Amster: "Community means having a dialogue"

Randal gently reaches out to his critic last week and tries to make a larger point with it. Good on you, Randal. We have to talk up the philosophy and responsibilities of community to make it happen -- it's not something we can take for granted.

I suppose in this talking-up there's not a lot of room for the unfortunate reality that population density and technology are conspiring to push people into smaller, more tightly delineated communities and mentally out of the larger, healthier communities we inhabit physically. I think it'd be useful to try to point out that this is happening and how we individually drift this way. Holding up a mirror to dis-community might be a wake-up call for some.

That said, I will wholeheartedly second Randal's softly put but nonetheless sharply drawn point about respect on the Courier editorial page, and for that he gets a cookie.

Readers will please forgive a moment of classicly educated geekiness. Sorry, Randal, my references agree that "community" derives from one source, that is the Latin communitas, an extension of communio, meaning first the area inside the city wall, secondarily and more abstractly the sharing of responsibility. This derived from con + munia, 'with' + 'duties,' building the concept of serving together. Now munia could have evolved from something from a previous culture, that's not really known, but let's not tangle the path unnecessarily. Moneta, which led to 'money,' is a quite different word, originally in Roman culture a surname for the goddess Juno describing mindfulness, leading to English words like 'monitor.' The Latin communicatio, actually something of a pun on communio, named the oratorical device of inviting audience response. None of this interferes much with your point, but you didn't need shaky etymology to make it.