"as well as the critical notion of imagined community"... :-)

[Ben Hyde <bh...@pobox.com>]

Read this this morning, found it thought provoking...

"While there are many definitions of community, a review of the 
sociology literature reveals at least three core components or markers 
of community, as well as the critical notion of imagined community 
(Anderson 1983).  The first and most important element of community is 
what Gusfield (1978) refers to as consciousness of kind.  consciousness 
of kind is the intrinsic connection that members feel toward one 
another, and the collective sense of difference from others not in the 
community.  Consciousness of kind is shared consciousness, a way of 
thinking about things that is more than shared attitudes or perceived 
similarity.  It is a shared knowing of belonging (Weber [1922] 1978).  
The second indicator of community is the presence of shared rituals and 
traditions.  Rituals and traditions perpetuate the community's shared 
history, culture, and consciousness.  rituals 'serve to contain the 
drift of meanings; ... [they] are conventions that set up visible 
public definitions" "Douglas and Ishwerwood 1979, p65) and social 
solidarity (Durkheim [1915] 1965).  Traditions are sets of "social 
practices which seek to celebrate and inculcate certain behavioral 
norms and values' (Marshal 1994, p. 537).  The third market of 
community is a sense of moral responsibility, which is a felt sense of 
duty or obligation to the community as a whole, and to its individual 
members.  This sense of moral responsibility is what produces, in times 
of threat to the community, collective action."

Re: "as well as the critical notion of imagined community"... :-)

[Joe Schaefer <jo...@sunstarsys.com>]

Ben Hyde <bh...@pobox.com> writes:

[...]

> That paper references a lot of obviously hard won models of what  
> community is, so now I'm going to have to go read a mess of stuff.

Definitely interesting reading.

> I find it's amazingly rare to find anything about community that isn't  
> moronic, simplistic, or romantic.  Or worse argues that community is  
> just another victim of modern life.  I think quite the contrary that  
> the net is a typhoon of community building.

There was a great PBS special on Benjamin Franklin a few weeks ago.
While quoting Franklin may be "hitting below the belt" to an American,
his brilliant speech to rescue the signing of the US Constitution is
certainly worth a read.  Here's a url describing the particulars (the
actual speech is linked within the main text):

  http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/l3_citizen_founding.html

-- 
Joe Schaefer

Re: "as well as the critical notion of imagined community"... :-)

[Ben Hyde <bh...@pobox.com>]

On Thursday, December 5, 2002, at 01:46 PM, Steven Noels wrote:
>
> http://www.brandingkorea.com/data/board/TBBKD_SL/upload/ 
> brand_community.pdf or  
> http://216.239.53.100/ 
> search?q=cache:Nz0oNDvblCYC:www.brandingkorea.com/data/board/TBBKD_SL/ 
> upload/ 
> brand_community.pdf+%22refers+to+as+consciousness+of+kind%22&hl=en&ie=U 
> TF-8 if you want to read more.

Oh excellent, my copy came from a gated community.  I asked one of the  
authors if I could pass along a copy.  He just provided me with this  
quicker link:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JCR/journal/issues/v27n4/270402/ 
270402.web.pdf

Every time somebody uses the work community, religion, relationship it  
makes my teeth hurt; so I was surprised to find something that pleased  
me to read.
That paper references a lot of obviously hard won models of what  
community is, so now I'm going to have to go read a mess of stuff.

I find it's amazingly rare to find anything about community that isn't  
moronic, simplistic, or romantic.  Or worse argues that community is  
just another victim of modern life.  I think quite the contrary that  
the net is a typhoon of community building.

  - ben

Re: "as well as the critical notion of imagined community"... :-)

[Steven Noels <st...@outerthought.org>]

Ben Hyde wrote:

> Read this this morning, found it thought provoking...
> 
> "While there are many definitions of community, a review of the 
> sociology literature reveals at least three core components or markers 
> of community, as well as the critical notion of imagined community 
> (Anderson 1983).  The first and most important element of community is 
> what Gusfield (1978) refers to as consciousness of kind.  consciousness 
> of kind is the intrinsic connection that members feel toward one 
> another, and the collective sense of difference from others not in the 
> community.  Consciousness of kind is shared consciousness, a way of 
> thinking about things that is more than shared attitudes or perceived 
> similarity.  It is a shared knowing of belonging (Weber [1922] 1978).  
> The second indicator of community is the presence of shared rituals and 
> traditions.  Rituals and traditions perpetuate the community's shared 
> history, culture, and consciousness.  rituals 'serve to contain the 
> drift of meanings; ... [they] are conventions that set up visible public 
> definitions" "Douglas and Ishwerwood 1979, p65) and social solidarity 
> (Durkheim [1915] 1965).  Traditions are sets of "social practices which 
> seek to celebrate and inculcate certain behavioral norms and values' 
> (Marshal 1994, p. 537).  The third market of community is a sense of 
> moral responsibility, which is a felt sense of duty or obligation to the 
> community as a whole, and to its individual members.  This sense of 
> moral responsibility is what produces, in times of threat to the 
> community, collective action."

http://www.brandingkorea.com/data/board/TBBKD_SL/upload/brand_community.pdf 
or 
http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:Nz0oNDvblCYC:www.brandingkorea.com/data/board/TBBKD_SL/upload/brand_community.pdf+%22refers+to+as+consciousness+of+kind%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 
if you want to read more.

</Steven>
-- 
Steven Noels                            http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source, Java & XML Competence Support Center
Read my weblog at              http://radio.weblogs.com/0103539/
stevenn at outerthought.org                stevenn at apache.org