Importance of Community

Over the past couple of weeks the idea of community and the importance of it has been brought to my attention.  I was researching a paper and came across an article that was about how in our modern day and age with our quasi-public spaces (such as shopping malls, privately owned, but public encouraged to be there) that signs are how we determine our social behaviour now.  A more recent blog post I read today was about how community and the gathering of neighbourhoods is what teaches us social behaviour and how to act in public.

This is interesting to me because it appears that we have lost something then if our learned social behaviour is coming, not from the public around us but from the signs we see posted, or the security officers patrolling the malls or even the closed circuit cameras that are always watching us.  It is interesting that this has partly happened through he loss of true public space.  As a result of this, individuals no longer know how to interact with other individuals.  While a shopping mall may appear to be a public space, your behaviour is tightly controlled within and you are encouraged to not interact with others but to shop.  It is not like the medieval marketplaces of old where everyone gathered and ideas were shared and conversations struck up and a general equality amongst people was seen.

The blog I read recently (see references below) pointed out that people are more likely to do a thing if that thing is considered to be normal for the whole of society.  We see this today with the number of people willing to use pesticides when they may not want to, all to keep up the social norm of a green and perfect lawn.  This idea works in a positive way as well, if the social norm became such that a meadow as your front yard was the acceptable than people would start letting their lwns become meadows, which they naturally want to do anyway.  People respond and act based on what the majority of the community sees as acceptable.  You may be asking, "What does this have to do with the article about signs?"  Well, I'm glad you asked.  You see with the loss of public space we do not interact with our neighbours or communities anymore to determine as a community what those norms should be.  We allow private corporations and privately owned, controlled spaces to goevern what the societal norms should be.

Also, since I have a degree in theology, I cannot help but think back to the early church in the Book of Acts.  The early church met as a community and shared everything.  All were equal, there was no longer rich or poor, free or slave, but simply followers of Christ.  In community they taught each other what their ideas of social norms were and acted upon them, even though a lot of times they were contrary to that of the state. 

In the end, this post is here as an outlet for my thoughts, but I hope it got you to think about how you may or may not be controlled in the spaces you occupy, whether private, public or quasi-public.

References

 Williamson, K. M. (n.d.). Civility proxies and social tolerance in American marketplaces. (2002). Sociological Inquiry, 72(3), 486-99. 

http://www.good.is/posts/how-to-make-a-dream-neighborhood-resource-sharing-and-collaborative-communities/