A paradigm of stability

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these traditions and standards is in the least bit ideal, as values and traditions are ever evolving and most commonly outdated in future composition.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.

In Keillor’s “A Wobegon Holiday Dinner,” he describes both the present day realities of family Thanksgiving as well as the past history of his family’s Thanksgiving. Each circumstance, in the present day holiday, is unthinkably different from the next, whereas...

... middle of paper ...

...is in fact when an individual has this boisterous yearning that they will do anything to fit a mold for stability, and in reality are unstable individuals. This community is not characterized by tradition and standards but is only a clandestine mold underneath it all.

A community by no means provides a sense of stability but in retrospect only the opposite. Stability is not a belonging or a community but the true individuality and embracement of ones own identity. 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, traditions and social standards are only proven to sacrifice ones individuality and threaten one’s stability. The world is ever evolving and so are it’s paradigms. The only community that will provide one with stability is that of the individual’s own self.