"Family, Friends, and Community"
Often in ethics we emphasize the individual as the moral agent, but we lose the very important shaping role of community. Certainly an individual moral agent is responsible for his/her own behavior, but in effect each person is a product of community. In turn, that individual helps to shape the community of which he/she is a part.
This community shaping role begins in the person's family. The popular phrase "you are born alone and you die alone" isn't really true. We are a product of a social action between two individuals and we come into this world through our mothers. Is it any wonder then that the bond with mother, and to a secondary degree with father, is the most important relationship that we have to manage in order to grow?
Certainly as it is for personal growth, so it is for growth in ethics. Children when they reach adolescence most often adopt the ethical stances of their parents or counteract them one hundred and eighty degrees. It is only through entrance into the second community of friends that teenagers begin to complement what they have learned in the home environment with what they have lived outside of the home. Positions about social issues that parents have passed down environmentally to their children are now quite often overturned. In fact, if one was to try to identify the individual at the point of adolescence in relationship to the group of friends one would have a hard time finding that individual.
At this point the larger community becomes important. Whether that community is made up of trusted non-family adults-- like teachers or coaches-- or whether that community is the church, the ongoing guidance of non-parent, non-family adults is very important at the time of adolescence and early adulthood.
Somehow through this process of socialization each individual individuates-- becomes a unique person. Sometimes their sense of self is not very marked from one of the social units by which they are surrounded. But if an individual is to be a strong moral agent for good in society, that separation will happen. We will say "so and so" is a wonderful young adult with strong values. We will compliment them, but in doing so we really compliment the family, friends, and community in which he or she grew up-- ourselves.
As someone who has worked with youth in the church I am thankful for so many times when a challenging youth became a productive and positive individual. I am thankful for God's role in the process, holding on to the individual youth, often keeping him/her out of danger and using the social environment to shape each individual in so many ways.
A wise professor of mine, Dr. Gerhard Frost, once asked the question "why are mountain climbers tied together as they climb up the mountain? They are tied together so that if one falls the others will be able to help that one up. That's what we do for each other in the church." That is also what a person's family, friends, and community does for us. "Blessed be the tie that binds, our hearts in Christian love; The fellowship of kindred minds Is like to that above. We share our mutual woes; our mutual burdens bear; and often for each other flows the sympathizing tear."
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