Exclusive Story

I came across an article about a $33,000 a year private school that was going through some internal political struggle. One quoted parent said something like “It’s a good school. Only 10% of the applicants get in.” I had never really considered the connection between exclusive and exclude. The measure of how good you are is how many people can’t get in. You are exclusive.

I watched a TV commercial as I exercised to the Stanley Cup playoffs. The commercial presents a possible pick-up scene – on an airplane, a young businessman takes the seat next to a young businesswoman. She’s possibly interested in him; he is interested in her but in their exploratory conversation with one another, their cell phones figure prominently. His doesn’t have all of the latest features so she politely loses interest in him and he is left knowing he’s a loser because he doesn’t have the right phone. Throughout the commercial, he and his cell phone are having an internal dialogue. The commercial is presented humorously but it’s not – because at the heart of it, the cell phone’s “she’s thinking you are a loser” banter is planting the internal voice of gnawing doubt in every young man viewing the commercial. And it relates to the above article; if you don’t pay to have the latest phone features, you will be one of the excluded.

One of the great gifts Chrysalis has given me is nourishing an openness to the gifts of others. In our culture’s emphasis on GPA, SAT scores, college attended, I was one of the high scorers. Standing high on your own merits was emphasized and, being raised by wonderful parents, it took me a decade or so past college to realize that all the comparative evaluations throughout school had developed an arrogance in me that closed me to the gifts of others. Our Chrysalis Council meetings have taught me to appreciate the wisdom that arises when many people with the same good intention but with different perspectives work together. I believe that groups that emphasize or identify with exclusivity cut themselves off from a grounding power that nourishes the greater whole. (An aside: The editorialist, Thomas Friedman, used to quote Larry Summers (past president of Harvard University and current director of the National Economic Council) who said at a Harvard commencement that in the whole history of the world, no one has ever paid to put a rental car through a carwash. I emailed Friedman to say that I’ve twice put a rental car through a carwash and that perhaps Summers’ quote speaks more, not about the universe but, about how being at Harvard can lead you to think your perspective is universal.) But back to the commercial.

For thousands of years, people have sat around fires and the elders have told stories to the young. Joseph Campbell mentions such a story told by a Native American tribe to their youth. “As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.” That kind of story builds a strong culture. I think of stories I’ve shared with my students and the conversations that grow from them. Stories can align us with deeper forces and develop a shared resonance within the telling. But that commercial made me lament that we have abdicated our role of telling night-time stories, giving it over to those who are trying to sell us something. The phone commercial tells a weakening story. It exploits the commons. By this I mean that some people are increasing their income by diminishing the inner strength of the community. (“The commons” is a phrase we are experimentally introducing into the Chrysalis student body. The fact that I see a TV commercial as exploiting the commons occurred, I think, only because I had introduced that phrase to our students within the last month and so it was fresh and current in my mind. I will be curious in what ways that phrase will allow deeper thoughts and conversations with the students next year.)