Actually the Gestalt switch CAN be faces and a vase at the same time - everything in the Universe is made of energy and a lot of non-stuff. It is only our minds that cannot wrap themselves around this idea and so we stick to trying to nail things down into one or the other (categories).

I’m going to see if I can drag some of the people from Rockridge Annex/Progressive Community or whatever they’re calling themselves this week over here to read this article.

Someone on that site complained that we couldn’t be a ‘community’ since none of us actually knew one another. ???
Whew!

Send them on over. I’d love to see more familiar faces around here!

- Joe

No need to drag me, Loky. I’ve had HiveThrive on my desktop since they opened for business. They could serve as a model for website growth in many ways.

I’m glad HiveThrive has picked “progressive community” as an exploration topic. The phrase got very mixed reviews as a name for the Annex website, and finding a name that gets general support (because it resonates with an Identity most support) is important.

Regarding the comment you mentioned, that we can’t have community in cyberspace: the author has a point. Cyber-apple pie is not very nourishing, and cybersex is notoriously unsatisfying. Much of what we think of as “real life” is missing in a cyber-environment and it puts some limitations on what people can achieve if their only interface is the keyboard of their computers. While I recognize some of the objections people make to using “progressive community” to define the Annex website, I believe that for many, those two words evoke constructive and relevant associations to what the Annex group originally (and hopefully still) set out to do. Even though we’re just floating about in our cyber-sea canoes trying to get within consensus distance of each other, I still believe “Progressive Community” links to core Progressive values. We could, if we wished, use this phrase not to describe what we are, but what we want to achieve.

When I read the question Joe left us with, I see a (“to you”) parenthetically appended to the end of it. This is because all we can know is our private understanding of the phrase; we can only imagine how others understand it. Our imaginings can be a simple projection of what we think (“Other people define it just like I do”), or a conclusion based on some kind of analysis—i.e., we could try to estimate the extent to which these words have shared positive frames for the people who were likely to view the Annex or HiveThrive websites. IMO, this second choice is an essential part of successful communication, difficult though it may be.

While I could answer Joe’s question in the limited framework of what “progressive community” means to me, it seems more valuable if—in addition to that—I try to understand what the words mean in common usage. In that context, here’s how I understand it.

Both “progressive” and “community” are very familiar words in our common vocabulary. That suggest to me they will have a relatively high number of broadly shared frames. “Progressive” has positive links the notion of “forward movement,” and “Democratic Party.” “Community” has many positive associations—sharing, togetherness, cooperation—and many far-reaching chains of positive frames that extend out into social, civic, and family activity. Used as a phrase, I believe that for many, these two words convey a sense of working together on Democratic issues and goals.

There is something else about the notion of “community.” It defines us apart from the conservative obsessions with “me first,” “what’s good for me is good for America,” and competition-as-lifestyle. It is easy to connect “collaboration” and “consensus” with “community.” It is possible (though not easy) to develop a notion of community which extends welcome, and is based on inclusion instead of exclusion; cooperation instead of competition.

For the past eight years, “community” and “politics” created an oxymoron if used in the same sentence. Groups like the Annex, and the Progressive Community website now struggling for identity, are important because they take a stand against the Conservative’s indifference to the importance of community in society and political life.

Hi Arcadian,

Thank you for the thoughtful commentary in response to my question. I agree that the meaning of “progressive community” is going to be different for each person, with enough overlap for those of us who self-identify as progressives that we’ll likely agree in general (even if we disagree on some particulars).

One thing that stands out in my mind is the difficulty of creating vibrant, inclusive communities that promote psychological growth and well-being. This is not an essential problem (as in, “it is the essence of communities to be difficult to establish), but rather a challenge we face in our particular historical and cultural context after decades of rampant individualism pushed upon us by political leaders, public speakers, and mass marketing.

There is real hope now as old social activities merge with new technologies to bring people together in forums like this and in living rooms across the country (and the globe).

Yet, we have a need to clarify what we do (and don’t) mean by community. Different moral worldviews express their own entailments - and we progressives envision a different kind of community than conservatives, even though we have the same biological and evolutionary make-up.

Best,

Joe

Hi Arcadian - yeah I figured you’d be here since you were how I found hivethrive in the first place!

I understand what you are saying about cyberspace not being very nourishing. But in the case of the “Annex” it’s what we have at the moment. Given our physical locations (spread over the globe apparently) it would be almost impossible to form a physical community of any sort.

However, I think that a ‘community’ can be formed without physical context in the sharing of common ideas, provision of ‘moral’ support, learning and education, and outreach. And we get to know one another through our contacts - even if they are only cyber contacts. (Or at least the face we put on for this group anyway - and that’s what we do in physical groups too - put on a face)

I do agree with you that the problem if you want to call it that is this obsession with ‘individuality’. Our complete non-recognition that none of us could succeed at even the most basic stuff of living without the support and interaction of literally hundreds of other people. We go about our lives not talking to our neighbors and doing our little jobs - and thinking that we are totally and completely independent of everyone else in the world. Ha!

Forgetting that our job, our transportation, our food, and everything else including all the material possessions we have are most likely provided by other people - on whom we are dependent in one way or another.

So…forming a community is first recognizing that we are NOT independent of everyone else - and also recognizing and acknowledging all the links that we have, and that we depend on, with others.

Where do we start? I’m really not sure but it has to happen!