Community of the Future or Community of a Snob?

The origins of my present-day community begin in high school. Michel Foucault described secondary school as a “normalizing institution” 1. David M. Cheshier clarifies this idea,

“In part Foucault means that, if only because it is organized around the task of educating vast numbers of children, the secondary school setting is institutional and regimented. Students are segmented into precisely timed classes. The arrangement of many classrooms remains rigidly hierarchical: students face forward, arrayed before an authority figure who stands at the front… [Ultimately] the subtle lessons students internalize after spending so many years in regimented classrooms [are]: obedience to authority, a preference for jumping hurdles rather than actually learning material, and an overly respectful sense of boundaries for appropriate behavior”2.

I am in agreement with Foucault, that it is impossible to “end” or “obliterate” the power structure that keeps these “normalizing institutions” going “since power is a certain and unending feature of human interaction”3. However, there are mechanisms for dissent and passive resistance within the American public school system. After only a few months of high school I met Anthony. Anthony and I, through our dress, speech and interests; tried to separate ourselves from norms of our peers. While we never staged a revolution, we pushed right up against the “boundaries [of] appropriate behavior.” The intimate subculture we developed did not alter secondary school’s raison d’être, however it did make the oppressive, mundane and at times bleak aspects of high school more tolerable. Anthony graduated high school 2 years before I did but we remained close friends. While Anthony and my family were the primary tangible members of my community throughout high school, this all changed when I left for college.

My parents granted me the freedom to choose my own path of study and as a result what I learned in college was only limited by what the university offered. I also was granted new social freedoms upon going to college however these were not as easy to manage. Since Anthony and I passively resisted the mainstream culture of high school, making friends with students who had perhaps not taken such a hostile approach towards high school was a bit tough. Many of the people I tried talk to did not seem to appreciate the humor, interests or slang Anthony and I had developed. Many of my peers seemed to form relationships based on college rituals such as drinking or sports. However, I was really not interested in these types of activities. In high school, I was able to communicate and relate to my peers because we were forced to take the same classes with the same teachers. Also in high school all of your classmates are from the same town and many of them have followed you from primary school. In college this common reference point does not exist to out of state students. I believe my situation, in a way, mirrors Emile Durkheim’s theory of “Anomie.” Professor Frank Elwell states,

“Durkheim characterized the modern individual as suffering from social norms that are weak or often contradictory. Durkheim defines anomie as a condition of relative normlessness in a whole society or in one of its component groups. When these social regulations break down the controlling influence on individual desires and interests is ineffective; individuals are left to their own devices” 4.

I do not believe that Durkheim’s theory is applicable to most people. In fact, in the majority of cases I believe his theory is wrong. I believe that most people follow a rigid set of social norms that is instilled in them from birth, K through college and finally into the job market. Yet, in my case I believe Durkheim’s theory works. By isolating myself from most of my peers, rejecting as much of high school institutionalization as possible and by spending most of my time with Anthony in our intimate sub-culture I had unknowingly developed an alternative set of social norms. When I came to college I was “left to my own devices.” In the years before the internet, I feel as though I would have had to bite the bullet and find a way to make new friends or go back home to Rhode Island. Presently, I am doing fine in school and I do not feel as lonely as many would in my position just 9 years ago.

Most of my days are spend alone. My parent’s upper-middle class social class status has allowed me to have my own apartment without any roommates. I live in a large apartment building and there are at least a dozen people who live on my floor. I do not know any of their names and I do not think I would recognize one on the street. Yet, I still feel as though I am part of a small community. Geographically, most of my community with the exception of myself remains in my home state of Rhode Island. How is this possible?

The current state of cell phone and Internet technology has allowed me to maintain strong social bonds to my old community despite the fact that I am physically in a different location. With my cell phone plan I can have long conversations with Anthony as long as it’s after 10 o’clock. Thanks, to the web community MySpace I can now keep close contact with Anthony and other friends without actually meeting them face to face. They can look at pictures of me and we can keep in constant dialogue. My experiences with MySpace are similar to Diana Saco’s discussion of Multi-User Domains (MUDs).

“…all MUDs are basically interactive, multi-user, programmed environments arrayed as a set of ‘rooms’ that a user’s character (virtual persona) can explore and within which one’s character can interact with other users’ characters… The experiences become so rich the ‘real life’ can begin to lose its pride and place, its privilege, in relation to alternate realities MUDs make possible. Put another way, mudding can have ontological and epistemological consequences, helping to foreground the variety of ways in which real life, too, is a construct: ‘[Real life] is just one more window, and it’s not usually [the] best one’ (quote from a mudder) 5.”

Saco’s book was published in 2002 it can be inferred that the technology and literature available to her while writing her book was from the mid to late 90s. It seems that current web communities like MySpace, Friendster and Facebook partially borrowed their format from MUDs (which have been around since the late 80s). Everyone who uses these websites creates a “virtual persona” or character of themselves. On these websites users can present themselves or characterize themselves in any number of ways. Having the ability to control what others see about your personality, is what I like best about MySpace. For my friends there is a certain style to my MySpace page that will allow my friends to recognize it as mine immediately. To someone not from my community the page may seem incoherent. My community map reflects how I am connected to my community through technology as well as my connection to the people who surround me who are not part of my community.

At the center of my map is me living in Philadelphia. Surrounding me are blue circles with blank faces inside of them. These blank faces represent the people that live near and that surround my physical environment. I do not know them personally, I do not know their names nor would I be able to pick them out in a crowd. The red connecting circles represent both the internet and cell phone technology described above. This technology is what holds my community together. The connection in the bottom left hand corner of my map is to my friend, Steve. Steve and I became friends when we studied at Temple University Japan together. Steve and I come from similar backgrounds, enjoy the same kinds of movies and are both social science nerds. Steve is the only member of my community who I actually have face to face contact with on a fairly regular basis since he lives in Havertown. I talk to him on my cell-phone almost every day whether I am at home or walking around campus. We also frequently share MySpace dialogue. In the top right hand corner is a picture of my best friend Anthony. Thanks to this modern technology our relationship is almost as strong as it would be if I were home. In the top left hand corner is a picture of the June Lockheart, Hugh Riley and of course Lassie from 1950s TV show Lassie. This represents my family. While my family is not a part of my MySpace community I do rely on them heavily. With my cell-phone I can call my dad from anywhere in the city. While my community may seem rather sparse, these are the only people I have kindred feelings for.

1. Cheshier, David M. "Foucault and Education Reform." Foucault.Info. 9 Nov. 2002. 14 Mar. 2006 .
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Elwell, Frank W. "The Sociology of Emile Durkheim." Durkheim's Sociology. 2003. Rutgers University. 1 Apr. 2006 .
5. Saco, Diana. Cybering Democracy: Public Space and the Internet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2002.