The following exchange is from Dialogue Group 5, Thread 14.

1. Community in America
Wed, Dec 2, 1998 - 10:07 PM/EST
Caelain

"As we approach the twenty-first century it is correct to say that the United States has become a nation of institutions, whereas it used to be a a nation of communities" John Taylor Gatto, DUMBING US DOWN, Pg. 62-63

I've opened this thread to engage in a discussion about what community means to people. Are you a part of any community? Church? Recovery Group? Commune? Intentional Community?
How many children are friends with that aren't related to you? How many elders? What about volunteer work?

I'm hoping this thread will generate good-hearted ideas. I hope folks can suspend the intentions to disagree for a moment, and just post their own hopes about community here.

2. Community
Wed, Dec 2, 1998 - 10:30 PM/EST
Jb

It's been awhile, but there is a Socialogical term for a person who can see themselves within the context of their society. In trying to respond to your post I was suddenly seized with this vision (well, not quite that dramatic) of community as something larger than I had first set out to describe. As it grew it increased from just my little neighborhood to those surrounding and so on till it covered the globe.

I really think we must begin to think of a global community.

JMHO

3. Community Breeds Selflessness
Wed, Dec 2, 1998 - 11:33 PM/EST
WVBro

One of the communities Caelain mentioned involves personal recovery. I am an alcoholic who last drank in 1993. The recovery community in which I am involved has convinced me that drinking is merely of symptom of a far deeper defect, that of self-centeredness. Coming to the realization that I am not the center of the universe is/was sobering. The tortuous road to recovery began with three simple premises: Clean house, trust God, and help others.

Working with other suffering alcoholics has probably been the most rewarding part of my new life. The humility I sometimes achieve, the selflessness I now strive for has led me to other venues of "Helpware". Having been employed by a large multi-national corporation for 25 years, I have seen for sometime the "global effect" as it relates to financial and economic matters. The Internet has allowed me to expand my personal offerings to that world community.

Enough Web sites try to take, take, take. I have made a promise to myself that mine would always try to help others. I've offered it in six different languages, and all tips and services have been, and always will be free.

It took 20+ years of misery and self-loathing and a painful recovery to finally awaken me to the reality that there is a great big world out there just as confused as I was.

4.
Thu, Dec 3, 1998 - 2:50 AM/EST
ladeyj

P.S. Congratulations, WVBRO -- your accomplishment is a biggie.

5. Community
Thu, Dec 3, 1998 - 7:37 PM/EST
Ronin

The concept of community is the concept of unity itself. On a small scale, community is the building block of equality. I believe that if the world were to act more like a community, a lot of the goals we would like to achieve, like abolishment of prejudice and poverty, could be conceived and executed.

6. Community
Thu, Dec 3, 1998 - 7:52 PM/EST
Norseman

I know most of the folks in my town. POP 6500 We all take care of each other. No one is left walking the roads when we have an empty seat beside us in our vehicle. No one is left needing a hand with a tree or a stump or any project in the neighborhood. No one locks their doors at night and I haven't pulled the keys from the ignition of my truck since I bought it. (2 years now) We all trust each other. How many people can say this of their town ? By trusting each other here in our isolated town, we tend to give the benefit of the doubt to those that visit us from elsewhere and those that we only read about.
Someone mentioned earlier that we should think in terms of a global community. I think that if we can just build these smaller communities, the rest falls into place automatically.
Also, it is not one world. There are so many things that seperate us. We would never eat a dog but it's normal in a lot of places. A lot of countries embrace socialism, we do not. (though some wish we would) The differences go on and on. Work on developing your community from your household on out in an ever widening circle and see what happens. I think we would see ourselves healing as a nationwide community.

7. Community
Thu, Dec 3, 1998 - 8:09 PM/EST
Prop

One of the things I believe is that our vision of community is far too physically or geographically oriented; thinking in terms of our country / town / neighbourhood as a community. Isn't the more important issue the byproducts of a 'sense' of community. I do like the idea of the ripple effect; developing that sense of community in the home, then the neighbourhood, then the country and finally globally. As a vet of the internet one of the things that I find unique about our community is the lack of importance placed upon where a person is from with greater importance on what a person has to say.

my 2 cents worth ($1.85 Canadian)

Prop

8. Community Is Indeed Where It's At
Thu, Dec 3, 1998 - 10:00 PM/EST
ladeyj

Great topic, one worth of more and more discussion in OUR community here. 9. Community
Thu, Dec 3, 1998 - 10:03 PM/EST
sndy

Norseman- I agree with the
idea of starting with your
family and working outward. I
sure wish I could say I lived
in a town like yours! Maybe
the elements are what brings
you all together? You know
you could die out there alone
in the cold, very quickly.

10. Building Communities
Thu, Dec 3, 1998 - 11:05 PM/EST
ladeyj

Building - literally - is the key to community! I visited San Juan Capistrano 2 years ago. A beautiful soft, pink town of 30,000 with soft rolling hills. The beaches ain't too bad either. Swallows return there every March 19th, my birthday. Builders were attacking San Juan Capistrano when I was there -- building row after row of sand colored adobe houses on hill after hill. Afterall, that was THE style. Money was to be made -- and many lives dulled in the process -- by those cookie cutter builders. It made me sick, and it could have been so different. Why didn't the officials or the residents of that area demand something different?

New towns, communities where real people could live real lives. Towns where people lived and worked together, took care of one another, knew one another, admonished or spoiled any child -- as needed. Why is it we don't stand up for ourselves, demand what is good and healthy from our builders -- places where community can grow and thrieve?

I think it's because we are brainwashed about capitalism. We don't realize that accepting capitalism to the nth degree as we are expected to do is not necessary, healthy or justified; we could honestly expect something better. The ultra acceptance of capitalism is as "politically correct" as any ultra liberal hogwash running around and destroying the country today. Capitalism run amuk is little more than grand thievery. But we just don't see it; I'm afraid we aren't looking very hard. It could be a lot better folks, all we have to do is SCREAM! Frankly, I'm afraid to go back to San Juan Capistrano.

ladeyj

14. Community in America
Sat, Dec 5, 1998 - 10:04 PM/EST
bikermike

The spirit of community will grow when the concept of 'the gov't will take care of that' withers. By gov't, I mean the federal. As a country, we have moved from a state community to a country community and as large as we are therein lies the problem. We need to move in a direction of getting back to living in a state not a country. After all, we live in the "United STATES of America". A couple hundred years ago the states became states because of the need for a different community to exist.

The state I'm in (Pennsylvania) was mostly Quakers. Utah was mostly Mormon. In other words, if you felt a certain way, you settled in a state that supported your belief. This naturally promoted interest in the community because it had a commonality to center around. Over the years we have moved to thinking of ourselves not as citizens of a state, but of the United States. So the physical size of the country comes into the issue. How can I feel communal for someone over 3,000 miles away unless I know them personally and how can I do that unless they are family that has moved there? Well, before the World Wide Web, it was almost impossible. But there is a long way to go before this medium can bridge the distance and develop a true community of netizens. So, I go back to my earlier premise and that is of getting out from under a Federal system and moving back to a State governed environment. As originally designed, the Federal was only to establish commonality between the states on issues that crossed state lines. But over time that has been watered down to the system we have now. I think we need to get back to a strong state government so that as a citizen of that state I can feel a stronger sense of community than I do now. Comments????

15. Mixed-use zoning
Sat, Dec 5, 1998 - 11:29 PM/EST
ChuckL

I have nothing against cars, but the car culture and the physical separation of people has contributed to the loss of community. My parents live in suburban dreamland, where everybody drives everywhere and parks their car in their attached 3-4-car garage when they come home. They would tell you that their little development has a great sense of community, but to me, just because they have a newsletter hardly qualifies them as a real community. It's very superficial. The sad thing is that where they live actually is more communal than most suburban areas.

Having seen much of the world in the last seven years, I can say this: mixed-use zoning and higher population density automatically makes communities stronger. Mixed-use zoning is where, instead of having houses over here and shopping over there and office buildings way the heck over there, you kind of mix it all up in an aesthetically pleasing way. This way, when you need a loaf of bread, you wander over to the little bakery on the corner. When you want to watch a video, you stroll on over to the little video shop. When you want to play, you go to the park where your neighbors are flying kites and playing baseball and you play with them. This builds community.

Nowadays, I'm living in a very well-planned suburb of Seoul, Korea. The population density is incredible, but it's a very pleasant place to live. There's a beautiful mountain right behind my house (S. Korea has a law that no building can take place on the mountains -- a law I wish my home state, Colorado, had adopted before the magnificent Rockies became mere pedestals for trophy home developments). There's no crime here, really. When I do drive, I find no traffic (not the case in Seoul.) The air is clean and fresh. The low crime rate may be partially attributable to the strong sense of family in Korea, but part of the quality of life is due to the superb planning that went into this city of 500,000. Mixed-use zoning is an idea whose time has come. You can see pics of my neighborhood here.

16. 15. re: Community in America
Sat, Dec 5, 1998 - 11:29 PM/EST
Ronin

bikermike,
You are expressing the views that Thomas Jefferson expressed at the birth of the US. This just goes to show that the merits of the Federalist and Democratic Republican views are still in question today. While the benefits of strong state governments are considerable, we must also consider the fact that it divides the structure of the nation. This would not be a problem if we were alone in the world, but we have to deal with other countries as well. For methods of politics, defense, and commerce on a local scale, it is easier to centralize things. This is not to say that federal structure is better, just easier for the current system.

17. 16. re: Community in America
Sun, Dec 6, 1998 - /EST
bikermike

Ronin,
Well Duh!! hahaha! sorry... The subject matter is Community in America. In the totally abject nature of the matter, if we were a strong states entity, we would be no different than the European Community in trying to come to grips on a unified front in dealing with the rest of the world. Hell, look how long it took to get to the Eurodollar. They are pooling their resources to meet the world collectively to better their common good. Nothing more, nothing less. Given a different history, we could be doing, or have done, a similar thing.

18. Commmunity
Sun, Dec 6, 1998 - 1:25 AM/EST
Caelain

Ronin and Bikermike:

Perhaps both can be accomplished. Federal G for defense and diplomacy and State or even County G for social, welfare, and the bulk of fiscal responsibilities.

ChuckL:

I enjoy driving cars, but I have almost everything against them. We should have chosen some much more sustainable, and far less costly form of transportation. GM and company destroyed through the purchase-able political process, many of the fine transit systems of the USA. The states have been powerless ever since due to the need for federal highway dollars.

19. One more point about mixed-use zoning
Sun, Dec 6, 1998 - 7:25 PM/EST
ChuckL

Mixed-use zoning allows small, independent businesses to thrive. Instead of everybody driving to Mega-Mart to get what they need, they can walk to their neighborhood grocer, hardware store, record shop, etc. Do you think developers could profit from mixed-use communities? Could this work in America? Comments, please.