What is a Community?
My reflection on cliques has led me to a conception of community that might be different from what is commonly accepted in CSS arts.

First, let us try to agree on several things. 1. Human beings are different. They have very different emotional makeups, intentions, viewpoints. 2. Cliques are a natural phenomenon. If you think that 'cliques' has a negative connotation, no matter, just replace it with 'social group'. What I mean then is that human beings will naturally tend to form relationships within a group in which they feel comfortable in.

Now, here is my argument. Since human beings are different, you cannot form a community in which everyone feels comfortable in socially. Therefore, a community may try as it might to be as open and welcoming as possible, but there will always be some people who will feel left out. Here, you may wish to say that they feel left out because they by their own accord choose not to belong to the group, but this misses the point. They may very well want to belong to the group, but not everyone can feel that they belong. This is my point.

So how does this relate to community? Well, some people think that as a community we should all be one big bunch of friends, one big 'clique'. Since Catholics are such a diverse bunch of people, and as what I have argued ealier, this is actually not possible. So what conception of 'community' does that leave for us then? Perhaps a 'clique of cliques' or a 'web of cliques', where there is a fairly well-defined, but loosely connected collection of social groups. But then what is the 'glue' that holds these social groups together? That we are Catholics? That we happen to be in the Arts faculty? Why should I belong to the Arts community simply because I'm Catholic and in Arts when say, I happily belong in my parish youth group? There is actually no proper social bond that will allow separate groups of friends be called an Arts community. We might as well be separate groups of friends that happen to be Catholics and in Arts. If you want to label us a community, then so be it, but there is no reason socially why we should be together. Therefore, in our conception of the Arts community, I believe that the social issues should be clearly separated from the functional issues, and that it is the functional issues that should define what a community is.

"Wait, wait", I hear you say, "but the functional issues cannot be separate from the social issues! The function of the Arts community is social - to create a group of friends!" But my response is that this is impossible. Can you imagine a group of friends that say "the purpose of our group is so that more people can join us and be friends, and when I leave, I hope people continue to join and make friends"? No, friendships are for friendships sake, and the purpose of a community cannot be just for friendships sake.

"Well, maybe not just for friendship's sake, but it is through our friendships that people will be able to serve the church better." Ah, so now you say that you want people to serve the church better, and also that it is through friendships that we are able to teach others how to serve the church better. But why are friendships the only, or even the best way to achieve this? After all, I have already shown that not everyone can feel comfortable socially in a large group.

"You misunderstood me. What I meant was the I want to serve the church better, and that it is through friendships that we can serve the church better."
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Hi. Sorry but I have not had time to finish this. I shall post this as it is with the point the a community should be understood as having a function first, rather than the commonly held notion of a 'group of friends'.
I have also tried to show that building friendships cannot be the main function of the arts or css community. I leave it to you to think what CSS is in light of this.
I welcome comments, and if you think that the ideas can be further developed, I will write more (perhaps with the idea of publishing it in candle). I'm not sure what you make of this; I'll wait for reactions first.