Dick Jacobs has nicely captured all the positive and negative aspects of
"community". tThe friendliness, the shared values, the homogeneity, and
the intolerance of differences. In fact, in many places differences are
defined to be immoral. Thus the quandary we face about values. The
cultural diversity we love and admire in one context can also be perceived
as severe judgement and prejudice leading to conflict in another.
Dick said,
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.
--Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc 76234,3636@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>