I've seen lots of people mention community in the threads so far, and I find it interesting that most of us (I definitely include myself in this!) have articulated it as something particular to geography, something that is either there or not there. theora went so far as to say upthread
This last is the kicker, since [community]'s something that's well nigh impossible to have any control over. Cohousing and living in the middle of nowhere are the only ways I can think of to achieve it [...] [emphasis added]
I want to push back a bit at that notion that community outside of one's household, particularly community offline, is something independent & disconnected from the individuals who compose it; am splitting this into a separate thread from theora's to shift into a more general discussion.
As I understand it, community cannot happen without individuals - how can we have a group without people to populate that group? - and groups with a strong sense of community within the group get that sense of community from synergy: the group together feels like more than the sum of its parts. It has an 'identity' of some kind that provides ready common ground for people within the group to more easily connect with each other, and feel confident that investing emotionally, socially, and/or financially in the group / other people in the group will be reciprocated in some way.
tl;dr How do you define community? Where do you look to find a sense of it offline? How might we strengthen communities that already exist, or plant the seeds of new ones to grow what we yearn for?
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Growing the communities we yearn for
Date: 2013-07-24 05:11 pm (UTC)As I understand it, community cannot happen without individuals - how can we have a group without people to populate that group? - and groups with a strong sense of community within the group get that sense of community from synergy: the group together feels like more than the sum of its parts. It has an 'identity' of some kind that provides ready common ground for people within the group to more easily connect with each other, and feel confident that investing emotionally, socially, and/or financially in the group / other people in the group will be reciprocated in some way.
tl;dr How do you define community? Where do you look to find a sense of it offline? How might we strengthen communities that already exist, or plant the seeds of new ones to grow what we yearn for?