THE OUTSIDERS: I’m still checking in with the local Socrates Café group, maybe once every other week. If nothing else, it gets me out of the house a bit. Once in a while you hear an interesting comment, although many of the topics are bland and much of the discussion is rather predictable (albeit intelligent). The other night’s topic started out on the bland side – i.e., how do you know when you “belong” (as in social belonging). However, the discussion spread out after a while to consider the overall human need for social belonging and its clashes with our need for individuality. I made the point that anxiety about belonging was a modern problem; in ancient farm villages, individuality was just not an option. Pretty good, but not one of my better nights.

After gaining some focus, the conversation started drifting back into the fluff zone when the group started praising the joys of group belonging. In my usual contrarian mood, I said that the longing for belonging could be a slippery slope leading down into the pit of group thinking. Not that belonging is a bad thing, mind you, but one always has to ask oneself, do I think and feel this way because that’s how I really think and feel, or am I doing it just to be part of the group? During my schpiel, I made the point that I used to find it hard to believe that millions of Germans supported the National Socialist viewpoint back in the 1930s. How could a modern, educated society make such a terrible mistake as to support Hitler and all he stood for? Well, knowing what I now know about people and their need to be part of a flock, I can better understand the dynamics behind the Nazis’ rise to power. Perhaps being an outsider isn’t always such a bad thing; you get to see things that others can lose sight of. Think of those outsiders in Nazi Germany like Deitrich Bonhoffer. They paid dearly for never losing sight of the truth. But they were later hailed as heros; their memories served as buoys to guide the German people back to their senses, once the madness had been defeated.

Being an outside ain’t an easy thing, and I don’t recommend it for everyone. But for those of you who can and do stay back from the masses, you’ve got my sympathy. I’m a fellow traveler along that road less traveled. It’s a lonely and sometimes depressing journey. The joys of good company and fellowship are not easily passed upon. However, you will have more good things to say on those occasions when you do affiliate with the masses (some people say that I have too much to say when I go to a Café meeting, or when I write an entry to this blog).

And another thing to ponder – back in the 1960s, there was a pop group called The Outsiders. They had only one real hit – Time Won’t Let Me, from 1966 — but it was a catchy one, a tune that I can still hear playing in my mind. It had a great horn section. If that’s what being an outsider is all about, well, then bring it on — outsiderdom can’t be so bad after all!