A Sense of Community
Posted By Kathleen David on August 5, 2008
Passing through the kitchen getting Caroline some water, I heard the beginning of an NPR article. It was Ðìçk Meyer, who works for NPR, talking about his new book Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium. Now remember that I only heard the beginning of the article where he was talking about how personal choice in the 1960s over traditional or family choice in combination with the technological revolution of the rest of the century had destroyed our sense of community.
I have to politely disagree. I think that what community was in 1950 and what community is in 2008 are very different but I don’t think it is destroyed. If anything it has gotten broader.
In the 1950s the community to which you belonged was rather limited as communication was rather limited. In the 1960 the options for people started opening up. You didn’t have to go into your parent’s profession. You could get an education and do what interested you. Not that a lot of people didn’t go into their parent’s profession and were perfectly happy with that choice but they knew it was not their only choice.
We now talk about the global community, which I can’t find much reference to before 1960. Our “us vs. them” became more of a “we” as it was realized that this big ball we live on is rather interconnected. This has become even more evident as we continue to learn about the planet that we live on.
Then there are the communities that we can now form because of the Internet. I belong to groups that span the globe. We have members in all different time zones but we have common interests that we enjoy discussing with each other. Then there is my web log community. And I do think of it as a form of community that I belong to.
There are my convention communities. These are conventions that I go to and catch up with people maybe one or twice a year but we have a strong community going at those conventions. We support each other in the good times and bad over the internet when we don’t see each other. (Waves at my convention buddies).
Has small town US virtually disappeared? Probably. There are still versions of it out there but now with the various forms of information that can be gotten, these towns no longer live in the isolation that they did in the 1950s. Nor can any country live in isolation anymore really. Some have tried but eventually find themselves turning to the global stage to help them.
I don’t think we have lost our sense of community more changed what we consider to be our community.
I am grateful for the various communities that I belong to.
I agree that the “loss” of Community, like so many things a generation can “lose”, is really more of a transformation. But that is still a loss to those that were invested in the previous sense of community. And it takes more effort to choose what community or communities you want to participate in, since you can’t simply inheirit them.
I also agree that it is a change in scope, a wider scope is better for the human race as a whole, and broadening for indivuals as well. But it is very easy to care about your family and the six neighbors on your block. It’s a lot harder to have that same level of investment for everyone at the San Diego Comic Con or the entire planet. We may be thinking Globally, but we still need to remember to act Locally.
Ultimately it is not the change in scope that is causing the problem. The human brain is still wired to track roughly 75 “friends”, whether they live on the same block or are spread from Tulsa to Timbuktu. Rather it is the technology that allows you to keep in daily contact with Timbuktu that is creating the disconnect. You may have the same number of friends, and you may have the same depth of emotional connection, but no matter how many conventions you attend, no matter how many e-mails you send, ultimately they are not the people you interact with every day. The Community that you participate in is not the Community that you live in.
We are certainly better off than the days when your horizons went no further than the general store on the corner. But we have lost something when you don;t know the name of the kid bagging your groceries at the local mega-mart. When you have never met the person preparing your McBurger. When your children don’t play with the children next door because they have the home-school pals and your childrens’ friends all go to a charter school 40 minutes away.
Having the power to choose your friendships based on common interests rather than accidents of geography may make for deepr frienships, but it makes for a shallower life.