Thinking communities in the dimensions of complexity and consciousness guides us to think them in the following way:
We could think of the axis of consciousness in this way: it is the amount of conscious effort one must pust into the relationship to feel a sense of belonging to the community. It also correlates with the level of meaningfulness the participants feel in the community, and thus the focus of action becomes sharper as consciousness increases; less conscious communities focus on being-in-the-world, as consciousness creates a sense of doing-in-the-world.
The level of complexity refers to the theoretical level on which the interactions in the community happens, how much different media (such as newspapers, forums, events and seminars) are involved. Also, it becomes more difficult to understand a complex community as a single, coherent system.
Ideological community refers to a community binded together by a theoretical worldview such as religion or other belief system (atheism, communism, nationalism). Bureaucratic community is constituted by professional bureaucrats such as politicians and officials, but also by all the employees in a corporation or an organization.
The next step is to think what happens when these communities are seen together:
- ideological community (nation state) + family = royal family in a democratic country
- bureaucratic community + family = royal/ruling family in a non-democratic country
- bureaucratic community + friendships = oligarchy
- bureaucratic community + colleagues = bureaucratic elite (e.g. EU)
I’m thinking: how can networks of experts and professionals be promoted both inside the bureaucratic and scientific communities and between them? They would surely create considerable benefits in efficiency of bureaucracy and research as coordination can be enhanced, overlapping efforts reduced and intellectual cross-pollination increased.
