What is Community?
1) Robert Wright. “The Evolution of Despair.” Time, (August 28, 1995). This article examines the mismatch between are genetic make-up and the modern world. It seeks the root of our pervasive discontent with modernity.
2) Derek Bok. “Easing Political Cynicism with Civic Involvement.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. (March 16, 2001). Bok, recently retired president of Harvard, looks at the causes of public disengagement from politics and civic involvement. He provides ideas that may help reinvigorate democracy and community.
3) Ernest Boyer. “In Search of Community.” Speech to ASCD Annual Conference, 1993. This is a thoughtful piece that was given as a speech to several thousand people in 1993. Boyer asks, “what should we be teaching our young people and just what do we mean by an educated person?”
4) Stephen Covey. “The Ideal Community.” 1999. One of the world’s most successful business thinkers argues there is something every single one of us can do to make connections within and across communities. This article is a pleasure to read.
5) Alan Wolf. “Human Nature and the Quest for Community.” In New Communitarian Thinking: Persons, Virtues, Institutions, and Communities. (London: University Press of Virginia), 1995. Wolf looks at our human desire to form community. Are we genetically predisposed to live and function in communities?
6) Robert Booth Fowler. “Community: Reflections on Definition.” In New Communitarian Thinking: Persons, Virtues, Institutions, and Communities. (London: University Press of Virginia), 1995. Fowler understands the difficulties people face in defining community. This article helps us come up with common terms for one of the more ambiguous concepts in the English language.
7) The Kettering Foundation. “Community Politics and Community Leadership.” http://www.kettering.org/Programs/Community/community.html This web site is a portal to a number of books and articles that look at efforts in various communities to strengthen social capital.
8) Peter F. Drucker. “Introduction: Civilizing the City.” In The Community of the Future. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers), 1998. Drucker explains how we can seek to civilizing the world’s large metropolitan areas by seeking a new appreciation of community. He argues the task will have to be led by the nongovernment, nonbusiness, nonprofit organization.
9) Jaime A. Zobel De Ayala II. “Anticipating the Community of the Future.” In The Community of the Future. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers), 1998. This article, written by the President and CEO of the largest conglomerate in the Philippines, looks at forming new communities and re-creating old ones. It gives an interesting international perspective to issues we are all grappling with in our individual communities.
10) Arun Gandhi. “Lessons from Sevagram Ashram.” In The Community of the Future. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers), 1998. The author is Mahatma’s grandson, and he has devoted his life to teaching the philosophy of non-violent ways to improve human relationships. His grandfather’s listing of the root causes of all violence in human life should still resonate with those of us seeking safe streets.
11) Matt. Ridley. The Origins of Virtue. (New York: Viking), 1996. Ridley describes how evolution has prepared us to be the world’s social animal par excellence. Humans have survived, and thrived, as a species through communities of various kinds.
