Community (Episode 6)

We desire communion. We desire community. We find undesirable the task of defining what we mean by communion or community. Perhaps we are enticed by phonetic association to think of these terms as “unity experienced together,” owing to the “com” prefix assimilated from the Latin prefix “cum” meaning “with,” thus presuming others and hence meaning “together.” The problem with this understanding is that pesky second letter “m” in both communion and community. Assimilation usually is the change, the morphing, of the prefix, or preposition, to the verbal root in order to sound better according to a language’s aural palate. Unlike abbreviation, which itself is not abbreviated, assimilation bears with itself its meaning since we do not, or at least no longer say, “ad-similation.” The “d” in “ad” has assimilated benevolently for our ears into an “s.”  Returning to “community” and “communion,” the second consonant “m” lingers or, rather, appears to our puzzlement.

I suggest that the root of the word “community” is not “un-” as in such solitary Latin words as “unus” meaning “one” or “unitas” meaning “unity,” but rather “mun-” as in “munus, muneris” and in the plural “munera.” This latter noun is an archaic form of the ancient Latin word “moenia” meaning “walls,” especially the external walls of a city. “Munus, muneris” continued in later Latin writing, if not common parlance, through two extended or transferred meanings.

Walls, especially city walls, are limited in the North American experience, I am told, to Quebec City, which was founded prior to the domination of cannon artillery, whose ad- or rather am-munition was literally volleyed “at or to the walls” and on account of which ushered the end of defensive walled cities on the continent. In prior ages, however, a city wall was a great advantage to the civic good, the public thing, or res publica. Still even then, walls presented a “burden,” “responsibility,” or “office,” our first extended meaning of “munus.” An unguarded wall provides no defense and enables an attacker to approach undetected. The high walls over the plains of windy Troy fell when, in addition to being destroyed to allow the fated horse entry, the night guards left their posts in drunken, celebratory revelry.

City walls offer defense when they themselves are defended by those responsible for the public good. This good, common to all in the city, introduces the second and final extended meaning of “munus,” that is, as “gift” or “benefit.” Aristotle remarks in his first book of his Politics that the city, and here distinct from villages by those very walls, is the place where the perfection of man is possible and that he who founds a city is the greatest benefactor of his people, one who is truly munificent. 

Munera, then, are the walls, the means by which the community comes into being as such, the responsibility or office that burdens those seeking the community’s perdurance, and the good, diffused and common to many which incites the response to service. Community and communion are weightier, earthier, words than most realize. More than mere fraternity, conviviality, or social bonds unfettered to people and place, community is grounded in duty to seemingly topographical and tribal coincidence yet also enduring and condign consequence.

For those seeking to found or elevate communities or communions, a helpful rule or measure is the response or responsibility its members share toward preserving, conserving, and observing the benefits they hold in common or commune. A community of solely takers, of negligent officers, of taciturn watchmen is not long lasting in this life, and abhorrent in this respect to the life to come.