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Book Review: The Communal Idea in the 21 Century

Edited by Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Yaacov Oved and Menachem Topel.

Part one opens with an article by Amitai Etzioni. His writings are far too academic for
my tastes, which I've always found so incongruous with the subject matter that he
writes about. Having said that, this Israeli has been voted as one of the top American
intellectuals, with a faculty position at Harvard Business School and an advisory role to

US presidents. His ideas on Communitarianism are supposedly ground-breaking – I'm just
not too sure what all the fuss is all about.

However, his definition of community is not bad;

community can be defined as “a group of individuals that
possesses the following two characteristics: a web of

affect-laden relationships which often crisscross and
reinforce one another (rather than merely one-on-one or
chain-like individual relationships); and some
commitment to a core of shared values, norms, and

meanings, as well as a shared history and identity – in
short, to a particularistic normative culture”

Donald E. Pitzer also attempts to define the seemingly

slippery concept which is community. His attempt looks
like this: “small, voluntary social units partly isolated and

insolated from the general society. Their members
usually share an ideology, an economic union, and a
This book costs about the same as lifestyle”
my iPad, with only a fraction of the
fun. Yes, $179 for 350 pages. Pitzer credits intentional communities with bringing to
the wider society things from such diverse fields as
alternative and holistic healthcare, organic foods, alternative theories of education and
educational practices and conflict resolution methodologies. He stops short at attributing

folk music or 'the evening meal' to the communal scene.

He posits that what once were alternative forms of living away from the mainstream are

now widely adopted and are part of the mainstream culture. So Donald, why do we still
need communities? Well, "all the security, solidarity, and survival benefits, which have
been the great appeal of communal living for millennia, are just as viable and vitally

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needed in the 21 century”. Well said.
Next up is Lyman Tower Sargent, who must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed

when he started to write his chapter. He quotes cuddly Tim Miller, only to criticize his

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