A teaching subject Book

I fear that Harris’ ideal of the city as the model of community, with many different groups all living and working together—like the university that includes janitors and academic vice-presidents, students and adjuncts and archival preservationists—may be fading. Cites are becoming choices. Austin is a Texas choice and Hyde Park even more so. In the D.C. area, there’s an almost palpable different between Maryland and Virginia residents. With our computer-assisted occupational mobility, potential residents can scope out the yoga studios and Whole Foods offerings in a town (or the gun ranges and American flags in the yards) and decide whether the space is “right for them.” I don’t mean to belabor the locality point, but I think it’s emblematic of the way that our society specialized in and out of work. We used to all watch the Big Three news channels: now we watch the news that agrees with us. Less and less are there community forums for students to address. Instead, should be teach them to capitulate with whatever status quo they adore, or do we insist that they compete to win over the haters? Harris’ “specific and material” view of community “allows for consensus and conflict” (106) because “they are simply thrown together” (107). I think more and more, people are choosing not to deal with conflict—they’d rather just pick up and move.