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>> There’s an association that still lingers between a “community” and a physical location — the idyllic small town, say, or the utopian village, real or imagin

>> There’s an association that still lingers between a “community” and a physical location — the idyllic small town, say, or the utopian village, real or imagined. It evokes a cozy, friendly, simple place in which people live in easy harmony and cooperation, each with a role to play, each mattering to the whole. >> “Community” makes everything sound better. It makes “the activist community” sound approachable; it makes “the skin-care community” sound important; it makes “the Christian community” sound inclusive and kind; it makes “the medical community” sound folksy and skilled at the bedside; it makes “the homeless community” sound voluntary; it makes “the gun rights community” sound humanistic; it makes “the tech community” sound like good citizens. All these "communities" that we're told we're part of all the time are really just labels. Very few of them actually have the organic bonds or genuine feeling of comraderie that real communities are supposed to have. They exist, but are much fewer and far in between than everyone uses the word for.

dmead 8y ago
it makes the <racial group> community sound what..?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
smallnamespace 8y ago
> Very few of them actually have the organic bonds or genuine feeling of comraderie that real communities are supposed to have There is a tradeoff between freedom and community. Organic bonds with real feeling come from a true alignment in interests. One of the simplest ways of creating interest alignment is making sure everyone has a long-term commitment. But the flip side of 'commitment' is that people can't be free to leave whenever they want. A highly mobile society where everyone is largely free to join or leave any virtual community, neighborhood, is one where nobody feels any form of permanent attachment to that institution or to their fellow community members, because there is no long-term commitment, either from themselves, or from their fellow members. A neighborhood where everyone has the ability to freely come and go is one where nobody has a strong incentive to sacrifice for their neighbors, because who knows who your neighbors will be tomorrow, or whether you will still be there? You can see one aspect with the rise of no-fault divorce; in the past, perhaps many people were trapped in unhappy marriages, but by the same token, the lifelong commitment may have encouraged many couples figure out ways to make it work. Nowadays, it is no longer possible for both members to bind themselves to one another. And since both partners can walk out at any time (and both people know it), why go to extraordinary lengths to make it work?
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  It's easy to make a marriage work when you know that both of you are in it voluntarily. Most people who get married don't get divorced.
  - occamrazor 8y ago
    Divorce rate is 53% in the US, and higher in many countries. So only a minority of people whi marry don’t get divorced.
    - slededit 8y ago
      That statistic allows you to say only a minority of marriages don't end in divorce. People can be married multiple times so it cannot be true that most married people experience divorce unless they rarely remarry.
      - tachudda 8y ago
        I've seen 41% of first marriages end in divorce.
    - bzbarsky 8y ago
      > Divorce rate is 53% in the US It depends on what you measure and how you measure it. Which exact measurement are you doing? For example, based on table 5 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorce-patterns-by-gender-race-and-educational-attainment.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divor... at age 45 56.3% (48.6/(1-.137)) of people who got married at all are still in their first marriage. The other 43.7% got divorced. Some of those people remarried. Of people who married at least twice, 41.4% are in their second marriage. The other 58.6% got divorced. Note that this is much higher than the first-marriage divorce rate. The upshot is that many measurements of divorce rates (again, depending on what you measure) are highly affected by people who get married and divorced multiple times. People who can't make one marriage work are much more likely to also not make another one work... The divorce rate for first marriages is not over 50% in any data set I've seen for the US. If you have a citation for it being higher than that, I'd love to see it.
labster 8y ago
So, most communities are granfalloons. Yeah, I can buy that.

dmead 8y ago

it makes the <racial group> community sound what..?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

smallnamespace 8y ago

> Very few of them actually have the organic bonds or genuine feeling of comraderie that real communities are supposed to have There is a tradeoff between freedom and community. Organic bonds with real feeling come from a true alignment in interests. One of the simplest ways of creating interest alignment is making sure everyone has a long-term commitment. But the flip side of 'commitment' is that people can't be free to leave whenever they want. A highly mobile society where everyone is largely free to join or leave any virtual community, neighborhood, is one where nobody feels any form of permanent attachment to that institution or to their fellow community members, because there is no long-term commitment, either from themselves, or from their fellow members. A neighborhood where everyone has the ability to freely come and go is one where nobody has a strong incentive to sacrifice for their neighbors, because who knows who your neighbors will be tomorrow, or whether you will still be there? You can see one aspect with the rise of no-fault divorce; in the past, perhaps many people were trapped in unhappy marriages, but by the same token, the lifelong commitment may have encouraged many couples figure out ways to make it work. Nowadays, it is no longer possible for both members to bind themselves to one another. And since both partners can walk out at any time (and both people know it), why go to extraordinary lengths to make it work?

daveFNbuck 8y ago
It's easy to make a marriage work when you know that both of you are in it voluntarily. Most people who get married don't get divorced.
- occamrazor 8y ago
  Divorce rate is 53% in the US, and higher in many countries. So only a minority of people whi marry don’t get divorced.
  - slededit 8y ago
    That statistic allows you to say only a minority of marriages don't end in divorce. People can be married multiple times so it cannot be true that most married people experience divorce unless they rarely remarry.
    - tachudda 8y ago
      I've seen 41% of first marriages end in divorce.
  - bzbarsky 8y ago
    > Divorce rate is 53% in the US It depends on what you measure and how you measure it. Which exact measurement are you doing? For example, based on table 5 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorce-patterns-by-gender-race-and-educational-attainment.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divor... at age 45 56.3% (48.6/(1-.137)) of people who got married at all are still in their first marriage. The other 43.7% got divorced. Some of those people remarried. Of people who married at least twice, 41.4% are in their second marriage. The other 58.6% got divorced. Note that this is much higher than the first-marriage divorce rate. The upshot is that many measurements of divorce rates (again, depending on what you measure) are highly affected by people who get married and divorced multiple times. People who can't make one marriage work are much more likely to also not make another one work... The divorce rate for first marriages is not over 50% in any data set I've seen for the US. If you have a citation for it being higher than that, I'd love to see it.

labster 8y ago

So, most communities are granfalloons. Yeah, I can buy that.