Final Blog Post - Samuel Watson

What Community Means

Communities are crucial to our sociality as humans, but the exact implications of that term have not always been what they are now. Over time, the mediums through which knowledge is passed have changed. Along with modifications in thought processes and knowledge institutions, each new knowledge medium has changed the concept of ‘community’ for those people who were able to use it.

Folk knowledge is arguably the most accessible form of knowledge medium, as long as one has a willing teacher. When it was the dominant medium to communicate information, groups were limited in their contact with outsiders; however, within the group, the sense of community was strengthened by passing on folk knowledge: the way to learn was listening to the experienced, and the intent of learning was not only to benefit oneself, but to help others within the community. In the salon discussion, we decided this interdependence on elders to teach and on peers to maintain the teachings would naturally lead to a strong sense of community among smaller groups.

            However, folk knowledge alone did not provide the basis for community within larger civilizations. Oral knowledge, closely related to folk knowledge, was the ‘glue’ that helped unify nations. It was collaborative, like folk knowledge: discussion and debate were common methods of learning. This meant that connections were forged between those who shared the knowledge and their listeners, since it was possible to interact with the teacher. This made social structures more unified, under authority figures who would impart guidance. Oral knowledge helped maintain connections between people and these authorities in a community. To give an example of this, the Romans, imitating the Greeks, refined orality into an art and taught it at schools created specifically for teaching rhetoric (as Marc described in his post here). The strong oral tradition of the Greek and Roman people helped them maintain their national cohesion and governmental structure through public speeches and other such devices.

However, there was another source of knowledge that was critical to their large-scale communal relations: as far as oral knowledge could spread, written knowledge was able to go further at the same time. Because of the ability to reach distant places with letters, community took on new aspects for the literate. Now it was not only those who lived nearby, but those whom one could contact via writing. This broadened the exchange of ideas and information immensely, so that the literate classes could be a part of informal ‘communities’ such as the Republic of Letters, in addition to political or geographical communities.

Print knowledge affected community differently. It did not expand the range of knowledge so much as increase its availability. Printing brought the strongest large-scale political sense of community yet to countries that possessed it. This, again as discussed during the salon, was largely due to newspapers, which allowed for cheaper and easier spreading of information over an area. When men in villages receive news from the capital, they feel a greater connection to their national identity and community. Because print was cheaper than manuscripts, books as a knowledge source became more widespread. Thus, social trends and norms that would help to further strengthen the sense of community were established by which reading materials and ideas were widely available. 

Printing also facilitated another change.  Academic communities began to flourish, even more than was possible with the Republic of Letters. Suddenly scientific findings from a place such as Germany could come to England or France, and researchers could exchange knowledge more easily. Therefore, informal communities were able to exchange information specific to their interests, which made them more organized.

            The current peak of these changes came, of course, with the internet. Once more, the community is not limited to one’s own country, but whoever can be contacted by computer. Websites have communities of thousands who have never met physically, but who nonetheless share passions and ideas. Communication over the internet is nearly instantaneous, creating a stronger conversational component than letter writing, and so a stronger communal bond between people.

Therefore, we have again refined our view of what a community is in our society, as we have throughout history. Whenever the medium of knowledge has changed, our sense of community, of those people we truly feel a connection to, has evolved along with it.