Tradition One – a question?

Extract from the aacultwatch forum (old)

“Short Form:

"One—Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. Unity."

Long Form:

"1.—Each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole. A.A. must continue to live or most of us will surely die. Hence our common welfare comes first. But individual welfare follows close afterwards."

Question:  If it is the case that our common welfare should come first, but that this same common welfare is necessarily constituted as an aggregate of "small" individual welfares, and if even one of those "small" individual welfares is adversely affected, and thereby diminished (by say bullying on the part of a cult sponsor, discrimination on the basis of dual diagnosis etc) then surely the aggregated "common welfare" is similarly reduced. Therefore should it not rather be said that "individual" welfare and "common" welfare are correspondingly important and therefore it would be inaccurate to say that one should "follow close afterwards" ie. neither can be afforded a greater priority on this basis.  Therefore the assertion that in some instances the "greater good" (in this case AA unity) may have to be sustained at the cost of a "lesser evil" (eg. the unnecessary suffering of a minority of members, or even a single member) cannot be valid?”

Cheers

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

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