Yes, this is a nice way to talk about these matters. Of course, one could talk about such things as generational, and related to class. Certainly very true. And I would add this: that the community itself is not exonerated for it's failures toward the individual person. Speaking for myself, I've wandered, in part due to an inner sense of existential restlessness/confusion/insatiability which is common to human experience, and also in part because of the difficulty in accepting certain aspects of communities that I have found repellent (provincialism, religious indoctrination, etc). So yes, the proverbial rub lies in the following: the quest for connection with others is undeniably wonderful and innate, and attaining it is incredibly rewarding/fulfilling/beautiful. Yet the other polarity, being alone, can also have a positive function for people, insofar as the "community" of persons in some ways does not incorporate the individual, or functions to repress or devalue the individual. So in some sense, the binary "community versus aloneness", while salient for this discussion, requires further elaboration. (i imagine it does in other parts of this book...)
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Yes, this is a nice way to talk about these matters. Of course, one could talk about such things as generational, and related to class. Certainly very true. And I would add this: that the community itself is not exonerated for it's failures toward the individual person. Speaking for myself, I've wandered, in part due to an inner sense of existential restlessness/confusion/insatiability which is common to human experience, and also in part because of the difficulty in accepting certain aspects of communities that I have found repellent (provincialism, religious indoctrination, etc). So yes, the proverbial rub lies in the following: the quest for connection with others is undeniably wonderful and innate, and attaining it is incredibly rewarding/fulfilling/beautiful. Yet the other polarity, being alone, can also have a positive function for people, insofar as the "community" of persons in some ways does not incorporate the individual, or functions to repress or devalue the individual. So in some sense, the binary "community versus aloneness", while salient for this discussion, requires further elaboration. (i imagine it does in other parts of this book...)
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