Paradox Of Community Research Articles

A Body of Individuals: The Paradox of Community in Contemporary Fiction (review)

A Body of Individuals: The Paradox of Community in Contemporary Fiction (review)

The Anti-instrumentalist Community

Book Review| November 01 2011 The Anti-instrumentalist Community LEE, SUE-IM, A Body of Individuals: The Paradox of Community in Contemporary Fiction (Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2009), pp. 196, cloth, $44.95. Berthold Schoene Berthold Schoene Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Novel (2011) 44 (3): 476–479. https://doi.org/10.1215/00295132-1381371 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Berthold Schoene; The Anti-instrumentalist Community. Novel 1 November 2011; 44 (3): 476–479. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00295132-1381371 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsNovel Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2011 by Novel, Inc.2011Duke University Press Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The Paradox of Community

The advanced industrial or post-industrial societies seem to have come to a paradoxical predicament. The individualist culture which has favored the modernization process so much, now constitutes one of the most formidable obstacles to the further modernization of societies. Contemporary society seems unable to move toward solving the problems of global interdependence, of environmental risk and of its own internal complexity unless it finds a way of re-creating from within itself some aspects of the life of the community. However, in reappropriating the relevant features of community - especially the concern for the common good - we can't avoid falling back on that normative standard of self-realization, fulfillment or authenticity which in a sense represents the epitome of modern individualism and is often mistaken, by the communitarian critics of liberalism, for a mere garden variety of early-modern atomistic individualism.