The case for communities

Ask a Westerner whether communities are necessary and (s)he'll tell you they are optional and the individual should be free to choose whether (s)he wants to belong to any. So, community membership is supposed to be elective, and communities, especially nations, are to be transcended.

Then ask the same person whether (s)he agrees that highway codes, banking rules, court systems, media freedoms and central budget benefits are optional and you'll get a very different answer. Would (s)he like to drive in a place where people are free to break the highway code? Probably not. Would (s)he put money in a bank that has decided to opt out of the banking community? Absolutely not. Would (s)he live in a place where anyone could smash the editorial office if (s)he disagreed with a newspaper article? That's not a bright idea. Would (s)he agree to live with a court system that tries crime cases on an optional basis? No way. Would (s)he like to live in a transcended national community where local authorities are free to decide whether they will or will not pay social benefits? That sounds like a serious violation of human rights. Would (s)he agree that taxes are optional - also for the wealthy? Certainly not. Can these systems be transcended? It's a crazy notion.

Then what in the world is going on in people's minds?

Though most Westerners maintain that the obligations that come with a community should be optional, they also maintain that none of the rights that come from a community should be optional. Now, rights suppose that other people keep their obligations. In a system of no obligations, there are no rights either. If you transcend communities, you lose rights. Everybody would like to have optional obligations, but nobody would like everyone else to have optional obligations, too. A congruent understanding of communities accepts the mandatory nature of obligations, because everyone meeting their obligations is exactly what gives rise to rights.

So if we put two and two together, there is a very clear case for communities with mandatory membership and obligations.