The Interest of the Community

It is very common to see thinkers and leaders talk about the welfare of the

community. All major works of great thinkers revolve around the good for the

community and when leaders try to scale the hierarchy offer solutions for better

living conditions for the community. Liberty and equality of an individual have

seen their birth probably after the French revolution which inspired millions of

people to look at the world in a different light. This raises a serious challenge, who is the community? What is the interest of the community?

The community consists of a set of individuals who are deemed to be living under

some conditions of homogeneity. It may not be entirely homogenous that the

people belong to the same profession or same religion or have similar beliefs. But

it can be that people believing themselves to be part of a community see others in that community with some common emotion. It can be different for different

communities. This bond between people has been very strong and has helped

people share information, knowledge, and resources among themselves and sustain on this earth. This way of belief has been very powerful that, for man years, the idea of sending someone out of a community was the harshest punishment. So, we can say that the community is a belief. It is a belief that we are connected to the other person next to us and we have to be together and plan accordingly to handle certain situations that I alone cannot handle. Communities are a fictitious body to solve certain problems in which individuals cannot solve. Then what is meant by the interest of a community?

If the community itself is a fictitious body, then what are its interests. How can a

belief develop interests? Thus Community has no interest, but the constituents of communities have interests and these interests summed up together constitute the belief of the community. Then it brings back to the earlier question we had, does this mean the people have similar interests and thus there is some homogeneity and thus see themselves as a community? It can be blindly accepted by some people as true. Some can argue that citizens of a country are a single community and they are a community because they all believe in the welfare of that country and the citizens. But how far can it be true? Can all the citizens think for the welfare of all other citizens in the same way? Does everyone expect the same good to happen in the country? Probably not. Then what is the interest of the community? The interest of the community is the interests of the individuals in the community who can convince others that their interests are the best for the community.

Interests of the community is a philosophical and political activity. No wonder, that is why only philosophers and leaders talk about it. We cannot expect a hawker to tell to other people that he is selling things on the street for the welfare of the people. But we can easily see a leader preaching about the welfare of the people by following certain restrictions and adhering to certain codes.

The interest of an individual may be to have a good life but the interest of another ambitious being may be to spread a common religion. Then in this case whose interest becomes the community’s interest? Whosoever convinces the other that their interest will help in fulfilling their interest will determine what is the community’s interest. Thus through persuasion, few individuals decide what is the interest of the community by making people believe that their interests would be attained by following these interests. Thus, slowly some people are made to believe in certain things which they would not have ever believed on the sole idea that their aspirations are linked to the successful implementations of certain interests.

There is nothing called a community, it is just a pure fiction to keep the people

bonded together and not seek their liberty and equality. It is a contract to keep

people in reigns. And the community’s interest is just a pretext to enforce the writ of the individuals to whom the existence of community helps. They may be the leaders and the most respected individuals in a community and they masquerade their interests as the interest of the community to keep their rule everlasting.

This raises a serious question about leaders and thinkers. If it is their interests that are being portrayed as the community’s interests and they are consciously

persuading people to accept their interests, aren’t they doing ill to the community? Isn’t their lie doing more harm as they are propagating their interests at the expense of the interests of all others?

It is essential to understand that with the community being an imagined body and it is difficult to have a community’s interest developed which doesn’t match with some individual’s interest. So necessarily it is not wrong and not every leader or thinker trying to propagate their idea is a villain. Does it raise the question of good and bad interests? Interests that are good for the community and are being actively propagated by individuals will do more good than interests which are evil and are trying to destroy the fabric of the community. But even in this who decides and how should we decide what is good and will not try to destroy the community?

In such a dilemma, it is easier to look if the interest is being propagated for the

private benefit of the person or is it for the benefit of the whole society. It is

practically possible to judge and this would help in a certain way to see whether

the interests are for good or for bad. But, importantly our interests do not become the community’s interest till we become important and thus steals our notion of independence to think. In such a case, isn’t it good for the world to live as just individuals enforcing their interests and not believing in a common interest?

Anarchy! A world beyond imagination it would be.

However bad the current imagined order of community is, it has still done more

good than living as private individuals. Community living and interest of the

community have allowed us to sustain the human race and develop a wonderful

civilization. But finally, whose interest was the civilization anyways?