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.
The closest we've come to being a community with our neighbours occurred a few years ago when we discovered that almost all the rest of us disliked one in particular. And we had all, independently, come up with the same description. We all called her "the drunken lawyer".
ReplyDeleteThe posh words for 'cult' are 'intentional community'... but I suspect the key message is that a community must share an intention.
ReplyDeleteQuite few of the progressive communities are labelled with an identity, rather than a common intention. Not the same thing at all.
dearieme - oh dear, she won't pick up any legal business from her neighbours. We haven't come across anything like that although we sometimes wonder what neighbours think of us. Not that we want to know.
ReplyDeleteDJ - yes it's probably best to stick with shared intention to be a community. Without some kind of formal or at least semi-formal communal bond, the idea becomes too loose and artificial.
I wonder if the "faaaar right" are a community.
ReplyDeleteMike - doesn't seem to be the case, maybe that's why the definition of "far right" has been extended to anyone to the right of Kim Jong Un.
ReplyDeleteMy father was a young member of the East End Jewish community, which he left at the earliest opportunity.
ReplyDeleteMy maternal grandfather was a young member of a Northern England Irish community. He too left PDQ. He thought it all vile.
DeleteTammly - interesting, membership of any community always seems to come with disadvantages caused by fellow members.
ReplyDeleteExactly right AK.
ReplyDelete