It is outside the scope of our discussion to look into the prospects
of the reconstruction of face-to-face communities. But there is
something deep within human nature itself which pulls toward settled
relationships. Inertia and the tendency toward stability belong to
emotions and desires as well as to masses and molecules. That happiness
which is full of content and peace is found only in enduring ties with
others, which reach to such depths that they go below the surface
of conscious experience to form its undisturbed foundation. No one
knows how much of the frothy excitement of life, of mania for motion,
of fretful discontent, of need for artificial stimulation, is the
expression of frantic search for something to fill the void caused by
the loosening of the bonds which hold persons together in immediate
community of experience. If there is anything in human psychology to be
counted upon, it may be urged that when man is satiated with restless
seeking for the remote which yields no enduring satisfaction, the human
spirit will return to seek calm and order within itself. This, we
repeat, can be found only in the vital, steady, and deep relationships
which are present only in an immediate community.
The psychological tendency can, however, manifest itself only when
it is in harmonious conjunction with the objective course of events.
Analysis finds itself in troubled waters if it attempts to discover
whether the tide of events is turning away from dispersion of energies
and acceleration of motion. Physically and externally, conditions have
made, of course, for concentration; the development of urban, at the
expense of rural, populations; the corporate organization of aggregated
wealth, the growth of all sorts of organizations, are evidence enough.
But enormous organization is compatible with demolition of the ties
that form local communities and with substitution of impersonal bonds
for personal unions, with a flux which is hostile to stability. The
character of our cities, of organized business and the nature of the
comprehensive associations in which individuality is lost, testify also
to this fact. Yet there are contrary signs. “Community” and community
activities are becoming words to conjure with. The local is the
ultimate universal, and as near an absolute as exists. It is easy to
point to many signs which indicate that unconscious agencies as well as
deliberate planning are making for such an enrichment of the experience
of local communities as will conduce to render them genuine centers of
the attention, interest and devotion for their constituent members.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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