Community

A community is an amalgamation of living things that share an environment. The individual living beings can be plant or animal; any species; any size. What characterizes a community is sharing and interaction in any number of ways. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs and a multitude of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the degree of adhesion within the mixture, but the definitive driver of community is that all individual subjects in the mix have something in common. This is even true in biological communities.

The processes of community

It can be intuitively reasoned through subjective experience that we've all shared, regardless of culture, class, religion or any other determinant, that we grow to learn who we are chiefly through contact with others. This is a progressive development which is as universal in Human experience as any single sociological component can be - the process of identification. A human being is born with a mind and a set of inherited traits. Without going into the argument of heredity with environment, it is reasonable to accept that the habits and behaviors that a person grows into are largely a function of the community group behaviors that prevailed through that process. That is the first process of community.

Related Topics:
Culture - Class - Religion - Identification - Heredity

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As an individual grows into an adult another process occurs. That being a progressive accumulation of facts, truths, and hopefully insights which all move together through the process of realization. It is during plateaus reached along this progression that cognitive structures are formed, attitudes toward the local world, the society viewable from within personal scope, and an understanding of how people relate one to the other and within the context of community. This process is called socialisation.

Related Topics:
Realization - Socialisation

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So, identification, realization and socialization brings an individual into a position of making choices about who he or she will socialize with and under what conditions and circumstances. From the perspective of the individual, selecting or deselecting groups to join is yet another process - the process of association. When associated individuals develop the intent to give of themselves to the group and maintain all of the processes from identification to association they begin to bring into practice the first process of true community - the process of communication.

Related Topics:
Association - Communication

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~