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Bauman suggests that postmodernity, which is the "age of contingency fur sich," is also the age of community. Yet, the communities that are possible within postmodern culture are inherently unstable; they are "clouds of communities": "Such communities will never be anything like Tonnies's cosy and unreflective (cosy because unreflective) homes of unanimity. Tonnies-style communities fall apart the moment they know of themselves as communities. They vanish (if they have not evaporated before) once we say 'how nice it is to be in a community.' From that moment on, community is not a site of secure settlement; it is all hard work and uphill struggle, a constantly receding horizon of the never ending road; anything but natural and cosy."
A community that is pure gift, a community gathered and secured by the Spirit and not by the (sociologically) heretical actions of the members - that is a different story.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, January 06, 2006 at 01:59 PM
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