This is what I'm thinking
So, my computer is back in action, and that means so am I. Since I last posted, I've come up with numerous things I could write about and lying around just thinking tonight I was impressed with one thought.
Joshua and I are unavoidably part of a transient community.
This has been hitting home pretty hard these days. A week ago, my favorite friend from grad school took off to DC with her MA in hand for a job with the g-o-v. Friday, two of our closest friends from church moved down to Baton Rouge for tenure track jobs at LSU. We already miss them and I really noticed their absence at church this morning. In addition, we're having dinner this week with another friend who is headed down to Nashville for a fresh PhD program. Josh and I have both been pretty melancholy over the sudden diaspora of our friends! Sure, we still have friends left in the 'Ville, but the harsh reality has to be faced - they, too, are here only for a time. We're here only for a time, too, I guess. In a few years, we'll probably be packing up and heading to the unforeseen next phase of life.
I think this is just life for our demographic. In some ways, it's alright. We've met lots of people these past two years that are incredibly wonderful people and whose friendships have blessed us in various ways. We wouldn't have met this mix of people were it not for an academic life. But, we also wouldn't be as likely to have to say good-bye to them were it not for an academic life.
I've been wondering lately what "community" means in this post-modern age. Is community a ephemeral haze that sort of floats around us in our biographies? Or, is it tied to places and times? In 30 years, when we've lived in various places, and when our Christmas card list has been expanded and cropped and edited, will I think of my community as the people I hold dear in my heart - or as the people I can call up and borrow an egg from? (Are there those kinds of neighbors left anyway?)
What does everyone think? What is community? Is transience a good thing or a bad? Seriously. Let me know.
17 comments:
wow, great post. Sorry the transience is getting to you...well, maybe it isn't, but if I were in your situation, it would be. I always felt a huge amount of anxiety on the cusp of switching worlds between Colorado and PA during college.
I don't have a great answer for how we should find stable community in the fluid modern world, but I do think one good thing post-modernism has done for us is to help illuminate how false our sense of "permanency" about our lives is. I don't mean to get all philosophical here, but if nothing else, these kinds of transitions have helped me to realize that nothing in my life - none of my relationships, activities, friends, etc. is permanent. I'm constantly moving and changing, through time and age if nothing else, and absolutely nothing about life is really and truly ever "the same." I'm the sort of person who WANTS to get comfortable in routine and take life for granted, but the constant change of modern life makes that tough on me, and I consider that aspect of it a blessing.
I think one important way to preserve community is to use our technology to create it. While these blogs will absolutely never replace the sort of commmunity you find at your church, I really enjoy getting to stay in touch and commune just a little bit with all of you guys all of the time. It's really great and very important to me.
so, that said, keep blogging, because otherwise, you know, I'll get all lonely and whatnot.
I often think about this very same idea. It seems like Sarah and I have not really had any consistent friends since college. The few friends that we did make this last year have since left and we are hopefully soon to be moving as well. I guess the thing that determines who is truly important to you is devotion. You really have to put time into the people that you want to stay connected with. I try to touch base with people on multiple levels and yes, blogs are a great way...but I like to drop the occasional phone call as well. It is just so hard to do it in the ever-changing society. I am one who would love to just have all of us move to our own little city and we could just sit and eat lunch together like we did in college...but then just think about all the cool people that we wouldn't get to meet. The world is too big to just focus on the few close friends. That doesn't mean that we can't stay in touch, but it does mean that we have to try. I guess that is my take on it.
Yesterday, I was reading some Giddens' and I came across this, which I think adds to the feelings I have expressed in this post:
"To live in the 'world' produced by high modernity has the feeling of riding a juggernaut. It is not just that more or less continuous and profound processes of change occur; rather, change does not consistently conform to either human expectation or to human control." (if you are interested in citation info, email me).
What does everyone think of that?
I think, mair, that it's not so much that we've lost community as that we've traded one kind of community for another (with gains and losses.) It's certainly up to each of us which kind we would prefer. We don't have Thursday night bowling leagues, but we blog, right? I'm not sure which I would prefer, I guess, given the choice. What do you want?
I'm guessing you're quoting Anthony Giddens. I found this quote on Wikipedia:
In traditional societies, individual actions are not matters that have to be extensively considered and thought about, because available choices are already predetermined (by the customs, traditions, etc.). In contrast, in post-traditional society people (actors, agents) are much less concerned with the precedents set by previous generations, and options are at least as open as the law and public opinion will allow.
As for your quote, I'm not sure I grasp his meaning, so I'd hesitate to give my opinion. You tell me what he means, I'll tell you what I think of it! =)
Regarding "community"... The first time I ever heard that term was when my daughter lived in a Christian dorm. That was sometime between 1999-2000. This leads me to believe that "community" is a new teaching or ideal. I believe the concept of community is disruptive to life as it happens, and it seems to be causing undue stress (Life is stressful enough without having to worry about community.) Quite naturally life can take on transience if you let it. That is until one finally sets down permanent roots. One can choose to be transient or to become permanently rooted just by adopting a strong set of values. For instance, when my children were growing up, I refused, no matter what the cost, to take on employment that would have me working night shift or swing shifts. Being home for dinner and evening family life was more important to me than "struggling for the legal tender."
Summary, forget about community. Resist transience. Do what you can to develop roots. Enjoy the season that God has given you with your friends. Once the roots are planted, you won't have to worry about these things anymore and you will develop other friends who have become permanent.
Both Redhurt and Charles have rightly noted that we have traded one sort of community for another. The question, though, I think, is whether or not bowling leagues and blogging are equitable associations. Not necessarily which is better or more desirable, but rather is it fair to talk about them as the same thing? Is connectedness enough for community? Do certain definitional qualities of community depend necessarily on certain conditions? What constitutes the “bare minimum case” of community?
My sense is that one of the biggest differences is that, as a result of a comparatively few points of connection, “post-modern” community is far more internally oriented than “traditional” community. When Redhurt, for instance, talks about state or local politics, I do not have a point of connection with that and, by proxy with him. If I did, maybe he and I and the rest of our community could write a letter to our senator as a way of effecting change in our wider community. As it stands now, however, the best I can do is relate it to something that happened in my state or town.
There seems to me a great deal of difference between receiving birthday cards from family and friends and have family and friends attend a birthday party. I am not clever enough to figure out what seems lacking in the former that is present in the latter, but I do recognize a difference.
At the same time, as Redhurt said, I would much rather get cards than nothing at all. If this is what we now know as community and the alternative is detachment, then I choose this.
I don’t know about the Giddens quote either. It seems very Weberian to me (once processes become rationalized and institutionalized, they require little or no attention or intervention, leading one be both surprise at where those processes lead and, eventually, with the inability to intervene altogether). As it pertains to this conversation, I have a few ideas. First, it strikes me that there is no going back; you cannot undue things. Second, it strikes me that what you are experiencing is a surprising – or at least an unintentional – consequence of a more “free” society. Finally, it strikes me that community has itself become one of the processes Giddens critiques. Community becomes a system of operations, which I think is quite two-dimensional (at least when compared with traditional understandings of community).
Realize this, everyone is part of a PERMANENT community. A community is a group of people who have PLANTED themselves. If someone chooses to leave the community, they will eventually plug in to another community. The community is not the individual, but the sum total of stable, rooted people who make it up. There can be no community if every one is transient. Once you decide to put down roots, you become a vital part of the community you choose. Until then you are only a temporary member of a community. You can call it your community for a while, until wander lust takes you away to somewhere else, then you become a part of another community. Just make the best of your temporary communities until you settle down, buy a house, raise a family and stay put where you are planted. It becomes very difficult to leave a community when you have a family involved in that community. It is then that you can be an integral part of a community where you can be a mentor to someone who was once just like you.
Lastly I will attempt to answer the question: " Is transcience a good or bad thing."
Transcience may not be either. It is mostly necessary to pursue a career in a desirable geographic area. Once the desired career and geography is achieved, transcience should be settled. (It is at this point that "community" should take over.)
However, transcience for the sake of transcience is probably a symptom of some other personal issue. Does someone really want to be a gypsy or nomad, who are associated with transient behavior? I guess having a thought out goal to be transient until one finds what he/she is looking for is not bad. Being well-traveled may be a desirable characteristic lending to the achievement of wordly wisdom. A perpetual state of transcience definitely will make the safety net of community hard to achieve.
In my short time on this earth I have seen many families uprooted because of a search for a better career. In that case, the people have little choice. Sometimes people decide to relocate hoping for what is called "a geographical fix" of some part of their life that went wrong.
In summary: Plan out your transience. Once you find what you are looking for, settle down and plant roots.
Greg'ry, I think that a lot of what you are assuming is the very thing at issue here. Who says that is how community is supposed to be? How and why do we define community is such and such ways?
I think that is very telling about some differences between people of your generation and people of ours. The idea that community entails rootedness, permanence, strong values, etc. - I think - seems obvious to many (most?) “Baby Boomers,” but is not at all obvious or good to the 20-something crowd.
Traditional communities are often limiting, narrow, and perspectiveless. They are also frequently the product of very little reflection about the meaning, purpose, and end of their shared life. Post-modern, constructed communities are often weak, aimless, and shallow. They are almost always plagued by too much reflection, ennui, and uncertainty.
I guess what I am trying to get at is that nothing is a slam dunk in this conversation; I think it would behoove us all to be a little less optimistic and certain about anything that we are championing. We are, for the first time, presented with options about community. For thousands of years, community was assumed and was tied to certain other static realities (race, language, religion, region, family, custom, profession, etc.). We live at a time when community is not tied to anything, least of all assumptions about how it should look or function or develop. We – together and individually – are cut free, our courses determined by our will more than ever before. That is in one sense freeing and hope-giving; in another daunting and tragic. It should give us pause when we realize that very little from the past can give adequate instruction now; we are in a unique historical moment. As exciting and useful or as ridiculous and dismissible as this moment may seem, there are always other powerful realities that cannot be ignored, but make any of those judgments hard to swallow.
It doesn't contribute at all to the discussion, but I wrote my thoughts about this here. (It's long, so right-click on the link and open it in a new window/tab.)
I wish I had more analysis to offer, but I think it's too tied to my personal, very emotional experiences. Does anyone else feel this way?
E.A.P.- yeah, me.
I'd like to thank you all for your comments on this post. Sorry I haven't been more involved in the comment discussion. My only excuses are laziness and business and genuinely not knowing what to say. I think J. Morgan summed it up best in his last comment.
Perhaps my concluding comment would be: I may have been more prone to participate in this community building discussion if it were taking place face-to-face, in a real-time, actual conversation, which brings us back to the original problem of how to sustain community in an age of such transeince.
Do you think there's any merit to viewing the ability to create/derrive community out of different circumstances as a skill? For instance, I think some of us are simply more satisfied with different kinds of communication than others, and that this leads to a sense of belonging and connectedness that I'll keep calling community until we get a better definition.
As an exmaple, EAP, posting about your post, spoke about how she's a face-to-face person and communicates much better in real life. I'm pretty different, and I express myself much more deeply and honestly through blogging and email, and spend most of my face-to-face interaction trying to get people to laugh at me because that's the thing that makes me feel enjoyed and wanted by other people. The more people there are, the less I'm likely to talk about anything substantial. Now substantial conversation isn't the same as community, but I'm just saying that I have some extremely valuable interactions online that I derive a lot of relational satisfaction from, which is definitely part of community, and this doesn't seem to be a static standard experience for everyone.
So for me personally, the distance we face physically has lead to some pretty satisfying online community that I wouldn't have experienced otherwise, and I don't lament the detachment as much as some others. I'm not trying to say that I"m some great community builder or anything - I just think that while the lack of community is a real issue, it's not as stable or standard as we've been describing it, in my opinion.
which isn't to say I disagree with any of you. you're all brilliant.
and now I've got to go, before this laptop gets so hot it burns my wee-wee. just kidding, I'm not even using a laptop right now, but now I said wee-wee on your blog too, which makes us even or something.
Your original post, Mair, hits home through the questions you ask.
I can't help but try to apply some sociological language, not just because you're a sociologist, but because it may help our understanding of what many recent graduates are experiencing.
Since graduation in May, I have experienced what may best be described as withdrawal from gemeinschaft. I think it's appropriate to use the words gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, since they are more precise than the word community has been throughout these comment posts.
That the four years we spent at the Grove were blessed with strong, intimate relationships based on similar minds, beliefs, and goals qualifies our college experiences for gemeinschaft. The relationships we cherish, the ones we miss, were neither based on self-interest, nor were they shot-term. I mean, four years is one-fifth the life of a 20-something student...hardly short in context.
To be suddenly uprooted from gemeinschaft, though, is hardly easy, because of how much we have really grown together with our friends. We know this because of how quickly we try to find new gemeinschaft similar to college in whichever environment (how some try to strike up communication with old friends?). And no sooner than we realize we have found new gemeinschaft are we uprooted from that, too.
What doesn't fit in gemeinshaft is the transience. Well, maybe it can fit, and we're just not used to it. We never dealt with that in college, except for 3 short months in summer, and an even shorter month at Christmas, niether of which had any feeling of permanent detachment.
As far as post college relationships? It can't be accurate to say that the intimate relationships of gemeinschaft, rooted in common beliefs, minds, and goals, are over. After all, we new friends move, you feel the same sense of withdrawal or detachment or something that we all felt after graduation. And it certainly is not accurate to say that were left only with the short-term impersonal relationships of gesellschaft, based on self-interests for the very same reason. We miss some people.
Maybe the face of gemeinschaft changes as we change. Maybe we all need to get used to a gemeinschaft that's over a distance longer than a dormitory hallway or a 5-minute drive.
I think we shouldn't let distance and transience interfere with our own ability to find and enter into gemeinschaft as well as putting effort into established gemienschafts...myself included. I have already thought about how fast two years in grad school will go, and unless I stay in South Bend for more school or work, I'll be leaving. It's also hard coming coming to grips with the fact that it's difficult to get together with friends in 9-5 jobs (and none are even married yet!).
I wish it were as easy to place labels on our relationships, but I think we might be realizing that our new gemeinschafts won't be as "cookie-cutter Ferdinand Tonnies" as Grove City was.
As j. morgan said, I'll take AIM, blogs, phones, and e-mail over detachment.
All this may not have been anything more than a repetition of previously stated ideas. If so, I'll shorten it by saying that I agree.
Kardinal,
GEMEINSCHAFT and GESELLSCHAFT!!!! You rock my sociological face off! It honestly didn't even occur to me to frame the discussion in those terms, though you are correct to say that they are far more accurate. Bravo, dear friend. Thank you for your eloquent input.
Oh, good...I was a little worried about trying to throw around sociological term with Miss Sociological Imagination. haha The funny thing is that while reading through the discussion, I very quickly thought of gmn/gsl.
I'm sure a great many people wonder about these things, and I'd be interested to know what kind of person doesn't. Even though discussing gemienschaft withdrawal might mean we are experiencing it, we know we have it. We can be hopeful that it continues and hopeful that we find new community.
Even the use of fancy German words can't ensure an eloquent post. You're kind, but I should either proofread what I write, or not read it after I post it.
I'm glad I added something.
First, for anyone who is unware:
"Gemeinschaft (often translated as community) is an association in which individuals are oriented to the large association as much if not more than to their own self interest. Furthermore, individuals in Gemeinschaft are regulated by common mores, or beliefs about the appropriate behavior and responsibility of members of the association, to each other and to the association at large; associations marked by "unity of will" (Tönnies, 22). Tönnies saw the family as the most perfect expression of Gemeinschaft; however, he expected that Gemeinschaft could be based on shared place and shared belief as well as kinship, and he included globally dispersed religious communities as possible examples of Gemeinsch.
Gesellschaft (often translated as society or civil society or 'association'), in contrast, describes associations in which, for the individual, the larger association never takes on more importance than individual self interest, and lack the same level of shared mores. Gesellschaft is maintained through individuals acting in their own self interest. A modern business is a good example of Gesellschaft, the workers, managers, and owners may have very little in terms of shared orientations or beliefs, they may not care deeply for the product they are making, but it is in all their self interest to come to work to make money, and thus the business continues.
Unlike Gemeinschaften, Gesellschaften emphasize secondary relationships rather than familial or community ties, and there is generally less individual loyalty to society. Social cohesion in Gesellschafts typically derives from a more elaborate division of labor. Such societies are considered more susceptible to class conflict as well as racial and ethnic conflicts." (definitions from Wikipedia.)
Anyway, I also wanted to say to Redhurt - I've been thinking about your last comment and I think you are right that some of us are more gifted at certain types of interaction/community engagement than others. I think you made a very insightful and valid point. Thanks for adding that.
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