Why Do People Want Community?

For school I am writing a thing about the City of Mountain View over at wikispaces. There is a lot there, and it will double in size and be edited over the next 4 days. But I think this part is pretty good.

Why do People Want Community?

Margaret Thatcher famously said, "There is no such thing as society". (Thatcher) But what many people forget is that she also said, "There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate." (Thatcher) What she is talking about is community, where we know eachothers faces, maybe we don't know each others children's birthday's, but we know each other's children. And it is that desire to be of help and the foreknowledge that everyone will need a little help; that we need to to keep an eye out for our neighbors, that we need to check on the old woman next door if we haven't seen her in a few days - this is the great impetus for community forming. But there is more to it than this.

The Jewish theologian Martin Buber taught that people only grow as people when they are in relationships with other people. (Smith) It wasn't a new idea when Buber said it, but good theologians don't say new things. The idea is ancient. About three thousand years ago King Solomon the Wise wrote in the book of Proverbs, "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." It is the same idea found in the children's book (All great and good ideas are comprehensible by children.) The Velveteen Rabbit. In that book the velveteen rabbit only becomes a real rabbit when its velveteen coat had been worn smooth, when it has gotten dirty from interacting with people. (Williams) Similarly, in the children's book The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, the title character, a wood carver, only becomes sufferable when he accepts a commission from a widow and is forced to spend many hours with her and her son.(Wojciechowski) And finally, we all know what happens to man alone. We have only to look at prisoners who have spent years in solitary confinement to know that when the Archpriest Victor Sokolov said "the only thing you do alone is go to hell" he spoke the truth. It is something we all know. Being alone, truly alone, is dreadful darkness and death. Therefore, community.