On Past and Future of Community: A Pragmatic Analysis

Abstract

Charles Sanders Peirce proposed a semiotic that directed attention to the person or people who are providing interpretation, making place for the social and cultural. Following Peirce, we consider the meanings and consequences the term "community" has in an international context. We argue that English affords a richer set of meanings to community, which was not paralleled in the languages of Southeast Asia. The encounter between English and Southeast Asian languages has lexical consequences, but more momentous are the cultural changes they index. In Southeast Asian cultures, there is less need for "community" to take on broader meanings, since those cultures assume social relationality. Thus, the spread of English "community" could be associated with a rise of individualism in these other cultures, but it could also impoverish the Anglophone West, which would be denied alternative frameworks in which associational and affective meanings of community are unnecessary.The question whether the genus homo has any existence except as individuals, is the question whether there is anything of any more dignity, worth, and importance than individual happiness, individual aspirations, and individual life. Whether men really have anything in common, so that the community is to be considered as an end in itself, and if so, what the relative value of the two factors is, is the most fundamental practical question in regard to every public

Cultural Antecedents to Community: An Evaluation of Community Experience in the United States, Thailand, and Vietnam

“…Bender (1982, p. 3) asserts that the discussion of community “has been central to the analysis of social and political life at least since Plato and Aristotle inquired into the character of the Greek polis.” Despite the prolonged incorporation of community scholarship in the social sciences, the conceptual precision of community remains an issue of debate and contemporary scholars continue to refine the operational and theoretical precision of the concept, as well as its application (Brown et al, 2000; Goodsell et al, 2011; Kasarda and Janowitz, 1974; Marans and Rodgers, 1975; Theodori, 2004). A recent dialogue in the journal Rural Sociology brings this ongoing debate into immediate focus (Cope et al, 2016; Flaherty and Cope, 2016; Theodori et al, 2016).…”

“…In other studies, social psychologists find that when individuals comment about a photograph, Americans of European descent generally make remarks about the most prominent object, while those from East Asian countries discuss the context in which the object is situated (Ji, Peng, and Nisbett, 2000; Masuda and Nisbett, 2001; Nisbett and Miyamoto, 2005). Other studies show that Americans place priority on individual rather than group goals (Goodsell et al, 2011; Markus and Kitayama, 1991), whereas for East Asians, a “well-adjusted, mature individual is one who is skilled at maintaining harmonious social relationships and aspires to fulfill social roles and obligations” (Wirtz and Chi-yue, 2008, pp. 150–51).…”

“…Language is a significant structural element in human experience and is one potential measure of whether a society falls into high or low context categories (Goodsell et al, 2011; Hall, 1976; Sapir, 1931). Sapir (1931) argues that language defines human experience by imposing conceptual categories, vocabulary, and grammatical structure.…”

“…Cultural trends in the United States place greater value on individuality than communal structures, characteristic of low-context societies (Bauman 2007;Bender 1982;Freie 1998;Goodsell et al 2011;Hall 1976;Salamon 2003). Historically, there was greater variability in the degree to which different regions of the United States were indicative of low-context societies.…”

“…Other scholars conducting research on communities in the US have drawn on this theoretical model (Cope et al, 2015; Erickson, Call, and Brown, 2012; Flaherty and Brown, 2010; Goodsell et al, 2011; Theodori, 2004). …”