The village life that took shape around the world after the passing of the primal hunter-gatherer era was, at its best, a way of fitting self-interest into a recognition of other people's self-interest, into a sense of belonging together. If that were shattered, the consequent atomisation of society would be explosive.
The trouble is that the world is not staying a village sort of place. Industrialisation, urbanisation, information technology are seeing to that.
Perhaps the idea of belonging together can be reconstructed in a new form in the post-village world. Perhaps men and women in cities and suburbs can begin to reassemble themselves into groups whose members will choose to define what is good for themselves in the context of what is good for others: a new sort of community, the 'elective village'.
Previous / Next / Table of Contents