community -

during yesterday's class, Nigel showed us the loc.alize.us website and try to convey us that there could be all different sort of ways of defining a virtual community: they are alot of photographs mapped out on a satellite map to show their actual location in the world, cross a spectrum of time, uploaded by different people. could this be a community? of people who are committed to using the application and contributing their photographs to this growing archive? this example make me realised a virtual community could be without any definition of sexuality (like queeruption does) or similar musical tastes (like myspace does) or don't have to be actual friends that related in the reality (like facebook does) technology, in this case, seems to cross the bridge of social confinement and erase the importance of identity.








However, if community is simply a social grouping, it can be anybody in a same room without any communication or exchange of emotion. is that a community?





"we know the healing effect of community in terms of individual lives. " M. Scott Peck
The Different Drum: Community-Making and Peace





I would say it is not easy, even in the society we live in, to have a community of people who willing to share their time, knowledge etc. it requires efforts. But I think loc.alize.us lack of a function of community, or loc.alize.us might be just an extension/accessory of a online community.


Howard Rheingold define 'The Virtual Community' as 'People who use computers to communicate, form friendships that sometimes form the basis of communities, but you have to be careful to not mistake the tool for the task and think that just writing words on a screen is the same thing as real community.'" Howard Rheingold's book is interesting, i will dig into that.



ahhh.... and something else, about the poet Rumi, a 13th Century Persian. a research was conducted to asked a group of about fifty participants to define why Rumi meant so much to them. their responses in 12 distinct categories which are listed below with explanation.

1- Non-Intellectual: They found Rumi to cater to their hearts, emotions and instincts rather than intellects.
2- Levels: They found many levels in Rumi’s poetry. The more they learned about Rumi, the more they appreciated his depth and were encouraged to dig deeper.
3- Unity: They found the sense of unity and universal siblinghood in Rumi’s poetry to be very attractive.
4- Friend: They found him to be a friend.
5- Personal Process: Reading Rumi for them is a personal process. They associate themselves with him.
6- Grace Descending: Every time a Rumi poem was recited they felt Grace descending.
7- Longing: They associated with the sense of longing in Rumi’s poems.
8- Love Affair: Rumi was like a lover to some of the participants.
9- Cultural Bridge: They found Rumi to form a cultural bridge for the Persians, Turks, Afghanis and the Arabs in this country. Through Rumi some Middle & Near Eastern people found a new acceptance in the U.S.
10- They Don’t Even Like Poetry: Some expressed that they don’t even like poetry but they love reading Rumi poems.
11- Participate in the Process: They found Rumi extremely expressive and found themselves participating in Rumi’s own process.
12- Spiritual Guide: They found Rumi to be a spiritual guide for them.

Rumi is said to be very popular in America, I think even a piece of writing can be significant, and be the base of a community. because people feel connected through that. but how about bibles, and other religious writings?... i think maybe i am going to far. nenglish.