A Process to Lead from a Topic and Readings to a First Draft
(1) What you see as the issue/question you’re exploring: I’m trying to come up with a definition of community that makes sense and that may be useful to help make priorities in their lives. I see a world in which technology is reducing the need to rely on place as the determiner of community, and I have problems with that.
(2) The position you take on that issue/question: So many of the technological advances over the last hundred years have been used to increase our ability to move across or communicate from every increasing distances. While all this has brought tremendous advantages, the result is that we have been cut off from a sense of place and community that we’re both connected to and responsible for. I’m arguing for a renewed commitment to place in our practice of participating in community.
(3) A list of evidence that you can use to support your position:
use of laptops in class to continue a network of friends while blocking out the classroom community shows problem
use of cell phones to keep in touch with a network of friends or family or to keep working while making it harder to take in the current reality, whatever it is shows problem
experience in experiment in monastic living during my sophomore year in college: the sense of community when thirteen people had a common purpose and stayed in the same place for a month shows the importance of a common place in creating community
when students in this class drew circles to represent the communities they belonged to, friendship dominated, even more than church or school shows the increasing reliance on a network of people across boundaries of place
example of Winesburg, Ohio and Main Street: small towns that hindered the development of individuals shows problems with sense of place that isolates and frustrates
(4) The points/quotes from the readings that deal with your position:
"Why leave when you live in a place you can understand and that understands you" (McKibben 719) shows the appeal of place
"‘People lived in tightly knit communities in which each individual had a specified place and in which there was a strong sense of shared fate. The sense of belonging, of being part of something larger than oneself, was an important source of comfort’" (Wachtel, qtd. in McKibben 719) shows the appeal of place
"Many of us are used to living without strong community ties—we have friends, of course, and perhaps we’re involved in the community, but we’re essentially autonomous" (McK 720) shows the predicament of modern living (and connects back to new idea of network vs. community)
"‘Community’ is a vexed concept, of course—the ties that bind can bind too tight" (McK 720) shows problem with community bound by a narrowly defined space
"Gabriel Sagard reported that the Hurons "make hospitality reciprocal and are so helpful to one another that they provide for the needs of all, so that there are no poor beggars in any of their towns and villages" (Calloway 691) shows the value system of a people whose community was very definitely defined by place and particular people associated with that place
"Sharing in Indian societies was not an ideal; it was an obligation" (691) ditto
(5) An idea for an introduction: Create an image of the modern technophile with his/her cell phone, laptop, car with stereo moving around oblivious to his surroundings.
(6) Quick outline:
Intro using image
More on the problems of modern technology
The value of place-centered community
The problems with place-centered community
The new emphasis on network vs. community
Looking back to the Indian culture as a way of rethinking modern community
(7) Key concepts to be defined/explained:
community
n etwork