I don’t often get angry. But sometimes, sheer ignorance combined with a healthy dose of arrogance will make the blood in my body pump just a little more violently. I’ve been told I hold it well though, so hopefully not too many people detect when I’m feeling a bit irate.
Recently I started to feel my muscles expanding and my skin taking on a green hue while I was told that Living Communities was just socialism and communism because it encouraged co-operative ownership of enterprises (and probably because it had the word ‘community’ in it!).
Immediately I began to sense a conversation coming on with someone who still saw the world as one divided by the old ideologies of the 20th century. Anyone who labels people they disagree with as socialists, communists or fascists are themselves, embedded in a fundamentalist view of the world. So any valuable dialogue with them is just about impossible.
The comfort I take from the accusation of us encouraging socialism was that about 10 months ago I had difficulty with someone from the other end of the old political spectrum who was basically accusing the Living Communities program of being a money obsessed business (I kid you not – this was their thinking, even though we’re a not for profit!).
The lesson learnt is that fundamentalist crackpots come in both blue and red and if they’re both firing shots at you, then chances are you’re doing something right.
Recently I started to feel my muscles expanding and my skin taking on a green hue while I was told that Living Communities was just socialism and communism because it encouraged co-operative ownership of enterprises (and probably because it had the word ‘community’ in it!).
Immediately I began to sense a conversation coming on with someone who still saw the world as one divided by the old ideologies of the 20th century. Anyone who labels people they disagree with as socialists, communists or fascists are themselves, embedded in a fundamentalist view of the world. So any valuable dialogue with them is just about impossible.
The comfort I take from the accusation of us encouraging socialism was that about 10 months ago I had difficulty with someone from the other end of the old political spectrum who was basically accusing the Living Communities program of being a money obsessed business (I kid you not – this was their thinking, even though we’re a not for profit!).
The lesson learnt is that fundamentalist crackpots come in both blue and red and if they’re both firing shots at you, then chances are you’re doing something right.
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