The Unity Dinner

© 2001 by Leili Towfigh | A version of this article appeared in The Commonwealth Newsletter, Spring 2001.

FOR several years I have been at MIT, researching technology and communities, and the effects they have on each other. I am looking at what might happen when people gain more wide-spread access not only to technology, but also to the process of thinking about and changing the way we gather, organize and share knowledge. How can technology facilitate access to resources, improve civic participation and enhance and refine our understanding of community? How is technology helping—or harming—the ways in which we all interact with each other? One wonders what kinds of people we are becoming in an increasingly computer-mediated world, and what kind of control we have over that transformation. Traditional definitions of "community" are changing under pressure to fit the specifications of a technology-guided civilization. People live their lives in increasingly artificial environments. The personal commitments to one another that form the bedrock of genuine community are harder to come by.

Almost a decade ago, tensions stemming from racial inequality at Medford High School erupted in violence, escalating to such a degree that, one sunny spring afternoon, mounted police in riot gear came to break it up. Soon afterward, the school board paid diversity facilitators from the State Department thousands of dollars to "handle" the situation. The thrust of the facilitators' message was to forbid students from using racial slurs in their speech, and to admonish them about wearing colors and hats that might be seen as gang-related.

Look at the status of children and youth in a community and you'll get a good indication of the overall health of that community. How did disconnection among these teenagers get to the point where they were whipping cafeteria chairs at each other? And what could others living in the city do about it?

In The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg says there are three important places in everyone's life: the place they live, the place they work, and the place they gather for conviviality. Howard Rheingold, editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, thinks that in our automobile-centric, high-rise, fast food, shopping mall way of life, many of these "third places" have been eliminated, thus shredding the social fabric of existing communities.

Against a backdrop of thinking about technology and these increasingly artificial environments, I received an unusual opportunity to be personally involved in a community-building effort. A group od Bahá'ís in Medford got together and determined that there was a distinct need for a space in our city wherein people who did not usually interact could meet each other. We decided to invite neighbors, strangers, anyone, to come over (our house was chosen because it's big and central), bring some food to share, and be thrown together with a houseful of others. We would host this evening once a month for 6 months; if the idea proved useless, we would stop.

The first month, twelve brave souls from the neighborhood and beyond showed up at our door. The next month, thirty made their way over, a variety of dishes in hand. The next month—more than fifty. The "unity dinner" was born. At least half the guests were people I had never seen before. Some stayed until after 2 am. "Are they rude?" we thought, as we started flicking off lights in an attempt to give the signal that it was time to go home. No, not rude - just hungry, literally, and figuratively. Hungry for connection.

One night, a man standing way back on the porch, asked with a radiant smile, "Have I reached the Towfigh home?" I said yes. He then bowed and said, "May I be permitted to join your gathering?" I invited him in. He had meticulously made sushi, artistically arranged on a platter. Instead of crowding his dish onto the shared table and eating his dinner, he stood and served all the other guests before filling his own plate. This particular guest's courtesy, noticed by all, quietly elevated the overall atmosphere of the gathering.

I have to say that it was weird, at first, welcoming complete strangers to our house. But the experience has changed the hosts as much as any guest. I think of the restrictions that daily life often tries to impose on us, and then I look at the roster of visitors who come each month (more than five thousand total, over nine consecutive years, and counting). It is not unusual to have many cultural backgrounds, systems of belief, and twenty nations represented at the dinner, more languages than that, a crowd of students, some babies, and grandparents. I often notice students playing with the baby visitors. College students rarely get the chance to interact with children in their everyday lives; and these days there are even fewer chances, it seems, for many of us to interact with and learn from elders.

At the dinner, we have no speeches, no presentations. OK, once a visitor from London, who also happened to be a tango instructor, decided that this was a perfect setting for rolling back the carpets and giving impromptu lessons. And once a friend from the Micmac Nation brought his sacred drum and shared the story of his life. But mostly, clusters of people who might not connect through other channels can be seen talking all over the house. Many of them arrange to meet elsewhere in the following weeks. Some we never see again. Some come back every month.

According to Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point, the spread of ideas requires a network of key people he calls "connectors," who move in circles that are highly diversified in terms of race, geography, class, faith, age, professional affiliation and interest. Key players from a variety of spheres are able to connect with each other, and through such contacts social and economic movements "tip", or take on a life of their own and eventually promote large-scale changes.

The concept of hosting a regular, minimally-programmed social gathering as a means of spreading an idea—that making a conscious effort to cultivate diversified friendships can reinforce, section by section, the social fabric—is related to a saying of Bahá'u'lláh: "the well-being of mankind, its peace and security, is unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established." Too often, people talk, or negotiate, or argue only in the aftermath of a crisis. The first step is to establish a modicum of friendly relations. Then, when difficulties arise, we can build from that basis, using all the technological tools our hearts desire to shore up connections and partnerships. The enabling (and joyous!) work of weaving a network of friendships may be less dramatic than crisis management and "fighting fires." but it is potentially far more fulfilling and effective.

Copyright © 2001 by Leili Towfigh

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