Society: why has it gone and how do we get it back?

[YoYoYoItsTillyMinto]

According to Wikipedia: "A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations".

I don?t believe it exists anymore and this cannot be a good thing.

When did it go wrong?
How do we get is back?
Does it exist in parts of the UK?

I thought liminal meant on a threshold? A time of change, halfway through a transition?

I thought it meant made similar? I'm not certain so happy to be corrected.

I'm not certain it's as simple as saying "get richer" I think it is more to do with the fact that we have a need to meet our basic needs and of course desires. When everyone has the same, you have a sense of community. When people are in competition they are not inclined to being part of the community.

I was also thinking about the word commune, as in "commune with nature" does that term mean in harmony with, not in competition with?

how did community just get dumbed down to national pride and british spirit

bullshit

jubilee - was a day or two hardly a community - more of an event

the torch - i think people come together in the same way they do when a carnival comes to town - that is a spectacle - not a community.

british spirit in war time is hardly community either and if you think that this countries financial crisis has somehow created a british war time spirit where people help each other out - that is a different matter entirely - in addition to just being wrong

'bullshit'

It may be bullshit to you, but it is not to millions of good people. The Jubilee was a demonstration of community spirit.

As conditions get tougher, people pool together. People lend more to charities and help their neighbours. Just like in Greece, where food banks are set up and people help those in the greatest need and landlords waive rents for months on end, in the hope that people can recover.

Community spirit never dies and it gets stronger the worse things get and the worse the state of the nation becomes. What can't destroy us, unites us. In adversity we find strength and in catastrophe we find community.

'how did community just get dumbed down to national pride'

and in real economic crisis and disaster, there is a rise of the extreme left and the extreme right, as people look for more national cohesion, either under community communism or nationalism.

When times are good, the individual, independence and freedom are paramount - I'm alright Jack is in the ascendant - but when times get bad, community takes precedence over the individual and people vote for a stronger State.

'british spirit in war time is hardly community either'

If the evacuation of children from London and other cities to escape the Blitz to go to the safety of the country wasn't the height of community, what was it?

And if you listen to the accounts of people who sheltered from the bombs in air raid shelters under ground, they say that there was never again such a strong feeling of community. That's not "bullshit", that's humanity.

The flipsde of community is xenophobia and tribalism - you can't have it both ways, so compromises are necessary, hence why religions eist to try to unite more people thant the anthropological 'group of 200' by inventing riutals and cusotms for peopel to follow. The Blitz spirit was a masterpeices of propaganda, but necessary to ensure that people worked together for the common good. Would be useful if poepl on this thread with a very rose-tinted view of history actually read some contemporary accounts of those times.
Being homosexual, black, 'unmarried mother' etc in 1940s Britain was not the cultural 'norm, and people suffered enormously, as they still do in much of the world. We are unbelievably fortunate in this country today that our 'society' is far more diverse and tolerant of alternative ways of life than in the past, and better for it.

'The Blitz spirit was a masterpeices of propaganda, but necessary to ensure that people worked together for the common good'

But most people do work together for the common good, they don't need propaganda to make them do so. The evacuation of children from cities to escape the bombing was not propaganda , it was real, and the nation did pull together.

Yes, there is a danger of the rise of nationalism and xenophobia when things get tougher economically, which is why the Greek nationalist party has something like 10% of the vote, which it never had before. There is less community when things are good economically, and there is less danger of a rise of nationalism too.

We have witnessed more freedom, more liberalism, more diversity and more difference, more individualism as we have become more prosperous. Individual rights and freedoms were to the fore. There is a danger that as things get tougher, that individual freedoms may decline, that community consensus rises and that 'traditional' values and cohesion limit individual freedom.

That is the tide of human affairs, things go in cycles and the pendulum swings from one pole to the other.

There are good and bad aspects to individualism and good and bad aspects to community. Human beings change and adapt according to the circumstances that they find themselves in, be that crisis or comfort.

It is fascinating to see the Vatican in tune with the socialist dream of 'global authority'.

www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/24/us-vatican-economy-idUSTRE79N28X20111024

We may well see the diminution of individual liberty and the rise of communitarianism. But, we will see the return of 'traditional' values, which is what the Vatican wants. We will see less freedom, less liberty, less individualism. more "global authority", less independence, less national sovereignty, and what we are told will be more community and the "common good".

the vatcian and traditonal values - ha! Yes 'traditional' values are good for the patriarchy and vested interests of the church, not so good for women...

Exactly, that is what they want and that is what they will give us and they will say it is for the "common good".

There will be more socialist DNA databses for the "common good", more sanctions to "save the planet" for the "common good", and what they say is a return to 'traditional moral values' for the "common good".

They will increase and extend their 'global authority' for the 'common good', but they won't ask the common people if they agree in a referendum, that is against the "common good".

You are right that it is all about compromises. If we are lucky we will live in a time of balance when the pendulum has not swung too far in favour of individualism or the "common good", if we are unlucky we may witness 'global authority' for the 'common good'.

We may witness the paradox that the "common good" may turn out to be bad.

Some people think that poverty is good for the soul. They weren't in favour of rock'n'roll. Remember how some preachers smashed up the early discs and called it "the devil's music". The party is over they say, you've changed society, you've got so many freedoms that you have tipped over the cart of 'traditional moral values'. Some think it is time to turn back the clock, to impose some 'global authority' and maybe some 'austerity', for the "common good".

I take great exception to the statement that community doesn't exist where peopel arewell off. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it was Leftie Fantasy Bullshit where some people want to believe that community only exists with good working class folk singing knes up mother brown round the Joanna.

I live in an affluent village. I have never, in my student years and in all my years in varying towns and cities, ever known a community like it. Everyone waves, knows each other and each other's business! Our Jubilee party was legendary and we look out for each other .
It's actually pretty idyllic. And it's frightfully middle clarss. [tongue].

Jupiterscock

I take great exception to the statement that community doesn't exist where peopel arewell off. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it was Leftie Fantasy Bullshit where some people want to believe that community only exists with good working class folk singing knes up mother brown round the Joanna.

Completely agree with this assessment. The thinking behind it is the same Class War nonsense that the Guardian has been squirting out for three decades.

Quite flatpack. Because of course everyone is just clamouring to live on deprived estates full of the happy very poor with their community spirit robbing and anti scocial behviour and drug taking. [eh]

OK, I'll bite. That was my post re wealth=less community. I stand by it, despite living in the sort of lovely place you're describing myself. I didn't actually relate it directly to class, just to money, which IMO is not quite the same thing.

What is probably true is that for a community to work, there needs to be enough spare resource for people to give to others, though that could be time, it doesn't have to be money or goods. But the sort of thing I was thinking of was swaps of spare food during seasonal gluts, which of course still happens, but IMO not on the scale it used to because there is far more access to mechanical means of food storage.

'bullshit'

It may be bullshit to you, but it is not to millions of good people. The Jubilee was a demonstration of community spirit.

they may be good people indeed i agree, the jubilee was a demonstration of nationality and a celebration not community spirit - you are mixing things up

As conditions get tougher, people pool together. People lend more to charities and help their neighbours. Just like in Greece, where food banks are set up and people help those in the greatest need and landlords waive rents for months on end, in the hope that people can recover.

what people? this isn't greece. i think you'll find that charities get a financial hit along with the rest of us - their money doesn't go up - especially in this financial climate when cuts in govt funding mean that many charities are not able to operate AT ALL. and with localism and 'super charities' the smaller communities are actually getting squeezed

Community spirit never dies and it gets stronger the worse things get and the worse the state of the nation becomes. What can't destroy us, unites us. In adversity we find strength and in catastrophe we find community.

bullshit, crime rises and people look after their own interests - thatcherism in action

If the evacuation of children from London and other cities to escape the Blitz to go to the safety of the country wasn't the height of community, what was it?
it wasn't community - it was mandatory evacuation.

'bullshit, crime rises and people look after their own interests - thatcherism in action'

It does rise among a minority, but the converse is that community spirit increases among the majority. It is a natural human defence and protection mechanism. Under Thatcherism, the bankers and teh traders and teh champagne and the Porsches was lauded, now some bankers are pariahs and that is among all classes. Spivs, scammers and loan sharks are looked down on by all classes except the criminal class.

'what people? this isn't greece.'
Greece is an example of what happens as a crisis gets worse. What happens is that people pool together and support each other and demonstrate together against teh politicians and bankers who put them into dire straits. Community spirit strengthens and communist and nationalist parties grow in strength as people want more cohesion and community policies. Greece is not unique, it is teh same as any other country in crisis, and what happens there will happen elsewhere if a similar crisis occurs.

'the jubilee was a demonstration of nationality and a celebration not community spirit'

But you are failing to understand that nationality is community, a nation is a community and the feeling of patriotism and nationalism springs from the well of community and unison. It is teh rootedness that combines individuals in a greater whole, that combines them in a national community. People don't turn out because they think about it, they do so instinctively and this indicates the extent of their community spirit. In an atomistic society with no community, they would not feel the link and would not turn out in the rain.

'you are mixing things up'
I am mixing things up, because they are interrelated. It is a holistic phenomenon, not a discrete, independent phenomenon.

'i think you'll find that charities get a financial hit along with the rest of us'
Some official charities may well take a hit. Maybe Bono's charities don't receive as much money as before. Maybe people read about the percentage of their money that actually goes to their chosen cause and teh percentage that goes on administration and salaries. But real individual charity and community spirit increases. Everybody knows that teh people who give most money to beggars in the street are the poor themselves, not teh well-heeled, fancy clothed people who walk by without a concern. In fact we have even had some of our state sponsored charities telling us not to give beggars money in case they spend it on alcohol etc. But the poor don't listen to these messages, they give money anyway. The charity of neighbours looking after each other and helping each other increases. Communities collect food and distribute it. That is what is happening in Greece, while teh government cuts medicines and cuts pensions, it is the real people who unite to help each other out. Every country is teh same in a crisis. As things get tougher community spirit rises and black marketeers and loansharks who profit from the people's misery are universally scorned as the anger and community spirit of the public increases.

'bullshit, crime rises and people look after their own interests'
Maybe thats what you do, maybe you look after your own interests, but the majority don't.

'it wasn't community - it was mandatory evacuation.'

And were the families who took the children in, ordered to do so mandatorily? I doubt it, but I don't know the history. I would expect that it required consent and that it was felt necessary by communities who made sacrifices in order to help children in a time of crisis. I think it was an example of people pooling together to help each other out.

'were the families who took the children in, ordered to do so mandatorily'

Yes. Officials came round, counted the number of bedrooms and therefore the number of children/families you could take and that was the number you were expected to take. You could say there was community in that I don't think people rebelled against the system that much. Also there was choice in which children you took, hence the sort of cattle market at railway stations on arrival.