| > Very few of them actually have the organic bonds or genuine feeling of comraderie that real communities are supposed to have There is a tradeoff between freedom and community. Organic bonds with real feeling come from a true alignment in interests. One of the simplest ways of creating interest alignment is making sure everyone has a long-term commitment. But the flip side of 'commitment' is that people can't be free to leave whenever they want. A highly mobile society where everyone is largely free to join or leave any virtual community, neighborhood, is one where nobody feels any form of permanent attachment to that institution or to their fellow community members, because there is no long-term commitment, either from themselves, or from their fellow members. A neighborhood where everyone has the ability to freely come and go is one where nobody has a strong incentive to sacrifice for their neighbors, because who knows who your neighbors will be tomorrow, or whether you will still be there? You can see one aspect with the rise of no-fault divorce; in the past, perhaps many people were trapped in unhappy marriages, but by the same token, the lifelong commitment may have encouraged many couples figure out ways to make it work. Nowadays, it is no longer possible for both members to bind themselves to one another. And since both partners can walk out at any time (and both people know it), why go to extraordinary lengths to make it work? |
This largely depends on the conception of freedom in question. If freedom implies that individuals as a result of a the proliferation of human rights are able to live atomistic lives without much interaction with most anyone else than the state and their employers, then I agree. The last ~100 years is empirical evidence of this.
If, however, freedom implies that beyond a few obligations and non-intrusive rights (e.g. a right to free speech doesnt impose on anyone else, whereas a right to education or health care does), then freedom and community are correlated goods. We can see the evidence of this in the 19th century. Alexis de Tocqueville for instance wrote extensively about how in America, people organically formed their own communities in the absence of de jure social classes (beyond citizen and slave, which he found grotesque), and that this was a unique aspect of the relative freedom found in America at the time.
All of this is to say that the conception of freedom dictates the cohesion and veracity and quantity of organic communities. Or, perhaps stated another way, there is a trade-off between organic community and both inclusion and state intervention in private arrangements.