ABSTRACT
It is a common observation that modern British society is characterized by a ‘loss of community’. The phrase is often used in an oblique but poignant way to express the dissatisfaction which many people experience about the quality of life in the contemporary world. There is an implied antithesis between the past, when, so it is believed, the individual was integrated into a stable and harmonious community of kin, friends and neighbours, and the less palatable present, when all too often it is possible to feel like a piece of human flotsam, cast adrift in a sea of apparently bewildering social changes and buffeted by impersonal and alien social forces. The longing for ‘community’ therefore symbolizes a desire for security and certainty in our lives, but also a desire for identity and authenticity. ‘Real communities’ are assumed to offer all of these qualities, while their absence is believed to induce a number of disquieting personal and social pathologies. The withering away of a ‘spirit of community’ as an apparently endemic feature of our social condition is therefore offered as the diagnosis of a wide variety of contemporary social problems, ranging from the incidence of juvenile crime to the loneliness of the elderly. More generally this sense of loss raises doubts about the validity of ‘progress’ and our fears concerning the direction in which modern society appears to be moving.
