Human beings are communal by nature and living together – in communities – is our most common and most natural state of life. John Abbott discusses the fact that communities must be created and sustained by the conscious intentions and actions of their members, and that we must attend to health and vitality of our communities in order to thrive – and to learn! – as a species.
About this paper
This paper was written for the first International Baccalaureate Organization Worldwide Electronic Conference in 2004, which had the theme of “Enriching Communities”. John Abbott, as a contributor/leader, noted that the theme suggested that “right now, many people fear that communities are not what they once were, or indeed might be in the future, and that somehow they have to be enriched.” He contributed four papers to the conference; with We Are a Small Group Species being the first in the series.