What are the implications of this deeper need for community for the Johari Quad One and an external locus of control? Diamond’s analysis suggests that an agrarian society must inevitably build a sense of community if it is to survive. He offers the history of several societies that returned to a hunter-gatherer status precisely because its members couldn’t figure out how to organize themselves. This could very well be the case with some modern and postmodern organizations—though it would be very difficult to return to a hunter-gatherer stage as a 21st Century society.
Quad One becomes very important in any society that requires collaboration and community. While the “traditions” of an Agrarian community—such as Tevia’s Anatevka—reinforce collaboration and community by providing a very powerful and pervasive external locus of control, there is still the need for internal discipline and “management” of an appropriate Quad One—especially (as in Fiddler on the Roof) when some modifications in the “traditions” are required. Tevia had to present a convincing (and not all-together-honest) Quad One argument to his wife, Golda, when trying to convince her that it would be acceptable for his oldest daughter to marry a poor tailor.
Tevia similarly (and painfully) had to manage his Quad One rejection (and final re-acknowledgement) of his youngest daughter (who chose to marry a Gentile). Tevia could not be driven by his Quad Four fears nor could he be wedded to the impressions that other people in his community might have of him (especially with regard to his decisions regarding his daughters’ marital choices). He had to hold and observe the traditions of his community in his own unique way, as all members of a community must do. This requires a balancing in Quad One between an internal and external locus of control. Each of us must similarly find this balance in our first quadrant. It is never easy to be perched precariously as a fiddler on the roof!
