Understanding Community Today: Personalist Principles and Globalization

By Edmund Aku PhD.

Today that it has become customary to refer simultaneously to both the global and ethnic entities as a community, it has become necessary to reexamine the meaning of this belabored concept. That is exactly the burden of this book. It intends to find a meaning for a community that bridges the parallel trends of globalization and ethnic awareness to thereby enrich all parties. I believe I found a reliable metaphor for community in another concept: the “person.” The search for this new understanding of community entails considering it vis-à-vis society. Both terms are usually used interchangeably, but as will soon be clear to us and as shown by research studies, they are not exactly identical. Effort is made in this work to avoid the limitations of the traditional application of the term “community.” Its features are reappreciated with this in view, taking into account also the multiethnic interest of this study. I incorparate the concept of “community of communities” to depict both the diversity among component communities and the unity that binds and characterizes them as a political entity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781524583521

Edmund Aku PhD.

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Copyright © 2021 by Edmund Aku, PhD.

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CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

COMMUNITY TODAY: SEARCHING

FOR A NEW MEANING

CHAPTER ONE

EXPLORING PERSPECTIVES IN COMMUNITY

1. 1. Community: Sample Definitions

1. 1. 1. Analysing some of the Characteristic Features of Community

1. 1. 2. Comparing Perspectives:

1.1. 3. Re-appreciating the Characteristic Features

1. 2. Community: The Complexity of a Concept

1. 2. 1. Community Contra Society: An Insinuated Divorce

1. 2. 2. Overstepping the Dichotomy

1. 2. 3. Defining our Goal at this Point

CHAPTER TWO

COMMUNITY MODELS: A TRINITARIAN TRADITION

2. 1. Why Trinity?

2. 1. 1. Fidelity to a Tradition

2. 2. Previewing the Models on Matters that unite and separate their Exponents

2. 2. 1. The Collectivist Paradigm

2. 2. 1. 1. The Gemeinschaft: as the Collectivist Paradigm in Toennies

2. 2. 1. 2. Mechanical Solidarity: Durkheim’s Picture of the Collectivist Model

2. 2. 1. 3. Socialism: Pesch’s Version of the Collectivist Typology

2. 2. 2. The Autonomist Paradigm

2. 2. 2. 1. The Gesellschaft: The Autonomist Paradigm in Toennies

2. 2. 2. 2. Decoding the Autonomist in Durkheim’s Organic Solidarity

2. 2. 2. 2. 1. The Pathological Outbursts of Organic Solidarity

2. 2. 2. 2. 2. The Social Network of Organic Solidarity

2. 2. 2. 3. Individualism: The Autonomist Paradigm in Pesch

2. 2. 2. 3. 1. Individual and General Interests

2. 2. 2. 3. 2. The Social Limits of Freedom and Property

2. 2. 2. 4. The Integral-Intentional or Personalist Paradigm

2. 2. 2. 4. 1. Smatterings of the Personalist Way of Thinking

2. 2. 2. 4. 2. The Integral-Intentional Model in Peschian Solidarism

2. 2. 2. 4. 2. 1. Solidarism on the Market Square

2. 2. 2. 4. 2. 2. Solidarism on the Level of International Relations

2. 2. 2. 4. 2. 3. Considering Some Advantages of the Peschian Solidarity:

CHAPTER THREE

THE PERSON AS METAPHOR AND

MATRIX FOR COMMUNITY

3. 1. Coursing the Polarity of a Concept

3. 2. Some Genetic Considerations of the Concept of the Person

3. 2. 1. Select Antecedent Perspectives on the Person

3. 2. 2. Thomas Aquinas: Insight into a Classical Vision of the Person

3. 3. A Personalist Legacy

3. 3. 1. The Person as Relational Being

3. 3. 1. 1. On Being an Individual and a Person

3. 3. 1. 2. Human Subjectivity Entails a Conditioned Freedom

3. 3. 2. Elaborations on the Personalism of Gaudium et spes

1. Subjectivity:

2. Embodiment:

3. Being-in-the-world:

4. Intentionality:

5. Socialisation:

6. Historicity:

7. Fundamentally Equal Yet Original:

8. Religion or Communion with God:

9. The Trinity:

CHAPTER FOUR

THE PERSONALIST SAGA: WHERE

DOES HAUERWAS STAND?

4. 1. The Communitarian Controversy

4. 2. The Quality and Sanctity of Life Controversy

4. 2. 1. An Ambiguous Position

4. 2. 2. All Humans Are Potentially Persons

4. 3. Controversy over Rights Language

4. 4. The Person: The Socially Implicated Agent-Self

4. 4. 1. Moral Considerations on Agency

4. 4. 2. Character-Virtue: Elements in the Social Discourse of the Agent-Self

4. 5. Face to Face with Personalist Conceptual Patterns

4. 5. 1. Mutual Relationality of the Self and the Other

4. 5. 2. Uniqueness, Commonality and the Limits of the Universal

4. 5. 3. Creative Autonomy and the Human Predicament

4. 5. 4. Freedom and Social Responsibility

4. 5. 5. Equality and Justice

4. 5. 6. The Spirituality of the Person

CHAPTER FIVE

GLOBALIZATION AND NATIONALISM

5.1: Preamble

5.2: Globalized and Nationalized Economies

5.3: How Globalization Aids Nationalism

5.4: Religion, Nationalism and Globalization

5.5: Coalition of Nations in the Age of Globalization

5.6: Globalization and Government Policies

5.7: The Paradoxes of Globalization

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PREFACE

In this age of globalization everything is open to global consumption. Nothing is out of bounds to global consumption. Technology has enabled both a global marketplace and a global village. It may take about the same time to travel from Key West to Palm Beach, both in the South Florida, USA, as from Abuja, Nigeria to Frankfurt, Germany, disregarding the means of transportation. Not only is news now transmitted real time across the globe, but also information once controlled by the mainstream media is now easily available on the internet and social media. It is so exciting to experience a world without borders. This is not only true with medicins sans frontiers. There is communication without borders, and indeed communities without borders. Regional governments are forging unions and signing treaties that underplay the importance of the borderlines of their respective countries. People are realizing that their personal or national interests can also be served, if not better, by such cooperation across borders.

On the wake of globalization, we have unfortunately, witnessed not only the exportation of persons, goods, and services across borders, but also crime and terrorism. An ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) operative in the Middle East can mastermind a deadly attack in Europe, without necessarily changing locations physically. There are terrorist groups mushrooming across the globe prompted and supported by extremist Islamic worldviews, from Al Qaeda, to ISIS, the Taliban and Boko Haram, to name a few. This is frightening. It is not surprising then that the exciting trend of global cooperation is being met today with a counter movement. We are seeing a growing desire for nationalist protectionism. The rise of governments with policies that lean towards the right opposes the trending merger we see. People seem to fear a loss of their identity to the presenting globalization. It is not surprising that mottos like: America First and Make American Great Again rather than stronger together, become winning slogans.

Nevertheless, we are all witnessing vigorous oppositions to the exclusivist philosophy of such movements. At best, it seems globalization has brought us at the crossroads. National interests can neither be isolated nor insulated from global interests. Global population, global pollution, global warming, global peace, global economy, global politics, global terrorism and global fight against terrorism, these are actual interests, same with their national counterparts. How do we negotiate and maneuver the impasse, the dilemma of being national and global at the same time? How do we reach a point where we do not feel we are losing national interests to globalization and global interests to nationalism?

This book proposes a solution in personalist philosophy. The author believes that returning to a true understanding of the person and adopting that as a metaphor for community will best address the mutual benefits of global and national interests. There are five chapters in this work. Chapter one discusses the perspectives of various relevant authors on the topic and subject area. The second chapter examines models of community, while the third chapter uses the analogy of the person in espousing the implications of community relevant to a diverse and globalized economy. Chapter four elaborates on the thoughts of Stanley Hauerwas on the subject. The fifth chapter is dedicated to the interaction between globalization and nationalism.

What we have here is the second edition of my original work, Re-Defining Community: A Discourse on Community and the Pluralism of Today’s World with Personalist Underpinnings, published twenty years ago by Peter Lang as part of the European University Studies series. In this edition we have addressed the issue of globalization and nationalism in a fifth and new chapter in addition to some minor corrections in the original publication. I hope you will find this informative, resourceful and a delight to read.

INTRODUCTION

COMMUNITY TODAY: SEARCHING

FOR A NEW MEANING

Today that it has become customary to refer simultaneously to both the global and ethnic entities as community, it has become necessary to re-examine the meaning of this belaboured concept. That is exactly the burden of this book. It intends to find a meaning for community that bridges the parallel trends of globalisation and ethnic awareness, to thereby enrich all parties. I believe I found a reliable metaphor for community in another concept, the person. The search for this new understanding of community entails considering it vis-a-vis society. Both terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but as will soon be clear to us, and as shown by research studies, they are not identical. Effort is made in this work to avoid the limitations of the traditional application of the term, community. Its features are re-appreciated with this in view, taking into account also the multiethnic interest of this study. I incorparate the concept of community of communities to depict both the diversity among component communities and the unity that binds and characterises them as a (political) entity.

Social scientists have proposed different community models. Three of these are examined, of which a choice of the one that most meets our objective is made. Some think community identity is natural and expresses homogeneity. This is, for instance, in the sense of some strong cultural ties like blood and soil. Ferdinand Toennies and Émile Durkheim locate this collectivist intent for community in the Gemeinschaft and mechanical solidarity respectively. Some communities hinge their collective identity on ideological affinity. Communism is a known example here. Heinrich Pesch makes an exposé of this type of collectivism. The collectivist model, therefore, comprises both those who claim a single source of origin and those who identify with a definite objective ideology. The danger of nationalism, dictatorship or totalitarianism is highly feared here. The bid to preserve the unity at all cost, and to flush out whatever may tarnish the mark of the unifying sameness exposes this vision to such threats.

The second model represents community that is arrived at through the voluntary decision of those concerned with the intention of protecting their respective interests. It means here that one would have no cause to identify with this sort of community once one is not convinced that one’s interest is represented. This model, which I call the autonomist type, is characterised, on the one hand, by anonymity and contractual bonds. This is at least how it appears in the visions of Toennies and Pesch. It is, on the other hand, encountered in the form of a free confirmation of an inherent unity. Durkheim’s organic solidarity portrays this view. His description of the deviancies or pathologies that hang on this model, which he describes as temporary, tally with the opinions of the other two authors.

There is yet a third community paradigm that grows from the idea of the person. The intention here is to present the person as the root for true community, taken from the point of view of his or her historicity, corporeality and other of his or her attributes. This approach brings the tenable features of the first and second models into contact. It transcends these insofar as it demonstrates that the person has a meaning beyond autonomy or individuality or organic dispositions. Similarly, it transcends mere commonality in finding meaning for community. Pesch presents this type of community in a very positive and appreciable light. Toennies and Durkheim say very little about this community type. I call this third community model integral-intentional because it brings the reconcilable aspects of the first two together and regards the person in its entirety. Again, the person, from whom it takes its bearing, is an intentional subject whose actions have responsible implications for others. It is also referred to, in this work, as the personalist model, given the centrality of the person to the model.

The rest of the work focuses on the person to explain the preference for the last of the three models. Though Pesch had already introduced us to personalism, his personalism was mainly ontological and grounded on the natural law. Catching a glimpse fully of other aspects of the person would necessitate an exploration of personalism beyond Pesch. This expedition brings us in touch with the views of personalists like, Martin Buber, Emmanuel Mounier, Jacques Maritain, John Macmurray, Emmanuel Levinas and Louis Janssens.

The conflicts within the person and the complexity that constitutes the person are great incentives for regarding it as a compact model for community. I refer to it as a metaphor for community. Its characteristics reveal to us how the person endures conflicts and diversity of opinions. This is, in fact, a true appreciation of what community stands for; for no community is perfectly monolithic. In the heated debate on differences among people, the integral-intentional vision tells us that the dignity of the person, respected and protected, and a fair appreciation of the weakness accruing from the person’s corporeality, can help us overcome the divisive and deceptive trends that threaten community. In the same vein are his or her historical situation and the natural propensity to relate and communicate with others, kith and kin or strangers (the family is also a beehive of strangers). Diversity is part and parcel of our identity, we should learn to contain it for the common good.

While major contributors to personalism as such may be said to be European-bred, I discover in Stanley Hauerwas, from the otherwise liberalist Anglo-Saxon culture, a remarkable closeness of vision with the personalists. This is possible because his philosophy is a critique of the liberalism and individualism of his native society, America. I will try to show how close his position is to that of the traditional personalists. That is to say, I shall bring him into dialogue with the ideas I would have culled from the personalists. I hope to expose astonishing similarities. The points, which Hauerwas as well as the personalists espouse will provide a justification for the meaning of community that I advance and advocate in this work. I believe such a re-visit of the meaning of the concept is apt and indispensable for our times, when one can hardly talk of a purely homogeneous community or society. Plurality has become almost synonymous with community today.

Here is where globalisation comes in play. The global village has become a contemporary cliché. Our final chapter discusses globalsation and nationalism, not quite as the polar concepts that they may seem to be, prima facie, but as intricately interwoven. We see a situation where nationalist tendencies are fueled by a resistance to the influx of diversity that follows globalisation. We, therefore, find ourselves in the paradox of embracing globalisation on the one hand, while resisting the natural consequences of this embrace. What we said above and elsewhere in the body of this work about our third model of community, the integral-intentional or personalist model, that builds on the rich metaphor of the person for community, can best help us out of the dilemma.

CHAPTER ONE

EXPLORING PERSPECTIVES

IN COMMUNITY

This chapter is devoted to finding a fitting definition of community. After an examination of definitions from some experts, I will introduce community models to bring to light how community has been understood and approached in the course of history. Community is a densely sociological concept. The special place the concept occupies in the chart of sociology has warranted its qualification by Robert Nisbet (1966) as the most fundamental and far-reaching of Sociology’s unit-ideas. Sociological discussions on community normally focus on the human dimension. Similarly, despite the variegated possibilities of its application, my point of reference will be the human community. To do justice to this significantly sociological term one cannot but begin by recognising the important contributions of sociologists or social scientists in general. I will begin with some of their definitions.

1. 1. Community: Sample Definitions

Though quite familiar a term, community is, however, not that simple in meaning and application. It is not easy to restrict it to a particular definition.¹ The same difficulty is hinted at in the locutionary dialectics encountered in distinguishing community from society, as we shall soon come to see. Before we get to that, I would like us to have some insight into some authors’ definitions of the term. Definitions bring out distinguishing marks of significate terms, in our case, community. Some of such marks can already be seen in the definition of community by F. E. Merrill as, a permanent group of persons, occupying a common area, interacting in both institutional and non-institutional roles and having a sense of identification with the entity that arises from this interaction…. People normally take each other into account in a community setting.²

Before I pick out the features of community in this definition I would like us to look at definitions that emphasise other aspects of the meaning of community. Norman Elias highlights the functional dimension. He defines community as "a group of households situated in the same locality and linked to each by functional interdependencies which are closer than interdependencies of the same kind with other groups of people with the wider social field to which a community belongs".³ Robert Nisbet gives community a meaning beyond functionality, one that transcends merely local criteria. He pays attention to the moral, emotional and historical aspects of persons who constitute community, and consequently of community too. It is about the person as a whole, he notes.

Hence, he says, community encompasses all forms of relationship characterised by a high degree of personal intimacy, emotional depth, moral commitment and continuity in time.⁴ Elsewhere he underlines the relevance of volition in community. That is to say, it is not an imposed collectivity. Nevertheless, it involves tradition and commitment, which means that community, is not simply a union of convenience or rational assent. It is a fusion of feeling and thought, of tradition and commitment, of membership and volition. It may be found in or given symbolic expression by, locality, religion, nation, race, occupation, or crusade.⁵ I think these definitions are enough to enable, at this point, an analysis of the features that occur in them as characteristic of community.

1. 1. 1. Analysing some of the Characteristic

Features of Community

From the first definition, we can identify such known attributes, like territory or locality and group of persons. It is necessary to add here that the adjective, permanent, underscores the element of continuity, without implying that community is static. Communities are regularly experiencing motion in the sense of entrances and exits of members. Where this motion does not entail voluntary entering and leaving, as with the family,⁶ birth and death serve as the mobility media for the community. Mobility and flexibility are also reflected in communities’ reinterpretation and re-evaluation of their accepted beliefs and customs or worldviews, as the times evolve.

Communities also include a permanent group of persons. That is, communities are not any arbitrary groups of people. We cannot, truly speaking, call people who happen to be together in a pub or café at a certain time, a community. But in some sense, a club, which meets regularly in the same place, for a common purpose could be identified as one. When one enters a café casually for a drink, one does not immediately feel identified with the group or the persons there as one would were one attending a club meeting with colleagues, even if the venue was the same.

In any community there are formal ways of interacting, like exchanging greetings or showing respect, paying of dues, or executing functions that are assigned to members. There are also informal interactions, like, inquiring about the family or health of a colleague. That these interactions transpire among persons explains why community involves mutual care and is not a self-centred thing.

1. 1. 2. Comparing Perspectives:

There are points of similarity in the first and second definitions. The second talks of household instead of persons. Household, nevertheless, includes persons. F. E. Merrill takes account of non-institutional forms of relations, which are more personal than simply functional, as may be implied in formal institutional relations. Despite the reference to the functional aspect of interactions, the inclusion of household in Elias’ definition entails recognition of the relevance of ancestral or generation bonds to community consciousness. In this respect, he could be credited with an implicit recognition of relations among persons, though the fact that slaves usually constitute part of the household may strengthen all the more the functional thrust of his stance. Elias also recounts the reciprocity of dependencies among the members and the importance of role serving and locality to community. He thus distinguishes two levels of social interaction.

There is a circle of closer interdependencies, and another, looser and less intimate, which occurs on a broader social field. Besides, and very importantly too, the hint on a network of groups (communities) in the social field indicates that a community is, a group of people in social communication with other groups of people. It cannot isolate itself from the others without some significant consequences on its identity. A self-enclosed community is a misnomer, and an absurd and inappropriate representation of the concept.⁷

These elements receive a slightly broader implication in Nisbet’s version. Interdependence in his case is more integral rather than simply functional. He further shows that community concerns the person as a whole, with his or her emotional and thought capacities, and not simply the separate roles he or she is capable of in the social milieu. Volition and interest are recognised, but as important as they might be, they are not the sources from which the person-in-community draws psychological strength. There are deeper levels of motivation which materialise in the subjection of individual will to the common good, as one could infer in the provisions for commitment and membership.⁸

This makes participation not only a right but also an obligation for committed members. Locality, religion, nation or race is necessary for community, but not sufficient for it. People can live together without constituting a community; or be one, though they live miles apart. It depends on what criterion for community is at issue. That these features, however, express community, confirms the complexity of the term. There are therefore various categories of community identity. One can belong to any of these when one possesses the defining characteristics of the community in question. Some sort of solidarity, indicated in shared commitments, visions or convictions, goals, or interests, is certainly inevitable for community.

We shall soon discover that Nisbet, like Durkheim, advocates co-operation between the exercise of individual volition and the exercise of the state’s social moral regulatory function. One exercises one’s freedom, aware of the moral commitment of membership to society. Community is not limited to physical locality. It includes the emotional and mental elements of feeling and thought. The freedom and interests of the individual members are pertinent to community, though not decisive. Subjugating individual will to common will does not entail a denial of personal freedom, but an affirmation of the individual good in conjunction to that of the whole. The community also takes as its task, securing the interests and freedom of its individual members; the exercise of which (individual freedom) embraces respect for the moral presence of society. All this takes place within the ambience of tradition and commitment. It is through the tradition that the community secures the identity of its members, who in turn demonstrate commitment to the tradition and convictions of their community through the exercise of their freedom.

These characteristics are not irrelevant to any understanding of community today. Without rejecting them, I would like to expose them in a slightly different light, hoping thereby, to establish their relevance to the purpose of this project.

1.1. 3. Re-appreciating the Characteristic Features

Exploring the above mentioned characteristics of community in new perspectives entails seeing what applications of categories like, homogeneity, locality, the person and personal interdependence are meaningful to our study. My aim here is to confirm that community is a term that suggests that people are bound up with one another, sharing, despite differences, a common identity (and) … participate together in shaping the larger grouping of which all are members.⁹ The re-appraisal of these features highlights points that are relevant to the meaning of community today. It also makes feasible the understanding of how unity and plurality are interlocked in community.

Embarking on this is to assert that tradition never dies, or better, should never be caused to die, as far as people live in community, and the aborigines are not blotted out. Giving tradition a chance is not enthroning traditionalism. Robert Bellah and friends refer to Jaroslav Pelikan’s clever distinction between tradition and traditionalism, which I think is pertinent to mention here. Reinterpretation and re-appropriation are ways of up-dating traditions, including the primordial characteristics of community.

(W)hereas tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. A living tradition is never a program for automatic moral judgments. It is always in continuous process of reinterpretation and reappropriation. Such a process assumes, however, that tradition has enough authority for the search of its present meaning to be publicly pursued as a common project.¹⁰

One of these features is homogeneity, which literally means, of the same kind. According to Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, it depicts a sameness of kind or nature, an all-round similarity of constituent parts, in all degrees and dimensions of the term. It includes, therefore, all that the community can identify as features the members share. The questions of kinship, customs and traditions and the associated institutions, find their place here. One can, without fear of error, read in Bellah’s imagery of fictive kinship, the sort of shared elements that characterise members of any given society, even when they are not blood relations. He writes,

Kinship is an important mode of relationship in all societies and certainly in our own. In simple societies, however, kinship predominates over all other ways of relating. In more complex societies that remain traditional, kinship may provide a rich vocabulary of relationship that can be extended to people who are not related (in blood). In such societies, it would not be rude for a young person to address an unrelated older person as uncle’, or ‘aunt’, ‘grandfather’, or ‘grandmother’. Even in a brief encounter, such kinship terminology establishes a pattern of expected interaction.¹¹

Homogeneity in our context, should, therefore, be seen as a necessary ingredient to a people’s identity, which warrants some degree of familiarity and underpins their commonness. It is also by virtue of it that they are able to confront the larger world as a unique people. It is that which makes them aware of themselves as a unique and substantive group in the midst of several equally unique peoples. Homogeneity in this sense does not undermine the fact of plurality in society. It simply serves as a tool that prepares people for dialogue, as meaningful and possibly active contributors, or participants and not a device for a vicious nationalism that claims might and superiority over all others, excluding all but blood relations. In our context homogeneity converts into shared narrative when it encounters plurality.

The second element is that of locality. Its Latin root-word Locus or place literally refers to geographical space. But as we have seen above community is not exhausted in a concentric understanding of place. A community can exist without geographical contiguity, like when we talk of a professional community, e.g., communities of scientists. These scientists would not necessarily have inhabited a specific geographical area to form this community.¹² The same holds for some religious and cultural groups. The Jews, for instance, are a cultural and religious community despite spatial separation. The Jews spread all over Europe and the United States of America, Jews in the diaspora, belong to a community with their compatriots in the homeland. Same is true of the Igbos in their homeland and in diaspora. The gypsies are also included in this type of community.¹³ Similarly, Catholics all over the world understand themselves as belonging to a universal community, the church, though with vast cultural and geographical distances apart.

It is clear to us too, that other terms like, area, sphere, situation often serve as synonyms for place, locality and space, without always and necessarily carrying the geographical connotation. One could talk of an area of specialisation, a sphere or universe of discourse. People talk normally of situating (locating) a problem. These uses connote locality in a sense, more academic and intellectual than physical and geographical. Space, therefore, can be mental, intellectual, as it can also be geographical. J. Bernard talks of the change in the significance of locale and space orchestrated by the facility of modern transportation and communication.¹⁴

So, locality or space as implied here should also be understood beyond the physical-geographical. Locality and nationality have always had a traditional link. It is almost taken for granted that a country is inhabited by its citizens. Hence non-citizens are designated as strangers or immigrants. The possibility, on the other hand, of non-citizens inhabiting a country nullifies any strict tie of nationality to locality. It is not always that one is citizen of the place one is born or lives in. Conversely one does not necessarily lose one’s ethnic or national identity by virtue of one’s place of birth or domicile. As one’s place of birth or domicile has no overarching consequence on one’s nationality or ethnicity, so does openness to the other not obliterate or impede any of these identities. In this dispensation locality becomes open-ended; open and accommodating to the other whose presence in no way jeopardises the identity and integrity of the land of sojourn or those of the traditional occupants. Each territory remains itself even when immigrants and strangers form part of the population. The native inhabitants are who they are except where their land is besieged with the expressed intention of eliminating them and eroding their tradition.

In talking of openness, I am in no way recommending a globalisation of membership. Neither do I imply its dissolution. As far as people are unique, there would and should still continue to be borders; but these borders are not impermeable. As Walzer (1983) suggests, it is the (legitimate) members of a community who decide on the criteria for distribution of membership to strangers (non-members), based on their understanding of membership and of the type of community they want to have. In reaching this decision they take themselves, their own good and that of the stranger into account. This consideration is pertinent, since it would be foolhardy to distribute membership in a manner that defeats or impedes the community’s understanding of itself. However, they cannot ignore the welfare of the applicant in deciding on their own. Walzer links the entitlement of the stranger to hospitality, assistance and good will to the principle of mutual aid. This is an obligation we owe persons in general and not necessarily those sharing any co-operative arrangement with us. It cuts across political, cultural, linguistic and religious frontiers. This principle of mutual aid, he maintains, is more tenable among people who do not know themselves to share a common life.¹⁵

It is true that those who as a people share spheres of life do not always or necessarily share every aspect of life in common. Even ethnic or cultural groups are internally stratified, based on age, professional skills and what have you. This notwithstanding, there are ways of accommodating others who do not strictly belong to particular rungs without a pretence of converting them. Like an Igbo saying puts it, Nwata kwuo aka, o soro okenye rie ihe (a child who washes the hands may join the elders at table). The child is not by this fact transformed into an elder. An immigrant might be given some rights due to citizens, but that does not make him or her one. This is without any bias to naturalisation procedures. This openness, without lending itself to literal or simple identity, endorses persistent resistance to the urge of a dwarfish restriction of membership. It thus contains potentialities for a more ethically humane society. Its recurrent ethical demand for a heterogeneous social structure surpassing all egocentric social sentiments explains why this approach to community or locality would ever remain, to use the words of Roger Burggraeve, a ‘concrete’ and ‘effective utopia’, seen in a positive sense.¹⁶ It remains a genuine challenge in spite of the odds.

Here is a summary of the disposition of a community that takes account of the new visions of homogeneity and locality I have proposed above, be it national or global. Naturally, the narrative content of each community gives it its delimitation. There are also narratives that embrace a number of communities, like the case of a country made up of various cultural groups. The same would apply to human community viewed on a global scale. In any of these cases, it is pertinent to note that the borders marking out one territory are at the same time, the points of contact with others (territories). So, locality should never be conceived simply as separating, it is also a communicative medium.

Narratives like boundaries not only demarcate, they also link cultures and territories to each other. My locality should therefore be seen as where I stand or locate myself, where I make myself available and open for dialogue. It is not where I am locked up unto myself. So long as our membership to a community depicts our state of being-in-the-world, "ex-sistere, we can never constitute ourselves, whether as individuals or as respective communities, into a closed consciousness. Our way of being, Janssens contends, can be no other than one of presence to, dialogue with, encounter of, the reality of this world —objects, others…. It is all the more so because, the way we fulfill our relationships with the reality outside ourselves determines the way in which we fulfill ourselves".¹⁷ There is therefore no authenticity in an autonomy or individuality that definitely excludes all others.

The human person is another element, and in fact the kernel of community. The person is at once the chief actor and spectator, both donor and recipient of community. Most Western visions¹⁸ of the person begin with the subjective aspect, i. e., the person seen as key agent and donor. But the person in the African conceptual scheme is discovered in community. He or she does not first create community in order to enjoy its services. He or she discovers community, where too he or she discovers him or herself. That is to say, we are born in community; and build up our personality not arbitrarily or by dint of any personal fiat, but by interaction with the raw materials and facilities which community places at our disposal. It is in communion with others that life is lived.¹⁹ The person’s dependence on community does not impair his or her potentiality as an agent.

Hence as persons, it behoves us to sustain, nurture and nurse community, so that its fruits will always flow to our nourishment. It is important to consider the person, as Nisbet suggested, as a whole and not simply as a volitional and rational agent. In this way, the emotional, relational, and moral dimensions of the person, markers of the person’s capacity for community, are also brought to light. Due to the central position the notion of person occupies in the community discourse, it deserves a more detailed study in this work. This will be taken up in the second chapter.

Closely related to the idea of person and community, is a sense of belonging. This expresses a bilateral interaction between person and community. For Joseph Bracken they are correlative: To be a person is to belong to a community; i. e., a group of people whose basis for association with one another is their recognition of each other as persons.²⁰ The community is there for the person and vice versa. The community creates a situation as would give one a sense of belonging. That is, personal freedom and dignity are respected. Of course, where one