Community: Notes to Three Topics

Article

Abstract

[In Russian]

The article considers three constructive elements of the social life – the imaginary, the gift and the fight. The author brings into question the structural understanding of the imaginary, pointing at its fluctuating character. Addressing the question of the correlation of the real and the imaginary the author states a hypothesis of existence of a transit zone between the real and the imaginary. The text points out a subtle connection between the collective imaginary and the openness to the gift. In this connection two dangers menacing the life of the community (that is a weakening of our power of imagination and the degradation of the gift) is discussed. The phenomenon of the fight becomes a subject of discussion within the statement that it is possible to judge about the society basing on the type of the fight that develops in this society, by what means it is conducted, who and to what extent is involved in it. It is important for the author to show that the community is always an interweaving of positive and negative interdependence.