The Symbiotic Circle of Community: A Comparative Investigation of Deviance Control in Intentional Communities

With each community considered, I will try to paint a picture of the many collectivizing factors at work: (1) the history or tradition of the community; (2) its underlying ideology, belief and value systems, and/or common interests or goals; (3) the nature of its communalism; (4)the nature of its isolation from the outside world; and (5) its decision-making and governance structure. Finally, I will look to its gate-keeping or circumference-drawing functions-how the community controls deviance and maintains unity within, while distinguishing itself from the chaos without. In Section I, I will consider two extreme examples of community (the Oneida Community of the 19th Century and the Old Order Amish). In Section II, I will discuss a more mainstream example, Residential Community Associations, which, unlike the communities of Part I, represent a much more particular and individualistic notion of community. Section III will consider the community of Harvard College students, which forms an interesting blend of the tight-knit and life-encompassing nature of the Section I communities and the individualistic nature of Residential Community Associations. In Section IV, I will briefly explore, in light of the first three sections, the dangers and limits of communities, and propose a series of factors that ought to contribute to any State decision whether to interfere