Full Circle Associates

The San Jose MercuryNews.com had an interesting article on the 9th: Two's company, three's a `community', by Mark Leibovich

Coming off the attention to the ``rat-terrier community,'' the ``heavy-metal community,'' and their roles in recent news events, Leibovich notes there are certainly pressure points. But he is more interested in how the press and the public perceives and portrays these things we call "communities" and "online communities."

`Community' evokes a sense of warm fuzziness on a group of people who have only the most superficial bonds,'' said Amitai Etzioni, a sociologist at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., who has written extensively about the ``community of communities'' around the world.

Etzioni said the term ``community'' has not been overused as much as it has been abused. He said an authentic community must include both genuine bonds of affection and shared moral values.

``That should be the test of a community,'' Etzioni said, ``not whether someone simply calls them a community.''

We celebrate this man as a pillar of the community-restraint community.