ABSTRACT
From the ancient Greeks to the Enlightenment, community expressed the essence of society, not its antithesis. The Enlightenment idea of community encapsulated the emerging world of society as a political community in which human autonomy and solidarity could flourish. This chapter focuses on some of the major historical discourses of community in Western thought and political practice. It explores the rise of the ideal of community in the encounter of Greek and Christian thought. The chapter then explains the discourse of loss that began with the decline of the institutions of the Middle Ages. Modernity and utopian political ideology are discussed as a foundation of community, which is not only a discourse of loss but also one of recovery and realization. The chapter discusses the idea of total community as embodied, on the one hand, in fascist political ideology and, on the other hand, in radical communal movements.
