Community

Human lives in communities. We join them, we sometimes leave them. Social networks should only be an underlying infrastructure to support our communities. Social networks are not our communities. Social network dies. Communities migrate and flock to different destinations.

I post this quote from Peter Block's book "Community" every year. It doesn't get much attention because it's not built for social media: it's thick.

But there really isn't a better explanation of the "why" behind the work I do, and its encouragement for communities to move away from blame, apathy, and entitlement and towards possibility,

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There are always going to be people who believe they don’t really need to depend on others, or want others to depend on them. And capitalism has produced more and more ways we can use money, rather than relationships, to solve our problems. It’s easier and easier to employ a courier, a therapist, a zero-hours contracted task-doer, rather than ask a... See more

There’s one other thing related to the questions of civic life and democracy that we have been talking about. If democracy is this challenge of people coming together to figure out the kind of shared lives they want to forge, then the behaviors that they use to negotiate difference are going to flow from the commitments they have to each other. So... See more

"Social bonds were reinforced during disasters, and that people overwhelmingly devoted their energies toward the good of the community rather than just themselves" (p.52) - sarajevo war example, post 9/11, trapped miners examples..."Disasters create a community of sufferers that allows individuals to experience an immensely reassuring connecting to

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A republic requires citizens; entertainment requires only an audience.

– Megan Garber