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Date of Publishing:
September 8, 2015

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Communitas

The Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito says the following on community, understood from its etymology communitas as “cum munus” – “with obligation/duty/gift”:

“Therefore the community cannot be thought of as a body, as a corporation in which individuals are founded in a larger individual. Neither is community to be interpreted as a mutual, intersubjective ‘recognition’ in which individuals are reflected in each other so as to confirm their initial identity; as a collective bond that comes at a certain point to connect individuals that before were separate.

The community isn't a mode of being, much less a ‘making’ of the individual subject. It isn't the subject's expansion or multiplication but its exposure to what interrupts the closing and turns it inside out: a dizziness, a syncope, a spasm in the continuity of the subject.” (Bold emphasis added; quoted from Esposito 2010, p. 7)

Further information on communitas on Wikipedia.

“Aus ‚munus‘ – im Sinne von Bürde, Verpflichtung, Gabe, Amt – geht die Gemeinschaft hervor: An ihrem Grund erweist sich, dass sie durchaus kein Besitz, kein Territorium ist, das es zu verteidigen gilt. Ihr dunkler Kern ist vielmehr ein Mangel: etwas Auszufüllendes, eine geteilte Verpflichtung, ein von allen zu Erbringendes – etwas, das stets noch aussteht. ‚Im-munitas‘ (als Schutzmechanismus) und ‚Com-munitas‘ erscheinen als die Leitbegriffe dieser grundlegenden Ambivalenz zwischen Gabe und Schuld, Geteiltem und Bedrohlichem, die die Gemeinschaft seit Anbeginn prägt.“(Quoted online: https://www.diaphanes.net)

Roberto Esposito: Communitas. The Origin and Destiny of Community. Stanford University Press, 2010.

Footnotes

– See also Inside/Outside.

Literature