International Communities as a Strategy for Social Change

Publisher:  Shinak: Unicorn Hunter's Guide, Toronto, Canada
Year Published:  1976
Pages:  8pp   Price:  $0.30   Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX219

Analysis of the significance of the role of "community" in the struggle toward a more human social order.

Abstract: 
This essay analyzes the significance of the role of "community" in the struggle toward a more human social order. The author asserts that with the decline of authentic community life, both ecclesiastical and social institutions have tended to become more centralized and oppressive and that in this process public participation has become virtually non-existent. As a result, the individual is forced to form his identity through identification with the state and social institutions and he therefore comes to experience himself as depersonalized and powerless. The paper suggests an alternative to such alienation--namely the building of international communities. Here groups of people gather together with the intention of sharing a whole way of life through the pooling of persons, goods and services. These communities then branch out into alternative organizations and federations of alternatives. In order to maintain the person-centred orientaiton these alternative organizations function on the collective model. Thus they attempt to embody not only secondary relations but also primary relations in particular that is, people dealing with each otehr as persons with feelings and not just as functions in a process.

Subject Headings

• Intentional Communities