The Magic Key
When individuals make up a strong, willing community, anything is possible. Communities play from the left side to the right side of the spectrum and come in all sorts of ways. However, all have one characteristic in common, and that is that every community contains individuals who either share a similar interest or attitude with one another. Whether this interest is in a preferred location, or this attitude praises Bible teachings… a community is in place. Today, individuals can easily become so isolated through difference in opinions and its attacks with tools such as media. We need communities to keep ourselves comfortable, knowledgeable, and sane.
A community is a place, interest, and identity that individuals come together with. They operate by distinguishing their differences from others, and this leads to different degrees of ethnocentrism. Apart from seeing differences with others, they see the similarities within themselves. Taking a large community, the United States is a country who comes together on days such as the Fourth of July, Presidents’ Day, or Martin Luther King’s day by spending that day free of work for appreciation. These days most likely mean nothing to a country across the Atlantic, but these days are ideal for us; they bring us together as a whole. Meanwhile, other countries have days ideal to themselves. These ideal days are a necessity because each country needs them in order to come together, as a community.
If it wasn’t for the sharing of these ideological similarities, a man named David Rubenstein would, more than likely, never have donated $18.5 million to help restore the Lincoln Memorial. A CNN article written by Michael Pearson is titled, “$18.5 million gift to help refurbish Lincoln Memorial” and portrays a side of ideology at its finest. David Rubenstein lives in America and has a history of donating to national landmarks. He’s made previous donations of $7.5 million to help restore the Washington Monument, $12.35 million to restore the Arlington House, and $5.37 million to restore the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial (Pearson). Now, why would one individual man donate this kind of money to items that solely hold a memory? The answer is simple: ideology.
David sees these memorials as a representation of his community, and he wants to support his community to this extent. He imagines the strength and beauty of America, and finds no burden, instead joy, in making a sacrifice for a community that he identifies with- claiming as himself. It is this ideal view that sends soldiers across the seas to fight for their community. It is also this ideal view that helps man understand and explain culture.
This is because, in order to understand what one does you must understand what one thinks. Within “Gramsci on Civil Society”, Joseph Buttigieg explains Gramsci’s regards on civil society being an integral part of a state. Gramsci explains the importance of culture and its explanations, since not everything can be explained by force (Buttigieg). However, in order to understand culture one must understand the society- being its community. This is why knowing a community's ideological views is a vital observation.
With such observations, one can understand the minds behind social, political, or economic movements. Once an understatement takes place, beings can communicate with one another in a much more efficient manner, all around the world. This globalization would be ideological itself, but an ideal view that has never been seen before- a teaching. Quite possibly a teaching that helps one realize why an American man would donate such money to a block of cement. This teaching could grow the minds of us humans, and introduce us to knowledge or strength we wouldn’t find elsewhere.
