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lally2 -> RE: Communication does not create "Community" (4/27/2010 3:20:55 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: VaguelyCurious
quote:
ORIGINAL: lally2
if someone wrote on here that they were diagnosed HIV + you can bet the community would be there with every bit of support they could muster. maybe not in the physical sense, but here as an outlet to talk, lean on people who are not so emotionally close that they could not share the things that would be impossible to share with someone too emotionally vulnerable to cope with the despair we would normally try to spare the people we love.
there is more to a community than physical prescence.
I missed this post before-so now CM is a community because the people here are *not* so emotionally close? A minute ago you were saying it *was* a community because you felt *so* close to some of the posters.
on an individual basis i have grown close to one or two of the members on here. collectively we are not so close to someone dying as their sibling, parent, lover - sometimes its easier to talk to someone not so emotionally invested in you about emotionally agonising stuff.
There might be more to a community than a physical presence, but I still feel that you can't have a community without it.
community spirit does go beyond the physical. i go to peoples houses as part of my work. people stuck in doors with no possible way of getting out and about. they talk about seeing neighbour #1 driving their new car, neighbour #2 having visitors last weekend. just having people 'there' in some format gives a sense of belonging to a community.
You said in a previous post (something I also missed) that it was elitist to say this wasn't a community just because we were unable to all sit in a room and talk together. My response is that even if we all were in a room together, that *still* wouldn't make us a community.
if we were all sitting in the same room the commonality of our communion would make it a community. we might not all get along, we might never want to do it again, we might wish we hadnt bothered. but for that time our commonality creates a community of people. even if theres no soup or twentys being handed out
If I can't pick up your kid from nursery because you've been unexpectedly held up somewhere, we aren't in the same community, no matter how much we talk. That doesn't mean we can't be friends. That doesn't mean we can't care about each other, that doesn't mean we can't matter to each other-you can have incredible bonds with people who aren't members of your community, but I agree with Jen-a community as I understand it is much more than communication alone.
when communication is all you have then you have no community - ok - tell that to the old dears dotted about who cant get out and can only speak on the phone, who rely on paid carers to take care of them, meals on wheels to feed them and the occasional visit from a busy relative once in a while. you tell them that they are completely forgotten and disenfranchised from the community they feel deeply connected to though they cant any more take part in it. its just a bit harsh.
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