The Wake

More than the shared cups of sugar, people use the word “community” to describe a virtual Eden from our golden days. It was a time when children could play soccer on the street without worrying about getting abducted by weirdos or squished by cars. A time when little Billy shoveled old Mr. Fischer’s sidewalk with no promises of financial reward. A time of PTA meetings and block parties and neighborhood BBQs.

Fast-forward to our current world of Hades and now bikes are double-bolted, kids hide inside from strangers and bacteria and the only union forged among community members is through Neighborhood Watch.

Community, in all traditional sense, is dead. The maggots have moved in and found themselves a mighty cozy home.

The way I see it, the perp is, ultimately, technology. But, has a crime really been committed?

As I ride on the bus, everyone has those silly white ear phones jabbed mercilessly into their ears. They stare ahead, zombie-style, at the windows, at the exits.

I stare intently at the other passengers, for an uncomfortably long time, until they, out of sheer paranoia, look at me. Then I quickly avert my glace to assure them that I am, in fact, up to something. Once they look away, I resume my visual stalking. It makes the rides more interesting. I lose a lot of potential friends this way.

Another community-killing soldier is online shopping. Why bother getting into your car and trudging over to the grocery store when Simon Delivers? Why struggle through crowds at malls, when Amazon probably has just what you’re looking for at a rock-bottom price? Now, we sit alone, in the dark, donned in our least-sexy underoos, and shop for Ninja Turtle action figures online.

And, in the event someone is found bouncing around town, chatty folks don’t have to actually engage in relations with strangers, cell phones allow each and every gabber in our presence to be social without really being social. You can perpetually talk about nothing to people you have nothing new to say to. Yay.

It’s fun to hate modernity. People like dissing society.

While it’s nice to think about the bygone days of friendship and loyalty among neighbors, community wasn’t born simply because people were more affable. Community, and all the social interactions associated with it, existed for necessity. In earlier years, people couldn’t just hop in their cars and buy whatever it is that they so desperately needed. The milk could only be acquired from the farmer down the road. The vegetables were sold at a vegetable stand only open during times of surplus. AAA couldn’t save you from a broken wagon axle.

If you were missing that cup of sugar, you actually had to ask a neighbor, thus, you had to know the neighbor and you had to maintain this relationship for all of your future needs.

We don’t need it anymore. Our communities are full of independent women and self-sufficient men. We have cars, computers and convenience stores to replace those binds of community.

Churches rebel and argue that community still exists within religion. Parishioners attend service on Sunday, sit an appropriate distance from each other and listen to the priest/pastor/minister talk about how all the Jews would gather as a community to listen to Jesus. The man talks about how it is up to them, these bold religious folk, to recreate that spiritual village. Good news, all the conservative bigots can gather together and think of new ways to screw over the gays. A community so often linked by hatred is no community at all.

Sham: (sh m) noun, something false or empty that is purported to be genuine; a spurious imitation.

In conclusion, one could argue that this is bad, this is progress, this is the demise of society—but I’d say it’s just the way it is. No tears required.

Nix is a Voices columnist and welcomes comments at .