Community is an overused word.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot, because it’s been spoken-of a lot. From the launch of Threads and slow-motion Twitter erosion (evolution? transition?), to music festival discourse, to oncoming election year lines being drawn, the emphasis on communities and what they represent feels important.
Yet as much as it is a topic of contentious debate, it’s difficult to define. It’s so broad, I can only tell you what it isn’t.
It’s not social media.
It’s not a following.
It’s not a shared interest in a brand or a product, or a structure that exists to sell you one of those things. That’s a business. That’s not community.
Some think that religion is community, and there is precedent for that definition. At their healthiest-functioning, faith communities provide a source of emotional and relational support for their members. Where these communities cross that rubicon is in their singular dedication to a creed, for community is not just inward facing.
Community is by definition inclusionary, not exclusionary.
Community isn’t a competition. It’s not a swimmer’s heat but a life raft. If you treat it as a competition, you risk losing people off the sides.
Community is love. Community is openness. Community means a place that lends help when needed most.
I say “lends” rather than “gives” intentionally here, because community should be like a pension fund- you deposit into it much more often than withdraw.
Community means caring about people. It means inviting people into the geographic places and the emotional spaces one inhabits, and learning to be better not as a single person but as an organism. It’s inconvenient, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s the only fulfilling thing about being alive.
George Carlin once said, “People are wonderful. I love individuals. I hate groups of people. I hate a group of people with a 'common purpose'. 'Cause pretty soon they have little hats. And armbands. And fight songs. And a list of people they're going to visit at 3am.”
Carlin’s view is a pragmatic one; but it’s an exceptionally low expectation of what communities can be. He sees a group of people as a mob. I understand this as a method to avoid being let down- if you view people as mostly bad, you won’t have to deal with the heartbreak of being let down by a group of people you had hoped for more from. In reality, people will always let you down. But more importantly, people are, for the most part, good. Their intentions are often good. With adequate guidance and helpful structure, people who form communities can be and do good.
Building a community takes effort. It requires a conscious decision to act in the common good; but that common good is also a personal good, a sort of symbiotic relational experience. The more we put in, the more we get out, and the better it gets for everyone.
Links I like:
“The opposite of courage isn’t cowardice. The opposite of courage is conformity”.
-Brian Collins on structure in creativity (watch here).I’ve really enjoyed the Mitski record this season.
For a very alternative view of what it means to live in community, Camus’s The Stranger is an important read.
Say more!
Really good stuff in here, David.