Bellah and his colleagues (1985, p. 282) have provides their own frame for this caring ingredient of coherence:”
. . . we have never been, and still are not, a collection of private individuals who, except for a conscious contract to create a minimal government, have nothing in common. Our lives make sense in a thousand ways, most of which we are unaware of because of traditions that are centuries, if not millennia, old. It is these traditions that help us to know that it does make a difference who we are and how we treat one another. Even the mass media, with their tendency to homogenize feelings and sensations, cannot entirely avoid transmitting such qualitative distinctions, in however muted a form.”
Building on the frame offered by Bellah, we offer both and secular and sacred vision of community and accompany these visions with a list of ingredients to be found in a coherent community. We begin with the secular vision and its ingredients.
A Secular Vision of Coherence
The secular domain resides in the civic virtues of those residing in a community. This notion of civic virtue is incorporated in the term, Paideia, that Bellah references. Paideia is a vision of community that was first articulated in ancient Greece. As Bellah notes (in our previous quote) this vision refers to the socialization of children through education and the modeling of exemplary behavior, so that the children might become ideal members of their community (the Polis).
Civic Virtue Above the Line
What Bellah fails to mention is that this vision is situated in the upper class of Greece. A socio-economic Line was drawn in these ancient times (as it is in many contemporary societies). An education was offered in Greece to the upper-class children that provided for the refinement of the aristocratic children’s taste in all sciences and the arts (literature, art, theater, etc.). This “liberal” education is provided along with acquisition of the more practical tools of government and the physical tools of athletics and competition. In essence, the youthful upper-class males (and only the males) were “molded” to the ideal of Kalos Kagathos—which in Greek refers to the “beautiful and good.”
In its Ancient Grecian form, Paideia certainly does not provide a secular vision of community that is inclusive. Not everyone is invited to the table of education. This aristocratic vision of civic virtue, however, is aligned with Bellah’s vision of coherence.
“Undoubtedly, the satisfaction of work well done, indeed “the pursuit of excellence.” is a permanent and positive human motive. Where its reward is the approbation of one’s fellows more than the accumulation of great private wealth. it can contribute to what the founders of our republic called civic virtue. Indeed, in a revived social ecology, it would be a primary form of civic virtue.” (Bellah et al., 1985 p. 288)
Bellah and his colleagues (Bellah et al., 1985 p. 288) venture even further. They describe how finding satisfaction in work has a ripple effect throughout the community in which this perspective on work is prominent:
