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2 comments:
Where did this come from? If your intention in posting this was to rile up establishment Mennos, I guess you've succeeded. :)
Maybe I am a little offended by the implication that doing comfortable things like talking to your mail carrier or honouring elders would promote homogeneity.
My other reaction is that I'm surprised that someone would see the original poster as somehow putting limitations or expectations on what it means to build and care about community. Perhaps the poster should say "A few suggestions for how to build community". Does the original exclude other ways of thinking about community? Is it wrong that it's obviously situated in a specific geographic, cultural context?
Thanks for the comment Turmanator. I made this as a way to express my feeling of claustrophobia and perception of assumptions on the part of "community-minded people" (mostly, but not just Mennos) towards me and others who have other ways of building community. I don't have any problem with the original poster (and apologies for any copyright infringement).
I simply hope my friends see this and that it helps them understand how I feel, in particular why I might not feel at home in communities that were once more comfortable for me.
As you suggest, there are no explicit limits on what the poster says about how to build community. Though, one might infer that watching TV is at odds with building community. Just as there's value in the original poster drawing attention to ways that TV hinders community, I want my version to offer a different but also valid perspective. "A few ways to build a certain kind of community" would be a more accurate title, but it's not necessary. Someone else could make a version of the poster where it's raining instead of sunny. People have all sorts of assumptions about goodness and community and what is right and wrong. I'm just putting up something on my blog that represents my response to some of those assumptions. It's cheeky to just stir up discussion, not to be offensive.
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