Henry Clifford has a very useful Centre Write piece on the common but misleading political use of the word 'community.' Not an unfamiliar source of mendacity, but the whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder that it is a very common one.
Most “communities” are empty categories
We are drowning in communities. Gay community, Muslim community, international community, business community.
Yet, we feel increasingly isolated. Forty-four percent of Britons say they sometimes feel like “strangers in their own country,” and 50% feel “disconnected from society around them.” Indeed, these “communities” seem to be sources of opposition and division rather than connection. After losing the Gorton and Denton by-election, Matt Goodwin took to X to proclaim, “We are losing our country” to a “dangerous Muslim sectarianism.” Battles over the place of the “trans community” within society have likewise become incredibly divisive. While public figures like JK Rowling have faced death threats and boycotts over their views on the topic, trans people themselves have been increasingly suffering too — according to the Home Office, in 2014/15, 607 recorded hate crimes were motivated by trans identity. By 2024/25, that figure had risen to 4,120.
Community ought to be the bedrock of our society, the things which bind us to one another. Why then are individuals isolated and “communities” in conflict?
A large part of the trouble stems from a wrong, and statist, view of what ‘community’ means.
Community, properly conceived, is formed from the concrete connections between individuals — not from shared characteristics. Communities are existing networks, not downstream from categories, but groups of real connections.
We are drowning in communities. Gay community, Muslim community, international community, business community.
Yet, we feel increasingly isolated. Forty-four percent of Britons say they sometimes feel like “strangers in their own country,” and 50% feel “disconnected from society around them.” Indeed, these “communities” seem to be sources of opposition and division rather than connection. After losing the Gorton and Denton by-election, Matt Goodwin took to X to proclaim, “We are losing our country” to a “dangerous Muslim sectarianism.” Battles over the place of the “trans community” within society have likewise become incredibly divisive. While public figures like JK Rowling have faced death threats and boycotts over their views on the topic, trans people themselves have been increasingly suffering too — according to the Home Office, in 2014/15, 607 recorded hate crimes were motivated by trans identity. By 2024/25, that figure had risen to 4,120.
Community ought to be the bedrock of our society, the things which bind us to one another. Why then are individuals isolated and “communities” in conflict?
A large part of the trouble stems from a wrong, and statist, view of what ‘community’ means.
Community, properly conceived, is formed from the concrete connections between individuals — not from shared characteristics. Communities are existing networks, not downstream from categories, but groups of real connections.
