What does it mean to be a member of a group?
We can be members of something formal—churches, community organizations, or groups associated with a certain trade or hobby. We can be members of informal associations, like fans of a sports team. Sometimes, these memberships have specific requirements, like annual dues or membership meetings. Other memberships require only our allegiance. These memberships are largely voluntary. Other memberships are less voluntary. We are born or adopted into a family. We become members of other family via marriage.
Members can impact a group for both good and bad. We invest our time, talent, and/or treasure into making the group better. We serve in a leadership role. We show up to meetings but do very little to improve the group. We act like a fool and bring shame upon the group.
What if we were members of a group, whether we knew it or not, whether we like or not, and with no ability to decline membership?
I remember a controversy in my childhood involving legendary basketball player Charles Barkley. In 1993, Barkley vowed in a Nike advertisement, “I am not a role model.” His full opinion on the matter was slightly more nuanced. He observed that parents should not blame him for their child’s behavior, because it was his job to play basketball and their job to raise their children. Even so, Barkley ignited quite a debate about role models. He was a famous, popular athlete and our society has long prized athletes and other entertainers and placed them on a pedestal of celebrity. Barkley was going to be viewed as a role model, good or bad, whether he liked it or not. He did not want to be a role model, but his position in society rendered that desire moot.
We generally recognize that high-profile people—celebrities, politicians, and the like—influence the world. Like Barkley, they are role models. People learn from them, good and bad. They make policy decisions or invest money in ways that impact the world and each of us. But has it ever occurred that the same applies to each of us? No matter how small, anonymous, or unimportant that we might feel, each of us has an influence on our community, both the place itself and the people within it.
This concept is the crux of Wendell Berry’s vast fictional writings, comprising eight full novels and over fifty short stories. It is why Berry is studied by pastors, activists, and people like me. Berry’s fiction revolves around Port William, a fictional version of his Kentucky hometown of Port Royal. These stories span from the post-Civil War years to the present. Like many small-town residents of past and present, the people of Port William live interconnected lives. They intermarry. They support each other in time of need. They speculate about each other’s lives (both as a matter of gossip and as genuine concern). The people of Port William are flawed. They make good and bad decisions. The consequences of those decisions reverberate through their families, other members of the community, and the place itself.
Through the lives of his characters, Berry emphasizes the inevitable connections of community and the downfall of community and society when people fail to recognize that connection. Burley Coulter, one of Berry’s most beloved characters, illustrates this inevitability. In “The Wild Birds,” Coulter brilliantly observes:
“The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain’t in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don’t.”
Burley Coulter spoke of the people of Port William: his friends, kinsmen, and neighbors. But through Burley’s voice, Wendell Berry spoke of our world at large. Charles Barkley did not want to be a role model. Only he was, whether he volunteered for the job or not. As for us, we are all members of community—our town or city, a geographic region, our state, our country.
The only difference is who knows it and who don’t.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to West of 98 wherever podcasts are found.
Even spanning the concept of time we have community as we need to be cognizant of our actions today that impact so many lives of the future.