The Community Course
Part 1 - The Significance of the Community
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3. History of the Community

Communities Survive Civilizations
By and large, the story of mankind is the story of village life. Through the centuries and through the millenniums cities have loomed large and then have dis­appeared, but the village has continued. Brilliant cultures have appeared and then have faded, but the continuing culture, through which the past has transmitted its heritage to the future, has been the culture of the village. After each great efflorescence of art and learning the level at which culture could be perpetuated tended to sink to the level of the village. Ruins of great architecture might remain, immortal statuary might be thrown into wells or rubbish heaps to be found again, rare manuscripts might be hidden in brick walls or stored in monasteries, and refugees might carry culture to new centers. A great and brilliant culture of thousands of years could so completely disappear that its language could not be read by a single person on earth until a key was supplied by the Rosetta Stone. In the meantime the only part of that great culture which spanned the centuries was that which had its secure roots in the villages.

Democracy and Ancient Communities
The contribution of the ancient community to modern life has not been fully recognized. It was through local community life that democracy survived the feudal period and re-emerged as a political ideal. Swiss democracy was a survival in the mountain communities of pre-feudal life. In the Scandinavian countries, including Iceland, where feudalism never completely overran the ancient community life, demo­cracy also survived. Close to the soil in many parts of the world local democracy persisted, though deformed and mutilated by feudalism.

Democracy in religion also is an ancient inheritance. Most democratic religious groups today, the Baptists, Congregationalists, Disciples, Quakers, Men­nonites, Mormons, Unitarians, and others, represent an unbroken tradition from feudal communal religious life, though sometimes by curious turns of circumstance. We find records of these pre-feudal democratic community groups with democratic religious life close to the soil in Palestine, Switzerland, Holland, England, and Scandinavia.

Communities and Social Ideals
Many of the social ideals which the western world values most highly have been preserved from ancient times in small communities. The villages in which men have lived during most of their existence have not been mere hamlets--dwellings which by force of some circumstance were near each other. Rather, they have been social organisms in which men lived by unity of purpose and by community of effort.

Isolation from Change
These small communities have tended to be isolated. Cultural waves have passed over them often leaving them largely untouched. They incline to be like the governor of an engine, which causes the old way to continue for a time and not to give way to sudden changes, and so to furnish gradual transition from the old to the new. The word "pagan" means rural person. When Christianity was sweeping the cities of the Roman Empire, the country districts held to the old ways for a time. That always has been characteristic of the village. It is true in Europe today. Some villages have carry-overs of arts and customs from thousands of years ago.

Because the movement of population has always been from country to city, there has been little backflow of culture. One of the dilemmas of society is that it is continually recruiting its population--and its culture--from the small communities. 

Effects of Conquest on Communities
Village communities have not been immune to the ravages of time and circum­stance. The English agricultural villages, after existing, apparently, for many thousands of years, were largely destroyed by the enclosure of common lands by people of wealth and power, and their inhabitants were set adrift. The capture of the Hebrew people by the Assyrians, and their long period of slavery is a story almost accidentally preserved. Probably it had numberless counterparts in other conquests and enslavements, the stories of which have been lost. Genghis Khan, as he swept over Asia, wiped out entire populations. A broad strip through central China was once depopulated by the slaughter of the inhabitants during a military conquest. Northwest Africa, the region of ancient Carthage, was the location of a prosperous culture with many thriving villages, until breakdown of government and loss of security led to its devastation by robber bands, and its almost complete depopulation. The Spanish conquerors of Peru largely destroyed a highly developed village organization. The pioneer doctrine in the United States that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" led to the destruction of many native communities, and the disruption of many more. In Australia and Tasmania native communities were ruthlessly exterminated by white settlers. Rome wiped out whole populations which rose in rebellion, while the barbarians in overrunning Rome did the same. In Polynesia, as among the Eskimos, disease, conquest, and "civilization" brought by white people have almost wiped out whole populations, and destroyed or disorganized community life. 

Economic Conquest of Communities
In recent times economic forces have had almost as disastrous effects on village communities. Both race suicide and emigration to cities have affected the village. Thus, the communities which have survived are not necessarily the best, but are the ones that did not happen to be in the path of some overwhelming destructive force. In this destruction or disintegration of village communities there has been a vast loss of cultural values.

Universality of Communities
As an indication of similarities of primitive village organization the world over, compare the description of Chinese village organization by Smith (Village Life in China) with that of villages in Mediterranean regions (Mukerjee, Democracies of the East). In The Organization of the Early Christian Church, by Edwin Hatch (Longmans Green), we read concerning the patriarchal system in the Roman Empire of the time of early Christianity, in which the head of the family was administrator and judge: "their tenure of office rested rather on general consent than upon formal appointment, and the limits of their authority were but loosely defined." Out of this patriarchal organization grew groups of families with councils of elders. "The council of elders or presbyters had charge of administration and discipline. Discipline was very severe in order to maintain standards in a sodden environment." It would seem that when some parts of the Protestant church adopted the presbyterian form of organization in an effort to get back to the inspired way of the New Testa­ment they were, in fact, simply adopting the form of ancient primitive community government. The success of that general form of church government indicates the soundness of primitive community government. 

Of those Chinese villages of the present day in which methods are loose, Arthur H. Smith wrote (Village Life in China, Fleming H. Revell, p. 277): "The head men are not formally chosen, nor formally deposed. They drop into their places . . . or perhaps climb into them . . . by a kind of natural selection. The qualities which fit a villager to act as head man are the same which contribute to success in any line of business. He must be a practical person who has some native ability, acquainted with the ways of the world," and able and willing to give time.

It would seem that there is a way of local leadership and government that is world-wide. That it is a spontaneous expression of human and social nature is indicated by its appearance in American communities in the form of the political boss. 

To observe how closely this informal organization and headship followed natural processes of social biology, compare it with the "peck order" among chickens, as described in Allee's book, The Social Life of Animals. It would seem that presbyterian organization has evolved by insensible degrees from simple biological and social primacy. 

On the relation of the family to the community see Kropotkin's Mutual Aid, chapters 3 and 4. (This entire book is interesting as discussing the biological and historic basis for integrated community life.)