ABSTRACT
At the same time terms which are usually taken to stand at the opposite pole to that of community, with its emphasis upon rootedness, cohesion and belonging, are part of the stock in trade of cultural Jeremiahs on both the left and the right: alienation; estrangement; anomie; rootlessness; loss of attachment are all, we are so often told, part of the crisis of modern mass society. Salvation and redemption are to be found in community; but what is it?
