Strength in Numbers A need for both socialization and a sense of identity forge tight community bonds that many maintain throughout their life. Their life may center on religion, race, or even the socioeconomic class to which they belong. Communities reflect these aspects by grouping together individuals in similar situations and beliefs. Pang-Mei Natasha Chang’s Bound Feet & Western Dress expresses the importance of tradition and culture in community identification by detailing the life of the conventional Chang Yu-i and her relationship with a westernized Hsü Chih-mo. Susanna Kaysen depicts her personal struggles with finding the community that she belongs to in Girl, Interrupted. Both Yu-i and Kaysen learn that community is not assigned, rather it is chosen by a self motivated individual wanting inclusion. Community is formed from a group of people with similar goals and beliefs who obtain identity and strength in numbers. The member is forever bound to his or her community thus preserving the ideals in association which makes finding a new identity is impossible. The effect a community has on its constituents is profound in that it governs the way one looks at the world. A community is comprised of a group of goal oriented individuals with similar beliefs and expectations. Currently the term is used interchangeably with society, the town one lives in and even religion. A less shallow interpretation suggests that community embodies a lifestyle unique to its members. Similarities within the group establish bonds along with ideals, values, and strength in numbers unknown to an individual. Ideals and values ultimately impose the culture that the constituents abide by. By becoming part of a community, socialization... ... middle of paper ... ...values, practices, ideals, expectations and self image joining together in order to achieve a common goal. In Yu-i’s case, the traditional Chinese community wanted to maintain ancient practices, while western oriented Chinese adults wanted to modernize the country and make it similar to the United States and Britain. In Kaysen’s case, abnormal behavior in communities resulted in admittance into the community of the mentally ill. The psychologically disturbed community wanted only to fit in, while the sane community decided that they were threats to society. Both Yu-i and Kaysen physically leave their group only to find that the community ideals have only made them better people. Works Cited Chang, Pang-Mei Natasha. Bound Feet and Western Dress. New York: Anchor Books, 1997. Print. Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Print.
Community is defined as a group a people living in an area under the same conditions. Realistically, a community is so much more than this definition. It is people and their different beliefs that form a community. In the town of Milagro, Amarante Cordova, Ruby Archuleta, and a town coming together to rescue a fellow community member from jail exemplify the true spirit of what community is.
I will be explaining the role of women in society in Bound Feet and Western Dress. The Chinese have traditions that are generations old and are very serious in their culture. These Chinese traditions have been deeply established. In Bound feet and Western Dress, a dispute between Chinese traditions and Westernization of Chinese women begin to emerge. The women in traditional China were treated unequally and were basically looked upon as property for their husband. The women were taken in by the husband’s family and had to always obey their husband and also had to take orders from the husband’s family as well.
The culture of a community invariably determines the social structures and the formation of a society. Developed over time, culture is the collection of beliefs and values that a group of people maintain together. Culture is never constant, and thought to be continually renewed over years as new ideas and concepts become mainstream. It ranges from how people live, day to day topics for conversations, religion, and even entertainment. It is analogous to guidelines, or the rulebook of the said group of people. Society, on the other hand, emanates from the social structure of the community. It is the very institutions to which create a regulated and acceptable form of interaction between peoples. Indeed, culture and society are so perversely intertwined in a
In his book The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common, Alphonso Lingis (1994) discusses community and proposes an untraditional view of community, the “other community”. Traditionally community is known as a social structure in which individuals have something in common. This usually refers to a shared location, shared identity or common values or beliefs. In this traditional view or “rational community” these commonalities are crucial in uniting individuals.
Community is an essential part of the existence of human being. The term community may be describe in so many forms. However, Yiu (2012) define community as a group of people, who live, learn, work, and play in an environment at a given time; they have unique characteristics and interest; function in a social system that meets their needs, such as an organization, a region, a province or a nation (p. 213).
A community may be defined as a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests and goals. Although each and every community divaricates from the next, each holds a common base ground for tradition and standard. It is in fact tradition and standards of behavior that unify a community to implement a sense of stability. After all, stability is the inescapable quality that bonds a community as one. This imperative factor is in fact one that is investigated in a hopeless quest to find the true meaning of community and its gravitational pull of mankind. The assumption that a community, in essence, exudes a sense of stability may be refuted in three key limitations. Entrusting too much of one’s faith in tradition and community standards can lead to the ultimate dissolution of a community’s health. Furthermore, dwelling on the act of maintaining the tradition and standards of that community can lead to downfall of one’s own being, and individuality. At the cost of the community as a whole, proceeding to maintain these traditions and standards is in the least bit ideal, as values and traditions are ever evolving and most commonly outdated in future composition. In the excerpts of “A Wobegon Holiday Dinner” by Garrison Keillor, “The Amish Charter” by John Hostetler, and “It Takes a Tribe” by David Berreby, the limitations of the assumption that communities provide a sense of stability are refuted on the basis of tradition and social standards.
The complexities in the discovery of past and present communities led analysts to realize that the term community, often demonstrated in a neighborhood, is not confined to neighborhoods. By 1970s, analysts had expanded the definition of community beyond the boundaries of neighborhood and kinship solidarity and argued that the ‘essence of community was its social structure and not its spatial structure. They then began to treat “community” as “personal community” and defined as a network of significant, informal community ties. The transmutation of community into social network has helped the persistence of communities even when the neighborhood traces are faint.
What is a community? Defined in the dictionary a community is “a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.” (Webster). Communities bring people together but they are tear relationships apart. In the following stories the authors of this story demonstrates community as a whole. In Fully Alive, Story Telling Animal, Robopocalypse, Stepford Wives, The Happiness Machine, The Girl Who was Plugged In and The Cave, are stories that deal with community and how it is negative and positive for the characters in the books.
Community is like a Venn diagram. It is all about relations between a finite group of people or things. People have their own circles and, sometimes, these circles overlap one another. These interceptions are interests, common attitudes and goals that we share together. These interceptions bond us together as a community, as a Venn diagram. A good community needs good communication where people speak and listen to each other openly and honestly. It needs ti...
Struggling with community in this way is, as observers of American life have pointed out, the American way. The same things that make us feel connected and protected are the things that make us feel obligated and trapped as individuals and/or cut off from other groups with different agendas. For most students , as for most American in general, the “big community” has a dual connotation that includes both a warm and fuzzy side, all about “oneness” or “togetherness” or “common purpose,” and a negative side that tends to surface with reference to government regulations, Big Brother images, and fears of conformity. (48-49)
Community has ties to every aspect of life. Some may say that community is simply where you live, however that barely scratches the surface. Communities are groups of people with similar interests where one can be themselves. (Transition) The importance of this can be be proven even in the way that the bees run their colonies. Every single one has a purpose, and they form one of the strongest most resilient communities in the world. Eight months ago I joined a community of beekeepers, and the things I am learning still amaze me.
The McMillan-Chavis model consists of four elements that are necessary to evaluate a sense of community. They are interdependent and all exist on some level whether positively or negatively. These four elements are membership, influence, integration, and emotional connection. While some of these may be more predominant, they are all contributors to a psychological sense of community. To provide an example of how the McMillan-Chavis model is applied to a community setting that one belongs to, the University of New Haven Community Psychology graduate program will be the community of application. This particular community has a respectable psychological sense of community that provides a suitable example.
How would someone define the word community? A community could be anything. If one were to listen to an everyday conservation, the word community, would probably be used very little. The word community has multiple meanings, ranging from communist or socialistic society (Emerson) to the quality of appertaining to or being held by all in common (Oxford).
According to Meriam-Webster, community is defined as “a group of people who live in the same area (such as a city, town, or neighborhood)” and “a group of people who have the same interests, religion, race, etc”. Many people think of a community as a group of people interacting in a common location. However, to me, a community is a network of people with a common goal, agenda, or concern, individuals who collaborate with one another by sharing information, ideas and other resources. A community consists of individuals who look to form relationships overtime and help one another in their future aspirations. Furthermore, I believe there are three key aspects that define a community; geography, one’s identity and
Everyone has their own perception of an ideal community. For each person the factors of an ideal community will vary depending on their upbringing. My understanding of a community is a place where a group of people live, and socialize. Everyone is caring, thoughtful, and respectful. In my community people take care of each other they think before they act, and are respectful to one another keeping in mind equality.