Regaining Community

There is an epidemic of loneliness in our country that is reflected in the statistics of suicide and opioid abuse. [Why are Americans so Lonely?} For many people, family has disintegrated and we have fewer friends.

Humans are by nature social animals, but we are rapidly losing our social support network.  Our children are becoming fewer in each generation and many them will move away to be seen again only rarely. We do not know our neighbors.

 For many of us in this mobile and materialist society, the nuclear family is lost and cannot be restored.  We instinctively need the protection and nurturing provided by our granny and cousins who have known us all our lives.  We are like ducks that flock and cattle that herd.  Without contact and communication with our own kind, we feel anxious and afraid

Perhaps politics could help, put currently politics is poisonous.   Personal loneliness and isolation find an enemy in the the other political side.  But politics is not to blame.  It is just a mirror of how unhappy we are feeling as a people.

Depression and loneliness have been converted into political anger and hatred, what is being called political tribalism.  But politics will not make us feel better.  We need people who understand us and care about us.

We have lost community, but we need it.  I think we will have to create it.  There is a long history of conceptual utopias or intentional communities, and now the digital revolution has opened the possibility of redesigning all of society.

The Anniston Star has been at the center of the local community since 1883.  It has served as the paper of record for local government and other activities.  It has always been where you find sports results, obituaries, and entertainment events.  Political issues have been debated in the paper, and the Star has a noble tradition of progressive, humanistic thought.

A digital newspaper will allow much more community input.  Local experts in sports, politics, and news can submit commentary and video logs.  Newspaper editors would serve to recruit and mentor community journalists.  Although news sources are now phenomenally fragmented, our local newspaper has the identity, the brand, that can form the basis for a meaningful community.

We all want to know how the high school team did, what the city council is up to, what music is in town, what crimes were committed, who went to whose party, and we would like to be able to find it in one place.  The Anniston Star website can become that place.  Citizens can submit information and events, and express their thoughts.  It can be a town square.

The governments of all the local cities and counties are disconnected, but the digital newspaper could provide the core structure of a larger sense of citizenship.  Governments have emerged haphazardly and they are awkward and inefficient.  An engaged community could move toward simplification and consolidation of government.

Our community has a troubled history and we still have terrible problems, particularly involving race, poverty, education, and healthcare.  All of those problems can be addressed through concerted thought and effort.  The key is getting people to feel involved in what happens in our community.


Anniston could become the center of a model virtual community, and the Anniston Star can be its journalistic voice. Our beautiful geographic area has great resources and potential, but we need something to tie us together.  We have more needs in common than differences that divide us.