Community

This word, like the word "conversation" replacing discussion, has entered into the quotidian lexicon. We speaks of communities these days, as if any conglomeration of people can form or be one. So on sports talk shows it's the sports community. In colleges it's learning communities. In politics, it's the black community. And so forth. My sense of community is that it actually refers to a geographical location where actual, meaningful social interaction occurs. So a large geographical area of anonymous condos or apartments would not, in reality, constitute a community. Nor would two classes joined together. That's a bureaucratic or administrative fastasy--a delusion. We would like to think that we are part of a community of some sort--when, in reality, none exists.