It is often found that people are bound together in groupings that can take on several different characteristics. Sometimes people find themselves inter-related based upon choice, but other times are inter-related because of circumstance. This points to one topic: communitas. By looking more closely at this topic within The Holy Bible, and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, one might be able to determine three things: (1) communitas is reached through liminality, (2) communitas brings about a sense of unity, and, (3) communitas indicates a sense of transcendence. Before beginning with the first point, it is important to evaluate what communitas is defined as. For the sake of this research, communitas will be defined as the, “intense community feelings of solidarity, equality, and purpose, often organized around a cause that produces a sense of unity,”(Oswalt 206). This indicates that multiple people have a …show more content…
In the Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, Frodo Baggins is a young hobbit that stumbles across a magic ring. Without the destruction of this ring, the entire world(known as Middle Earth) would be put at danger. As the story develops, Baggins meets others along the way that assist in his mission to destroy the ring. An example of this can be seen in the first of the trilogy when the king of the Elves says, “And I will choose you companions to go with you, as far as they will or fortune allows…they shall represent the other Free Peoples of the World: Elves, Dwarves, and Men,”(Tolkien Vol. 1, 288-298). The very fact that multiple races are present indicates unity. These “Free Peoples” have one common goal, to destroy the ring so that they remain “Free.” In order for unity to ring true, individuals must realize that they are not everything, but rather, they contribute something that benefits the communitas in some form or fashion. This definitely is present in The Lord of the Rings
Another example was the individualization of spirituality that came with the various denominations of Christianity, forced by missionaries. Traditionally, their spirituality was community driven in relation with not only humans but with all “relatives,” such as mountains, rivers, animals, etc. While this example has religious implications as well, it also illustrates the cultural shift from community focused to individual salvific gain which takes away from the connection with
An interconnectedness amongst all people, places, animals and plants was vital in all cultures, indicating the importance of spiritual connection and the concept of moving together in harmony.
The primary mission of a social worker is to enhance human rights to those who are vulnerable, oppressed, or living in poverty. Caritas Processes was created to make the connection between caring, love, and human living processes (Watson, 2007). Caritas Processes has 10 factors that are identified to help make the connections. Social workers should be using Caritas Processes to successfully achieve their mission. This article will discuss Caritas Process and its relationship to social work. Caritas Process, human rights, and social workers work as a team to help vulnerable clients, without each other there would be no solution when people struggle in life.
Have you ever wanted to free yourself from the terrors and troublesome times of modern society and escape to a magical place? Clive Staples Lewis, or C.S. Lewis as he is better known, created such a place, in his extremely popular children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia. In these books, Lewis has an underlying message about Christianity. He represents four key aspects of Christianity in this series: Christ and God, evil in the world, and faith.
Life is full of different paths that each person has to take to achieve their goals. In those roads, people might find groups that share ideas, knowledge, culture, or tastes with them, called discourse communities, which can lead to live experiences that might turn unforgettable. People can join an infinite number of these groups, however in order to accomplish that they must convince its members by applying some techniques taught in this class of English 1301, for example, knowing the group’s rhetorical situation, i.e. its cultural context, motivations, the audience itself, etc. or applying the different Aristotelian appeals such as ethos (appeal to credentials and experience), pathos (appeal to emotions) or logos (appeal to facts), to let them know that they have what it takes to be a part of that group. Every human being regardless their age, race, gender or religion can find a discourse community to join, that’s why this wide subject might be interesting to every person in the world, however some readers might object this idea by insisting that some people are unique and can handle themselves alone in life, but no one can live alone, as the famous American writer Pearl S. Buck said “The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration” that means that every human being must find a community to join, just to share with other people and communicate their feelings, because human beings were created to grow as a society not as individuals. In my particular case I joined the discourse community of “Gaitas del Colegio Santiago de Leon de Caracas...
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...
Sense of community has been operationalised as a state like entity, and as the outcome of certain social processes. As such, a conceptual framework has been developed that allows understanding of the way people are socialised into their communities and maintain, or fail to establish and maintain, social engagement. This has also been understood in terms of process analysis of social change. Its linkage to power is important, as it helps define the setting in which power is used and is less likely to be abused. From a process perspective, sense of community is a changing feature of people’s relationships to others, and as such can be a barometer of change in 18 18 community. It can be beneficial in helping people create a sense of identity and a resilience to untoward social change. As a central aspect of the development and maintenance of social connectedness, it is useful in conceptualising adaptive and protective factors for positive life in community. Sense of community can also be associated with negative aspects of social life. The nature of exclusion of ‘others’ can lead to harmful social consequences. Local social cohesiveness can be at the expense of minority groups and newly arrived immigrant groups. It can provide an analytic tool
Humans are not by nature meant to be unsociable or alone. Rather, “being truly human and living in community are inseparable.” The very essence of human existence relies upon the communal rather than the individualistic. For humans, the only way that a person can become a complet...
“A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.” ― Rollo May
This chapter began by introducing the concept of a civil society. Chirico (128) described it as people organising outside of government channels to meet social objectives. She pointed out that social movements in the past have focused on communities within nations while the current movements focus more on involving people from diverse parts of the world in order to promote human welfare regardless of where in the World they happen to be. Chirico shared a quote from Simmel (128) that really resonated with me and, in my opinion, captured such a complex concept into a short and simple sentence. He said that “Humanity is the collective life, the same people who from other perspective are organized into societies, polities economies, families, and so on”. I take this to mean that we are all, basically, the same; we are all humans who are trying to make it through whatever life we have been given to live. People are just people. I think the concept of civil society is one that I wish more people would understand and embrace instead of holding on to prejudice, judgement, and ignorance. According to Chirico (128), individuals who help do so out of a sense of shared experience by recognising that everyone is a victim of global problems and that anyone can help. There are endless ways to participate whether it be through a formal organisation such as NGO’s, The Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and The Peace Corps, through non-profit organisations and advocacy, or more individually by making donations, sponsoring a child, mentoring, volunteering in their communities. These are regular people who volunteer, and sometimes risk their lives, to fight for equal rights and treatment for all.
Turner (1969) provides his own explanation of ritual and introduces the theory of ‘liminality’ and ‘communitas’. Turner explains how an individual must first be separated from society, and from the social order and structure, to fully accept the ritual and allow for deeper bonding between the participants. Next is the stage of ‘liminality’. This is the transitional period during any ritual, for example a rite of passage, in which the individual lacks any social ranking or status and remains completely unidentifiable from the group. The participants are often referred to as the “threshold people” in this stage as the experience is likened to death or being in the womb. This stage is often described as breaking an individual down to their base uniformity in order to remake them in the next stage. It is due to this that ‘communitas’ among the group is expected. ‘Communitas’ refers to the intense lifelong comradeship among the participants that remains due to this stressful experience, as referred to by Rossano (2012). At this point in the ritual, it is not actually preserving or reiterating social order. If the ritual were to end here it would actually be taking the participants from the structure of society and releasing them into “anti-structure”. However, the final stage of ritual is their reaggregation into society and therefore into social order. Once a ritual is done the participants come away with a strong bond together, which has already been described as a preservation of social order. Moreover the participants keep their sense of uniformity experienced during ‘liminality’, which reiterates social order as it means the members of the society have shared beliefs. This idea of inverting society in order to reiterate it is also touched upon by Gluckman (1952). His theory, however, is based on the idea of “rituals of rebellion”, in which social order is flipped. In
This “relationship” previously stated is the basis for the second key theme of Catholic Social Teaching. “The Catholic social encyclicals teach that to be human is to experience not only rights but also obligations to others” (Massaro, p.84). A strong advocate for solidarity, Pope John Paul II stated “To be human is to be a social being, one whose very life is and should be bound up with those in close proximity and even distant strangers (Massaro, p.84). Solidarity exists when individuals are contributing towards a common good, which is simply a goal in life that is held above the private benefits of those individuals. Catholic Social Teaching states that when the individuals of today make sacrifices for the common good of a ...
From the point of view of their nationality and language, a majority of them differed from one another. The most powerful of relations that existed amongst all these people - keeping in mind the differences that were also there - was the relationship of true faith and religious brotherhood through which the enmity, hatred and other negative effects that their differences created amongst themselves, was removed from their hearts.
The basis of real unity is neither the community, nor the individual, it is the mutual relation between them. The more the individual fulfills himself in the society, the more can the society achieve an ethical unity (Couteau, 2006, 283). This works on assumption that the betweenness is the very foundation of human relationships and that the structure of human (ningen 人間) is equally individual and social. It is expressed in the original meaning of compound ningen as “being individual“ (hito人) and “being between” (aida間) in conjunction. Thus, ningen refers to the social orientation of a human being and consequently to the individuality of human being. Hence, the above mentioned clearly shows that the “between”
A Community can be defined as a group of people who don’t just live in the same area, but also share the same interests, experiences and often concerns about the area in which they live. Often when individuals have lived on a street or in an area for a while they become familiar with each other and the issues surrounding them. Children often attend the same schools and grow up together, again sharing similar experiences. In some instances adults may work together, and quite commonly all community members will share the same doctors, dentists, hospitals, health visitors and other public services and facilities.