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I saw from the "Not Feeling It" thread that many people resisted hooks' concept of community love, but I found a good echo of the same concept in this interview with Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey:

It's in promotion of his new book: United: Thoughts on Finding Common Ground and Advancing the Common Good by Cory Booker.

I think people get confused and think that be community-focused means that you cannot love yourself or try to better yourself. I think bell hooks makes the case that you do have to love yourself before you love others. I don't think she ever said you should only think of others, but rather once you have experienced self-love, you need to apply a loving ethic when you approach other people and like Emma said above help them in any way that you can. Community love doesn't mean that we have to give up all our possessions and live in a commune, but rather we should do what we can to make our communities a better place to live; giving and doing what we can.

I struggle with the community love concept because there is bad in the world. I do agree in regards to raising a child/children that it takes more than just a mom and dad. With that being said I am very selective when allowing a person into my life that will help raise my child. I guess what I struggle with is how big is this community... The bigger the community gets the more risk there is that one person is not going to participate and people will get hurt. In theory it is a great idea but how realistic is it?

Two parts of this chapter I highlighted were, (1) "While I do not want to suggest that extended families are not as likely to be dysfunctional, simply by virtue of their size and their inclusion of non blood kin...they are diverse and so are likely to include the presence of some individuals who are both sane and loving," and, (2) "If we do not experience love in our extended families of origin...the other place where children in particular have the opportunity to build community and know love is in friendship."

Of course, one can always pick apart what bell hooks might be truly saying in regards to community love. However, I took this chapter to be more hopeful because it reminds us that love does not have to remain within the nuclear family, or solely with a partner. We can receive advice, feel wanted, and/or connect with those outside our immediate circle.

Personally, I am lucky to come from a loving home. My family situation is definitely within the realm of functional. But, I also feel the love of other relatives and have extremely close relationships with Aunts/Uncles and numerous cousins. Sometimes it is these people I go to during difficult times. For those who may come from dysfunctional home situations, it is often these extended families that become a sanctuary.

I also have a few friends who unfortunately found themselves faced with difficult family situations, where love was often absent, or obscured. In the journey of attempting to rebuild family connections, and dealing with this turmoil, it was friendships that helped these individuals through difficulties. My friends surrounded themselves with others who could offer support. Ultimately, it was friendship that formed a new "family" for them. The saying that 'home is where the heart is' takes on new meaning in these situations because it's not always about being related to someone. Often our strongest connections might be forged with non-blood relations.

Finally, in regards to community love...I come from a very small town and teach in a small school. While I understand we are not immune from danger, I also feel that there is a close-knit attitude within my community that brings us all together. We support each other, stop to have conversations on the street, and really take time to get to know our neighbours. We know each others' "business" not as a means to be nosy, but strictly because we all live in such close proximity. This (although occasionally annoying) is not a bad thing. Our sense of community creates such a positive web of connectedness. Even in the strangest situations there is likely someone to call upon to help, even if the person is not someone we interact with every day. We still know each other, care for each other, and desire to assist each other. There is a true sense of love that can come from these types of small community interactions, and I would't trade this kind of life for the world!

The problem is, that love does not exist anymore. Therefore we have all the problems that we think of, from institutionalism, various violence, predominating regime, control over women, to every day fights in families, wrong upbringing of children, more and more homosexual people, third party of unnatural people wishes, getting benefit with the help of others or on damaging others to save ourselves, and so on and so on.

The problem is even if we have the formula, the people would not accept it, as the system is self powered - self sustainable economical machine. The idea about benefit just went to far, and because there is 7 billion people on this planet, it is unrealistic to get most of them to decide for different way of behaving.

But we are trying and we have a formula, and one day, it will return love to humanity <3 ;)

I'm now reading Altars in the Street, the memoir of a community activist that bell hooks recommends in All About Love. I think the introduction to Altars in the Street is going to end up the thing I'll have liked best in All About Love.

Tadej wrote: "The problem is, that love does not exist anymore. Therefore we have all the problems that we think of, from institutionalism, various violence, predominating regime, control over women, to every da..."

Please elaborate on why you believe that "Love does not exist". With all of your negative scenarios, the one that is most troubling is "more and more homosexuals". Why direct so much negative to a group of people?

Love and Hate coexist together, you cannot have one without the other. Today's world is more focused on showing the negative rather than the positives. Constantly being fed images of war, destruction, and suffering can lead you to believe that the world is without love and positive energy. True the conventional thoughts of love maybe different in today's world, and these thoughts of love may continue to grow differently still. Plenty of people in the world (myself included) want to leave the planet and it's people better than we arrived. There may not be coverage or news stories about these types of people, but there is more good in the world than realized.

Krynne wrote: "Please elaborate on why you believe that "Love does not exist".

I think you're misinterpreting what Tadej wrote. I made the same mistake the first time I read it. The original was: "The problem is, that love does not exist anymore." The key word is that. So I don't think Tadej means that love in general does not exist, but that [kind of] love does not exist, and I think "that" refers to the subject of the thread, community love.

Kressel, thank you for explaining. However, I believe that The Love, the original meaning of the love, or definition of love cannot be told.

I am hereby thinking of love as highest and purest sense of living. This includes true love and everything that definition of love explains - true love between two people, this is what I am sure, it does not exist anymore. However I can elaborate but it will take a lot of time as I have a theory which explains that, and a lot of other values. But I am rather sending you literature if you're from Europe, and you will find out for yourself. I too was so convinced that true love still exist, but after knowing and searching for the truth, which takes a lot of time and with tremendous help of one literature, I see now the world in whole different colours. However, true love exist so rarely and only in some relationships, that we cannot say that the love still exist. If love will exist, it has to be in majority, then we can talk existence.

Krynne, I am sorry that you understand this statement about homosexuals as negative. But I can explain why is there more and more homosexuals, and the highest reason is, because there is no more love. And NO, this does not mean that they SHOULD NOT exist, but it means that even with animal world homosexuality occurs, but with people that are living more and more unnatural patterns, homosexuality becomes more populated. But in primal society, there would not exist. As does not in animal world.

Tadej wrote: "Kressel, thank you for explaining. However, I believe that The Love, the original meaning of the love, or definition of love cannot be told.

I am hereby thinking of love as highest and purest sen..."

Nice of you to thank me, but it seems my explanation was wrong!

Kressel, until we all strive for the truth and peace, there is no wrong and right ;)

Tadej

Thank you so much for clairfying your thoughts. I understand where you are coming from more completely. I appreciate that you took the time to fully explain rather than attacking those who questioned your opinion. You have opened my eyes to a different perspective on Love.

I am avoiding attacking or better said, I have my own opinion, which should everyone have. Then we should add to this inequality of every individual, our acceptance of them, and world will be better place :)

The problem is, that a lot of us think that with doing something AGAINST something bad, is reasonable and logical thing. But this is only perceiving that leads to tension when we realise actions. If we want to be for good, we have to recognise, where we can MAKE peace, create it with our action and be for good not against bad ;)

IMO community love does exist but you will not find it sitting home reading books about love and equality. You can only find "that" kind of love if you are willing to go out and contribute your love and accept others love. Be that love homosexual, or third party of unnatural people!

Jeanne wrote: "IMO community love does exist but you will not find it sitting home reading books about love and equality. You can only find "that" kind of love if you are willing to go out and contribute your your love and accept others love."

One of the books bell hooks cites in her own book is Altars in the Street, which is a memoir about community-organizing. It's not the same as getting out there and doing it, but there's always something to be learned from someone who's actually gone out and done it.

I would say that community love is perfectly summarised in this sentence: Family are the people you choose to live with.

I think that community love is at a decrease nowadays but was flourishing way more a few generations back. I can't say whether it's because we're not as dependent nowadays as people were 100 years ago, but I think that may be one of the reasons.

For some community can replace family, if they grew up in a dysfunctional family. Human beings are in need of love, and if love can't be found within the family, we will look somewhere else. And the good thing is that a community can be any people. The people in your hometown/village, or a specific group of people like the LGBTQIA community. Or disabled people or other people. That's one thing I like about communities. The community chooses the person, and the person chooses the community.

The good thing is also that it gives you purpose and an aim, a goal. You have something to care for and to protect. Community can make up for family, if you need it. Of that I'm sure.