Few or many interacting bodies present challenging problems for physicists. On the quantum level, a number of subatomic particles and their “uncertainties” make for some trying Schrödinger-like problems, problems too complex for yours truly to solve. It’s one thing to determine how, for example on the macro level, Earth and the moon interact. It’s another to throw in the other planets and the Sun. And on that micro level, all those interacting subatomic particles that act as both wave and object make up a dizzying mix. Anyway, the point is that as more bodies interact, complexity grows exponentially in what is called the “many-body” problem.
Families also have to deal with the “many-body” problem. To solve the problem, they usually rely on an evolving family Constitution that they amend as they add bodies, that is, children. Typically, families enact a series of spoken and unspoken amendments in an attempt to solve their “many-body” problem, a problem that is exacerbated by the whims of, say, teenage children. Those families with unamended constitutions typically find themselves constantly defending a strict, more dictatorial or even totalitarian regime against rebelling teens. It’s almost impossible to write a predictive constitution, given the nature of unpredictable life.
Was there always a need for a “constitution”? Did the Neanderthals establish them—unwritten, of course, like most family constitutions—in tribes of cave dwellers? And in communes? Remember all those “hippie” communes of the sixties and seventies? We could even go back to Brook Farm, the Transcendentalist Utopia that, like so many other communes, even the Franciscan Orders of monks, began to decay or change in a relatively short time. Can you count the current number of Franciscan orders at this time? And they supposedly all started from the Rule of Saint Francis approved as a “constitution” by Pope Innocent III in 1209. The “First Order” had split so much by the late nineteenth century, that Pope Leo XIII had to “recombine” them under a constitution, joining the “Observants,” “Discalced,” “Recollects,” and “Riformati.” The “First Order” also includes the “Conventuals” and “Capuchins.” Then there’s the Second Order that includes the “Poor Clares” organized under another “constitution,” that called the “Rule of St. Clare” approved by Pope Innocent IV. Other groups split from them with their own constitutions: Colettine Poor Clares, Capuchin Poor Clares, and Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration. I’m not even going into the Third Order of Franciscans; all this is too complex and probably nothing like what Saint Francis might have had in mind.
Point? Even with a constitution, a group inevitably changes. And those groups without a constitution fall apart pronto.
So, some advice. If you intend to start a new group for whatever reason (religious, political, economic, social, philosophical), think well about writing a constitution that anticipates variations that arise in any society, from family to nation to world organizations like the United Nations. What you don’t anticipate will lead to fragmentation and more separations, more offshoot groups like those of the Franciscans.
Families also have to deal with the “many-body” problem. To solve the problem, they usually rely on an evolving family Constitution that they amend as they add bodies, that is, children. Typically, families enact a series of spoken and unspoken amendments in an attempt to solve their “many-body” problem, a problem that is exacerbated by the whims of, say, teenage children. Those families with unamended constitutions typically find themselves constantly defending a strict, more dictatorial or even totalitarian regime against rebelling teens. It’s almost impossible to write a predictive constitution, given the nature of unpredictable life.
Was there always a need for a “constitution”? Did the Neanderthals establish them—unwritten, of course, like most family constitutions—in tribes of cave dwellers? And in communes? Remember all those “hippie” communes of the sixties and seventies? We could even go back to Brook Farm, the Transcendentalist Utopia that, like so many other communes, even the Franciscan Orders of monks, began to decay or change in a relatively short time. Can you count the current number of Franciscan orders at this time? And they supposedly all started from the Rule of Saint Francis approved as a “constitution” by Pope Innocent III in 1209. The “First Order” had split so much by the late nineteenth century, that Pope Leo XIII had to “recombine” them under a constitution, joining the “Observants,” “Discalced,” “Recollects,” and “Riformati.” The “First Order” also includes the “Conventuals” and “Capuchins.” Then there’s the Second Order that includes the “Poor Clares” organized under another “constitution,” that called the “Rule of St. Clare” approved by Pope Innocent IV. Other groups split from them with their own constitutions: Colettine Poor Clares, Capuchin Poor Clares, and Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration. I’m not even going into the Third Order of Franciscans; all this is too complex and probably nothing like what Saint Francis might have had in mind.
Point? Even with a constitution, a group inevitably changes. And those groups without a constitution fall apart pronto.
So, some advice. If you intend to start a new group for whatever reason (religious, political, economic, social, philosophical), think well about writing a constitution that anticipates variations that arise in any society, from family to nation to world organizations like the United Nations. What you don’t anticipate will lead to fragmentation and more separations, more offshoot groups like those of the Franciscans.
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