Here’s my experience: Among 10 high school dance organizers and volunteers, three worked their butts off; three generally pitched in with direction; two begrudgingly assisted and two did almost nothing.
For a brief spell, I lived in a commune-type situation, and the formula was the same. Among 10 people, about 30% did the lion’s share of the housework, provided most of the food and paid the bills. About 30% actively contributed when prodded. About 20% sometimes made a bed and swept the floors, and the other 20% did absolutely nothing. I observed the same formula at work in a college fraternity setting.
You can apply the formula to public participation in civic organizations, education, elections, and the work of lawmakers at all governmental levels. The 30-30-20-20% allocation of participation, the “rolling up of sleeves to get things done,” seldom changes.
For this reason, I find hardcore conservatives’ relentless efforts to block social service legislation, or reduce social services in general, a form of insanity. Applying the “survival of the fittest” philosophy to society in the belief that a significant portion of people will change or be able to bootstrap themselves upward, hasn’t worked in my nearly eight-decade lifetime. And there is no evidence on the horizon it ever will.
However, there is a way the formula could change to increase the level of active public participation, to figuratively “raise most of the boats.” It’s through education. But our society has demonstrated over and over again that it isn’t willing to make a step-change in its commitment to education. The late American author Kurt Vonnegut would say, “and so it goes.”
— Frank E. Baker
Eagle River
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