Community has been deteriorating of late in the Western world, and it is being challenged today on several fronts. We have witnessed a growing bias toward individualism in the pursuit of autonomy and self-determination. Our culture has been marked by a quest for independence, self-preservation, control, privatization, avoidance of accountability, superficial relationships, and alienation. It appears that people are busier than ever and lonelier than ever (this is illustrated in The Saturated Self by Kenneth J. Gergen and Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam). Technology, mobility, media, entertainment, distractions, travel, information overload, and transience all contribute to the growing plight of social instability and interpersonal tension. "Time-saving" inventions have only made our lives more hyperactive and stress-filled, and our addictions to urgency and performance make us externally driven rather than internally called.
--Ken Boa
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