{"product_id":"community-9798855801040","title":"Community","description":"Community is often invoked respectfully but without a clear referent. The word is said to be used ninety-four ways, evidence that its sense is diffuse. Community clarifies the word's principal expressions and the alternative ideological spaces-holistic and hierarchical or open and tolerant-in which communities form. Members bind in the interest of utility-jobs or schools-or because home and friendship are the focus of feeling and significance. These binders are social glue: they explain our dedication to communal aims and loyalty to fellow members. Autonomy in their context is socialized; its bases are the information, attitudes, and skills acquired when families and schools prepare us for roles in communities inherited or chosen. Yet community is fraught. Holistic societies are repressive; open societies are vulnerable. The members of successful communities-families, businesses, and schools-often thrive. Those excluded for want of luck or skill are abandoned and anonymous. Their isolation is one of an open society's two pathologies: collaboration is a social necessity when resources, space, and skills are scarce; competition turned visceral and murderous is a vice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDavid Weissman \u003c\/b\u003eis Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eEternal Possibilities: A Neutral Ground for Meaning and Existence\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eTruth's Debt to Value\u003c\/i\u003e, among other books.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"State University of New York Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51184703799570,"sku":"9798855801040","price":104.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_a3aa7763-4cf7-43a2-aea7-01b0c96edca0.jpg?v=1744568753","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/community-9798855801040","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}