Need to Belong

There is a basic/fundamental need to belong to social groups. People have discovered that to do more in life than merely scrape by, they need to work together with others in order to succeed in living. There are hurdles on the way to this preferred social setting. People need to have common ground upon which to agree before they can come together for the greater good of all involved. They need agreement on beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors to reduce the chance of the group becoming chaotic and erratic. The commonality needed also lends to the good of all. This may be more important than the avoidance of disunity.

People will learn to bend to rules of others as they move toward unity. This bending becomes contagious because as more people bend, others who see this conformity will likely feel obligated to bend and follow the crowd. People will often conform even when they are in a group of complete strangers. Going along with the flow is the, perceived, easiest way to avoid negatively standing out in the crowd. That being said, the strongest urge to conform and fulfill the need to belong comes when a person loves and cares about the others in the group. Within families and groups of close friends this is called normative social influence. People with self-esteem issues are more easily influenced in this way.

Non-conformity within the group is often considered deviant behavior even if the behavior is well within the social norms of society at large. Behaving outside of the group’s norms may well get a person ejected from a group. Churches provide too many examples to even begin to discuss in this forum, but suffice it to say that one of the major failures of the local church is the way they treat people who are different, and do not yet have the proper understanding of why they need to conform.

Our country is an individualist culture, but there is an irony in the fact that normative social influence is so pervasive.

What is the social impact of the normative social influence? Fads and fashion are the first two areas that come to mind. The most powerful areas are racial and political. Look at the rhetoric in the news, within congress, and within groups of differing ethnicities where the differences in norms are most acute.

Changing a person’s behavior on this level is easy or tough based on the context and personal preferences of the individual and the group. This is the plight of the local church today. Churches need to create environments with guard-rails wide enough to include as many as possible without compromising the standards. It is my goal in life to help churches do this very thing. It should be the goal of every church to help people with their need to belong.

The Good Old Days!

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rational suicide

People who favor rational suicide usually fall into the camp that says the terminally ill patient has the right to make any decision they want with regard to living or dying. Those who are against a patient taking or having someone help them take their life usually refer to their religious leaning as foundation for their stance. This subject is, by far, the most complicated topic in chapter 3 for me now, and I am sure it will be in the future. I don’t do well with end-of-life situations. I have dealt with many throughout the years in my role as a Pastor. They never get any easier no matter their number. I must confess that I do not do well with hospital visits either, and they are a part of my weekly routine week-in and week-out.

Let me walk through some thoughts about end-of-life decisions,

Most discussions about someone who is terminally ill go something like this

Would you want to live that way?

No.

Then why should they have too?

This is a dangerous assertion!

My view on life or your view on life may be very different if we are the ones they are talking about. This discussion is very common, and it can be labeled the quality-of-life argument. But even when most people use this argument they miss the ethical dilemma it represents. End-of-life issues are really disagreements about whether the fundamental worth human beings is their intrinsic value instrumental value. Quick definitions, instrumental value = a means to an end, intrinsic value = valued for their own sake. We exchange money for things we want. That is instrumental value. Family and friends have intrinsic value because they a good in and of themselves. Things of intrinsic value can have instrumental value, and they can even lose that instrumental value but their intrinsic value remains. If I refer to the “sanctity of life” I am referring to intrinsic value. If someone uses the argument I began this posting with, they are saying that the person is only valuable as long as they are useful. Do you see the slippery slope? This is such a dangerous position because is it entirely subjective. I don’t want to decide who should live or die, and I don’t want anyone else to declare me ready to die before the Lord calls me home Himself.

I guess the bottom line for me is that I would have to treat the patient as someone with hope, and encourage them the best I could. I just don’t really know. As I said at the start, this is my biggest challenge, not only in this chapter, but within my current vocation.

The bottom line for me is: if human life is intrinsically valuable, then it continues to be valuable even when our capacities are limited.

Do you believe, in the instance of terminal illness, that assisted suicide is a private decision?