On Community

I've been reading a book called The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace by Scott Peck. Here is some really helpful info I found regarding community.

There are four stages of community:
1. Pseudocommunity - People act like they have everything in common and avoid conflict
2. Chaos - Occurs when well intended "solutions" are not realized.
3. Emptiness -  too complex to explain here
4. Community

In the chaos section Peck writes, "Since chaos is unpleasant, it is common for the members of a group in this stage to attack not only each other but also their leader. "We wouldn't be squabbling like this if we had effective leadership," they will say. "We deserve more direction than you've been giving us, Scotty." In some sense they are correct; their chaos is a natural respond to a relative lack of direction. The chaos could easily be circumvented by an authoritarian leader - a dictator - who assigned them specific tasks and goals. The only problem is that a group led by a dictator is not, and never can be, a community. Community and totalitarianism are incompatible" (p. 92).