M. Scott Peck, "The Different Drum"

"To follow the drum of community making and peace is to march to vibrations very different from those of the drum of war-making."

The Different Drum defines community in a very specific and real sense and outlines concrete examples and ways to make communities at various levels in society. Community, according to Peck, achieves status as a true community when it is inclusive, has integrity, is contemplative, is able to arrive at consensus, and allows for conflict based in love and understanding. In order to attain this level of community, a group must go through stages including pseudocommunity, or a portrayal of community that is faked by its participants, chaos, a time where the group is struggling into their new community paradigm, emptiness, when prejudices and preconceptions are broken down, and finally community. Peck realizes that we are lacking this real sense of community at a societal level, due in large part to structural underpinnings of undisciplined individualism, and that we are in desperate need of it. The idea is not to homogenize the plurality of our world, but rather to strive for integration in which plurality is embraced. Peck not only discusses transformative ways to achieve community at local levels but also how to perceive larger institutions, such as the arms race, the government, and religion from a community making perspective. The reader is given new insights into our current social and mental constructs as well as practical and optimistic inroads to a peaceful future.

Citation Information:
Peck, M. S. (1987). The different drum: Community-making and peace. New York: Simon and Schuster.