What is a "community"? I used to know. I used to live in one, and I guess in some way I still do, but the term is hardly ever applied to where I live now because it is so busy being used in other ways. Even a word can get tired or stressed or overextended, it seems.
When I lived in a small town (pop. roughly 2,700) the word "community" was applied to the even smaller settlements scattered about the surrounding countryside. Our local weekly newspaper - "A blue-ribbon weekly serving the four-county area since 1870" - had a short column for each of them, filed by a local stringer. These consisted almost entirely of notices such as "Mr. and Mrs. Ed Klemper were Sunday dinner guests of Mr. and Mrs. Duff Barber" or "Frank and Marie Tutwiler enjoyed a visit from their son and daughter-in-law last Thursday." The visit of an out-of-towner got the top slot, and out-of-staters were headline-worthy. These communities were places where everyone literally knew everyone else, as we in our small town did not quite.
Then there was the Community Chest, a form of unified charity that preceded the United Way and gave its name to one of the features of the board game Monopoly. Here "community" referred to the local municipality, whatever its size, but even in large ones it served to emphasize a physical nearness and association.
Nowadays, of course, "community" can mean a collection of people who have never been in one another's physical presence, who may never meet in that way, and who might well not recognize one another if they did. They share some particular interest or characteristic, such as photography or left-handedness, and - often prompted by third parties who think they see a way to profit - allow themselves to be typed and lumped together on that basis.
The Internet has encouraged this sort of thing to grow out of hand. There are now a jillion "communities" of this and that and the other, all conveniently hosted for a low, low price or for free, along with a barrage of online advertising. And thus encouraged, the people who take part have actually started thinking that they constitute a "community" in some real sense. Where not so many years ago stamp collectors or fans of some performer might form clubs, now they find that nothing will do but that they call themselves a community. And sadly, it seems that many, having adopted that label, believe themselves to have formed real social bonds. This is called Web 2.0 by those who think it is a good thing.
Well, people are free to use words as they will. But as old words are adapted to new uses, it is not uncommon for real meanings to be lost and useful distinctions to be blurred. A word that can be applied equally to a scattering of persons who communicate electronically about their shared interest in "Star Trek" and to an Amish settlement whose members work and play and worship together is a word that doesn't serve much purpose anymore. I'm going to miss it.
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