My guess is that standardization has been more important for you than for the typical member of the church. It sounds like you move a lot more than most members, and so you spend a lot more of your time having just moved somewhere new. Standardization is helpful to build community when you’re traveling or just moved somewhere new, but most people aren’t in those situations all that often.
I also claim that standardization by itself does not build community. There is not a particularly strong community in McDonalds or in airports—despite these being very standardized situations. What standardization does is it reminds you of the similar situations you previously have been in. This allows the sense of community to travel with you between wards. But if your home ward does not feel like a community, going to something that looks similar doesn’t make you suddenly feel at one with them.
I didn’t mention narratives about persecution, and maybe I should have. They don’t feel like a strong contributor to feelings of community for me personally—but I might be unusual here.[1] I’m also not sure how to disentangle narratives of persecution from actual experiences of people treating them differently because they are Mormon. Either way, I don’t think that this is something other groups trying to build community should want to copy.
I think you’re probably right on the topic of standardization—I hadn’t disentangled how important if was to me personally from how generally critical it would be for local community-building.
It may be of value to qualify or Taboo the term “community” here. I understood the question to be “What unique aspects of LDS practice and culture at both the ward, stake, and Church-wide levels have contributed to the formation and maintenance of enduring local and global social structures”. I think your emphasis is on the local community, and my comment had emphasized the more global aspects (likely a consequence of my unique experience, as you point out).
If the question is, instead, “What unique aspects of LDS practice and culture at the ward level have contributed to the formation and maintenance of enduring local social structures, and are recommended for other groups to emulate”, I think you’ve identified all of the prime candidates.
My guess is that standardization has been more important for you than for the typical member of the church. It sounds like you move a lot more than most members, and so you spend a lot more of your time having just moved somewhere new. Standardization is helpful to build community when you’re traveling or just moved somewhere new, but most people aren’t in those situations all that often.
I also claim that standardization by itself does not build community. There is not a particularly strong community in McDonalds or in airports—despite these being very standardized situations. What standardization does is it reminds you of the similar situations you previously have been in. This allows the sense of community to travel with you between wards. But if your home ward does not feel like a community, going to something that looks similar doesn’t make you suddenly feel at one with them.
I didn’t mention narratives about persecution, and maybe I should have. They don’t feel like a strong contributor to feelings of community for me personally—but I might be unusual here.[1] I’m also not sure how to disentangle narratives of persecution from actual experiences of people treating them differently because they are Mormon. Either way, I don’t think that this is something other groups trying to build community should want to copy.
The fact that I post on LessWrong is some evidence that I’m not near the center of the distribution.
I think you’re probably right on the topic of standardization—I hadn’t disentangled how important if was to me personally from how generally critical it would be for local community-building.
It may be of value to qualify or Taboo the term “community” here. I understood the question to be “What unique aspects of LDS practice and culture at both the ward, stake, and Church-wide levels have contributed to the formation and maintenance of enduring local and global social structures”. I think your emphasis is on the local community, and my comment had emphasized the more global aspects (likely a consequence of my unique experience, as you point out).
If the question is, instead, “What unique aspects of LDS practice and culture at the ward level have contributed to the formation and maintenance of enduring local social structures, and are recommended for other groups to emulate”, I think you’ve identified all of the prime candidates.