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A response to avoiding teamwork

Zion, IL
By A.B. Dada
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In yesterday’s post titled Why teamwork is a bad idea, blogger JDavidB of Voice of John posted the following insightful reply:

This is not to say that you should never seek anybody else’s interest. But it is to say that there is a lot of “moral” manipulation out there as people try to manipulate others to give more for less, through “values” like “teamwork.”

It is often in a person’s best interest to consider the needs of others, but it is difficult to do so without considering the impact on your life and future. If I help the needy, I do so out of my faith calling, but I also have the selfish desire to help those in my town increase their value to society to reduce crime and poverty. It’s a difficult road to walk if one truly tries to be humble without hubris. I personally have trouble dividing the two.

Thankfully I was abused by my peers in elementary P.E. and learned to despise sports and thus never acquired a taste for “teamwork.”

I, too, was abused by me peers in P.E. and main classes. I was not financially capable of being “hip” and was definitely an outsider. While I’ve worked hard to dismiss any lasting feelings of anger or grudge, I also learned so much at how the world works based on the cliques formed in high school and later. It was through learning of the opiates of the masses that I realized that the moment you join a “group,” you restrain your own ability to grow and flourish. Every relationship I have is outside of the groups and scenes that many of my friends and collegues join, even subconsciously.

Thankfully also my father taught me that my schools were being ridiculous for their faddish emphasis on working in groups “because businesses say their biggest problem is people who can’t do teamwork” [read with the voice of the babysitter from Pixar's The Incredibles saying "leading experts say, listening to Mozart makes babies smarter"].

This is wise, and I was not taught the same, unfortunately. It took a lot of time in watching people and reading about the human condition to realize that the only way to persevere in the trials of life is to try things both inside and outside the box. If I follow the rest of society in how they battle life’s hardships, I am left with what society has offered itself: debt, sadness, frustration and the desire to escape through drugs, promiscuous behavior and mind-numbing television. None of those are for me.

People will read the above paragraph and totally misunderstand. They will think I (and my father) am a disgusting, cynical person.

But “they” are part of a huge group of people who hate themselves and are told that the reason they hate themselves is because they’re not part of a team or group. It’s taught by the churches, by advertisers, by the educators and by the law. Be part of a group, or be a miscreant, to paraphrase the ways you’re taught you can’t be your own person.

That is so far from the truth. I love and care about people and seek their true welfare. And that’s why I don’t want to see them manipulated into being less than they could be by false morality. LOVE, yes. “Teamwork” and placing abstract concepts and groups above yourself and your loved ones? Absolutely not.

That’s the most insightful part I read in JDavidB’s response. Teamwork IS an abstract concept. Your hand and your feet and your heart and your brain are separate elements of the same unique form. They don’t work as a team, and sometimes work against one another. When you discover how to use each element individually, the entire society of the body works well. But they don’t necessarily always have to work in unison. Sometimes you will hurt your back to provide for what your heart needs. Sometimes you will ignore your brain to perform works with your hands. These unique elements in your body only seem to work together, but in fact they are separate elements to be treated separately and unequally.

Help a neighbor because he is made in the image of God, not because you feel some guilt urge to “give back” that was programmed into you during your 12+ years of compulsory state-sponsored brainwashing. In so doing, you’ll make better decisions and provide better help.

Absolutely correct, and important to understand. Guilt is a primary reason for joining groups and reducing your ability as an individual. So is loneliness that comes from not seeing the power of yourself as an individual.

Speaking of the image of God, I’m so sick of hearing the following in church: “I think if the Apostle Paul were alive today and writing his letters, he’d pick a better analogy for the church. One that everyone can understand. He’d say that the church is like a sports team. Everybody can identify with a team, with the teamwork required to achieve a team’s goals.”

Again, very true. If the Apostle Paul was alive, I’m sure he’d be providing for the same “Individual Empowerment” that he did. Jesus Himself never promoted groupthink until His Apostles forced Him to. We see so many scriptural stories about Jesus basically AVOIDING groups until he was forced to (except in a few rare instances). Walking past the funeral precession, ignoring the hunger of the masses, ignoring his blood family outside the home, avoiding the crowd gathered around His dying friend. Jesus worked with individuals, except when He was prodded to work with groups. He may have preached to groups, but the overall story is about individuals and their relationship with God that was ruined by groupthink of the Ancient Israelites. Jesus abhorred that relationship. The Church of the Ancient Israelites was groupthink; the new Church/Covenant was embodied in each individual uniquely.

Yeah, it’s a real crying shame back then Paul didn’t have an analogy that everyone could identify with so he could communicate more clearly. You know, like saying the church is like a body or something. Hardly anyone can identify with having a body, right?

So true, as I mentioned in my body explanation above.

I’ve been sick of hearing that for about the last sixteen years. Reading your above post brings home just how wrong the “sports team” analogy for the church is, and not just because I personally can’t identify with sports teams. Interestingly enough, when the Holy Spirit did choose to inspire sports analogies, He chose individual, not team, events. Hmm….

But the modern churches have often reverted to the very Temple-mentality that God punished and destroyed the Ancient Israelites for in 70AD. It is important to read the Sermon on the Mount, as I mentioned in a previous article today. I’ll take some opinion from Wikipedia in an excellent mini-article titled Woes of the Pharisees, which covers a subset of the Sermon on the Mount:

Jesus criticized the following regarding the Pharisees (leaders) of the Ancient Israelites:

Shutting the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. Jesus told many that the Kingdom of Heaven was evident then and there, but many modern churches continue to preach that the Kingdom of Heaven is “to come.”
Making converts twice as much a son of hell as the converters themselves are. So many modern churches promote the whoring of their congregation with the beast of government. Even though I no longer believe in Hell as preached by Futurism, I do believe in separation from God in the here and now based solely on a person refusing to see the Kingdom that exists, here and now.
Claiming that swearing by the temple is nothing, but claiming that swearing by the temple’s gold is everything. I don’t have a strong modern opinion of this portion of the Woes of the Pharisees, but I have some weak opinions here.
Obeying the minutiae of the law (such as giving up a tithe) but neglecting the important facets (such as justice, and mercy) - metaphorically straining out a gnat but swallowing a camel. Jesus had just TWO Commandments: Love God, Love Others. If you try to follow the Old Covenant (now banished, in my eschatological opinion), you refuse to see what Jesus superceded as His New Covenant.
Being shallow - metaphorically cleaning the outside of the cup and dish but leaving the inside full of greed and self-indulgence How many churches teach about prosperity over stability? How many churches teach separation from the world rather than integration?
Hypocrisy - appearing righteous but actually being full of wickedness, metaphorically like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but full of dead men’s bones. This is apt when a pastor promotes war and theft and judgment and the rule of man. This is why I do not financially support congregations that are registered as 501(c)3 which prevents them from speaking out against the modern beast of government.
Claiming that they would have behaved better than their forefathers - even though they build and respect the tombs of those who murdered the prophets. And this is true to this day. How many prophets were killed in the same way that our legislative leaders kill even Christians in other countries? I can not respect the tomb of those who murdered others and believe that they behave better than those Judged 2000 years ago.

When one becomes part of a group, one loses their individual ability to be the best they can be. You will be held back due to rules and regulations. You’ll be fearful of taking calculated risks because you’ll fear being considered an outsider. You’ll be warned and even threatened if you rock the boat. If you have faith in yourself as you were created, with certain abilities and talents and certain shortcomings, only then can you maximize your ability to serve others as you grow stronger in the knowledge that you can accomplish much more than society would tell you you can.