In a message dated 97-01-06 00:29:03 EST, 76234.3636@CompuServe.COM (Rol
Fessenden) writes:
" If there has been a decline in values, I would tend to attribute it
primarily to the loss of community. Moving away from people you know and
love frees you to act in ways that you would never act in their presence.
Especially in large cities, we see this played out over and over. I just
returned from Boston. No one says hello there on the street. In my town
no one would think of passing another person without a friendly hello,
whether you know that person or not. We get tons of tourists in the
summer, and they invariably start out being flumoxed by all the
friendliness. "
-- end of quote --
"Community" has been redefined in a number of ways, just as "family" has.
One of my communities exists on line, and others are defined by my job in
another town, my hobbies, and the school my daughter attends. The people
who live near me, while mostly nice folks, don't form a significant
community (except in a limited physical sense) for me or my family.
That's very different from the life my parents and grandparents led, or
from the small Maine towns that I grew up in, where community life was
almost exclusively local. It was also almost exclusively white, working
class, and very intolerent of people with different lifestyles, religions,
or political beliefs. They also said "hello" to people in the street.
-Dick Jacobs
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>