I have been following, with interest, the discussion regarding the outcome of the most recent Selectboard election in Conway. It has caused me to reflect on my own experiences.

When I was 17 years old, I spent money, saved from working summer jobs, to take an Outward Bound course. Outward Bound is an organization whose roots lie in helping young merchant seaman survive the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II. It uses challenging experiences to help one realize their limits are greater than one imagined. From that discovery one can do great things, where before one might not have risen to the challenge.

I took the course more because I was interested in learning how to rock climb and less for any character development. Seventeen-year-olds aren’t particularly motivated by the latter. However, I had an experience I never anticipated and it changed my outlook on many things, one of which is democracy. My English teacher that year had been helping us appreciate American literature: Emerson, Thoreau and others. One of her questions for us to ponder was Thoreau’s notion that Americans had a slavish regard for the majority. I heard her ask us the question and thought about it some, but it really held no meaning for me until the final expedition of my Outward Bound course.

The final expedition is a bit like the final exam. You and your “crew” are told to follow a particular route overland to reach a destination without any instructor’s help. Ours involved four days and three nights of travel through a region of North Carolina that was being used, at the time, by the Green Berets for their own training in preparation for jungle warfare.

We were given advice beforehand on route selection and warned about one particular spot that required vigilance to stay on the proper path. As you might guess, we missed noticing the proper turn and continued on the path we were on long enough to walk off the edge of the map we were using. We had a couple of choices at that point. Turn around and walk back quite a distance uphill or continue following the road we were on and hope it took us to our destination.

There was no certainty in the second choice because we had no map showing us where this road would lead. I was for retracing our steps. It would require work. We would have to admit the extra work was being thrust upon us only because we’d made a mistake, but it would put us back on our intended path.

We took a vote. A couple of the others agreed with me, but the majority voted to continue on the easier path, blithely assuming a second mistake could correct the original one.

Following the majority decision is a difficult choice when one is convinced the majority is wrong. Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” was rooted in this dilemma. When one’s powers of persuasion are unequal to the task of convincing one’s fellows of the errors of their thinking, what does one do? We are all passengers on the same planet. We can’t just walk away from our membership in the human family.

Helping people acquire a willingness to work through differences is a valuable educational tool for all ages. Joining together in a struggle to achieve a difficult objective with a diverse group of people is one way to help us learn how to do that. Seeking out experiences like Outward Bound, continues to be of tremendous benefit to the future of our society.

Philip Lussier is an Ashfield resident and retired educator.