14 November 2011 -
Jean Paul Sartre
Groups are of fundamental importance, we wouldn’t survive without them. For the majority of our day-to-day lives we are occupied with groups. We work, socialise and play in groups. They are representative of our interests, views, culture and attitudes. The groups we belong to largely determines the language we speak, the beliefs we hold, our cultural practices, the education we receive: in short who we are.
Even though it’s quite obvious we are a social species we are educated, for the most part, as competitive individuals. We are not given the adequate social skills to know how to work together. It’s left to our instincts to function socially. The communities that children will grow up to live and work in are relational and like any relationship they need to be worked at. I see human growth as a cultural activity that people need to engage in together. I am fascinated by the potential positive learning power of groups. I teach and direct people in groups, sometimes very large groups. Casts for community plays range between 80 and 170 and I have run workshops with over 200 people.
Mostly, for the people I work with, their awareness of the group and their relationship to it grows out of the practical work we do but there is real value in having a conversation about what it is people understand by the ‘group’, the role the group plays in their own personal development and most controversially the individual part they play in the group’s development. It’s especially worth discussing whether they think there is such a thing as ‘developing the group’ because there are real consequences revolving around their perception.
By and large, people expect to develop and learn new skills in the way they have always been taught - as individuals. So it’s a considerable shift to establish the concept that we can learn collectively and through our interrelationships with people of different learning levels and that we can and should take some responsibility for others learning and the development of the group. This is not easy because our cultural habit is, more often than not, the opposite of that. People will argue and resist the idea.
The first argument and earliest resistance is around the subject of our individuality. The perception is that paying attention to the development of others and the welfare of the group is not only fundamentally the responsibility of the teacher but it distracts us from focusing on ourselves; it subjugates and denies our individuality.
I don’t deny that we are individuals but we are not individuals alone. We are essentially social beings. Whatever we do as individuals can really only be understood in terms of a relational world. I instigate a lot of games in the process of rehearsing, improvisation training and teaching through drama because they help to develop relationships. I believe that societies, groups and relationships (these things that many would take to be abstract) actually have genuine, real, critical existence. How we relate to each other depends to a great extent on whether we think there is such a thing as society.
Believing in the existence and identity of the group is not a denial of the individual. People contribute individually to shape the kind of group that it is but the key point is they don’t make those contributions in isolation; they make them in the context of the group. If people do things and ignore the group, they don’t come to terms with the fact that the growth and advancement of the group advances them. If we only believe in the individual, then we will be disposed to think that we are in the group for our own personal advantage and there is no particular connection necessarily between our growth and the group.
My central responsibility as a teacher or director is to guide individuals to collectively develop the group because it is the activity of transforming the environment which ultimately transforms all those who participate individually. It is a scientific fact that nothing ever changes without it changing other things. However small, if one thing changes it relationally affects something else and sets up a chain reaction which changes everything. A change or development of an individual, a unit of the group, will change the whole group.
Traditionally, we have all been taught to see ourselves essentially as individuals. I’m not against individuality but I am against the idea of us being individuals in isolation. It is through the group that we best develop and become consciously active in promoting the development of group.
There is a characteristic of groups that is particularly stimulating – it consists of many voices. If an individual were to speak as groups speak we would think them crazy. Groups can simultaneously take you to different places and engage in a whole host of contradictory activities. Consequently it disobeys rules, contradicts itself, is restless, delivers the unexpected, is spontaneous, takes you places you wouldn’t normally go – these are qualities you need to be creative. This is not a metaphor for individual creativity – groups have the characteristics of groups and individuals have the characteristics of individuals. A group throws you into being collectively creative in ways you can’t achieve individually. Groups are far less patient than individuals, which is a virtue in developmental terms. Groups are, generally speaking more impulsive than individuals.
When I’m directing I find individuals are more of a problem than groups. I am genuinely more comfortable working with a group than I am with an individual. Individuals are too emotional; you have to spend years getting over their habits, blocks and resistance. The beauty of a group is that there is less resistance, because group; don’t behave that way. They are more reckless. Groups are less resistant to change. Ironically, groups give individuals courage to take bigger risks because individuals feel there is safety in numbers. Of course it varies from group to group but in general by being reckless the group is more open to transformation. Individuals are much more conservative. Contrary to this being a denial of the individual the nature of groups challenges and develops the individuals within it, in ways they wouldn’t alone. Paradoxically, focusing on the group is a greater and more practical acceptance of the individual but an individual in the context of where he or she lives, as a social being rather than someone in isolation