themselves to facilitate mutual communication. A group of such people is likely to try to be distinctive because they all want to be unique, distinctive, different. Thus they are likely to focus upon what makes them different than others in the crowd, and exclude from their select group those who are not different in the right ways. Thus the instincts for meaning in being different and for gathering together---when combined may generate exclusive groups. Exclusive groups are likely to identify value with the traits which are the basis for exclusivity. What makes them different is good, and good is what makes them different--perhaps even God is who makes them different. The best people are not like most people---because distinction can not be widely shared and still be distinctive. Excellence, distinction, and goodness get all mixed up with exclusiveness. Exclusiveness involves some form of specialization; being different in some special way. Specialization and exclusiveness undermine meaningful communication and so cuts exclusive group off from exclusive group until they learn not-to-trust, to-distrust, each other. Thus distinctive groups that started out seeking excellence grow into distrustful groups, unable to trust members of distinctively different groups, no matter how excellent they may be in their own specialty. This is especially true when the specialties are essentially different so the languages share little in common and the perceptions are from essentially different perspectives. Distinctive groups lose their humane meaning when their ultimate concern is in being distinctive, rather than in keeping open and humanely using channels of communication. Conformity to the standards of distinction is not a meaningful experience. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================Lines beginning with a percent sign are KEYWORDS for use in ESSAY-System Searches. Their terminal digits are dates of writing in the format @yymmdd#, where @ = a means 99, @ = b means 20, and # = is a within-date essay-count. Links to date-adjacent essays are near page top & bottom.
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