By Zygmunt Bauman
Scanned and OCRed book
'Community' is a type of phrases that feels solid: it's sturdy 'to have a community', 'to be in a community'. And 'community' feels reliable as a result of the meanings which the note conveys, them all promising pleasures, and generally the type of pleasures which we want to event yet appear to miss.
'Community' conveys a twin of a hot and cozy position, like a hearth at which we hot our palms on a frosty day. available in the market, on the street, every type of risks lie in ambush; in right here, locally, we will be able to sit back and believe secure. 'Community' stands for the type of international which we lengthy to inhabit yet which isn't, unfortunately, to be had to us. this present day 'community' is one other identify for paradise misplaced - yet for a paradise which we nonetheless desire to discover, as we feverishly look for the roads that can lead us there.
But there's a cost to be paid for the privilege of being in a group. neighborhood supplies protection yet turns out to deprive us of freedom, of the ideal to be ourselves. safeguard and freedom are both priceless and coveted values which can be balanced to a point, yet hardly totally reconciled. the stress among defense and freedom, and among neighborhood and individuality, is not likely ever to be resolved. we won't get away the hassle yet we will be able to take inventory of the possibilities and the hazards, and no less than attempt to keep away from repeating previous errors.
In this significant new publication, Zygmunt Bauman takes inventory of those possibilities and hazards and, in his designated and tremendous model, bargains a much-needed reappraisal of an idea that has turn into vital to present debates in regards to the nature and way forward for our societies.