Getting the best from all helps us build community

Seth Godin, a leading thinker of our era, has been pushing the idea of individual art. He has been urging his readers to make their art, ship their art and live their art.  If you read THE ICARIUS DECEPTION, you will get a much better idea of his thinking.  He believes we all have art to provide to make a difference -- for ourselves and for our world.

Today he wrote a blog about how many people only allow that some of us have art. The rest, they lump into the idea of "those people."  That blog encouraged this blog. We know in small communities that if we do not tap into the contributions of all, we are not going to achieve the potential that can be our's. We also know that we are not tapping into that potential because so many of us are like the person Seth quotes, sure that others just are not as capable of making a difference. My reason for today's blog is to wonder how many times I have been guilty of the same hubris.

Here is the blog post from Seth Godin:

Those people

At a recent seminar, a woman who helps run a community college stood up to ask a question.
"Well, the bad news," she said, "is that we have to let everyone in. And the truth is, many of these kids just can't be the leaders you're describing, can't make art. We need people to do manual work, and it's those people."
I couldn't believe it. I was speechless, then heartbroken. All I could think of was these young adults, trusting this woman to lead them, teach them, inspire them and push them, and instead being turned into 'those people.'
You know, the people who will flip burgers or sweep streets or fill out forms all day. The ones who will be brainwashed into going into debt, into buying more than they can afford, to living lives that quietly move from one assigned task or one debt payment to another. If they're lucky.
No, I said to her, trying to control my voice, no these are not those people. Not if you don't want them to be.
Everyone is capable of being generous, at least once. Everyone is capable of being original, inspiring and connected, at least once. And everyone is capable of leading, yes, even more than once.
When those that we've chosen to teach and lead write off people because of what they look like or where they live or who their parents are, it's a tragedy. Worse, we often write people off merely because they've been brainwashed into thinking that they have no ability to do more than they've been assigned. Well, if we brainwashed them into setting limits, I know we can teach them to ignore those limits.