Kitchens proposes that there is a second source of capital in a coherent community. Community capital is generated by the services and events being offered in this community. These services and events are inclusive and attractive to all members of the community if it is coherent. Regardless of their status in the workplace, all members of the community are invited to events occurring outside the workplace. One finds both the employers and employees at local concerts or at meetings of the city council. Socio-economic lines might still exist, but they are easily crossed without repercussion. Community engagement should be just as democratic and broad-based as democracy inside the workplace.
There is a third source of community capital. Kitchens suggests that this is the specific quality of interactions that take place among those living in a coherent community. These interactions are respectful and inviting for all community members—they are harmonious. The quality of interaction at the table is particularly important and diversity of perspective is welcomed (not just tolerated). Privilege is prevalent, with all members of the community being allowed (even invited) to enter and receive services from the institutions, to participate in the events and to engage in the many diverse relationships that are to be found when all members of the coherent community are interacting with one another. This is what civic virtue is ultimately about and how a coherent community can be created and maintained.
Ron Kitchens provides a brief story of how these three levels of community capital come together. He invites people to watch as he fills a bowl with rocks (representing the first type of community capital). He asks if the bowl can contain anything else. The obvious answer is “No.” Kitchens then adds some pebbles to the bowl (representing the second type of community capital). They settle in among the rocks. The bowl can contain more than the rocks. It can accommodate pebbles.
Kitchen goes one step further. He adds sand to the bowl (representing the third type of community capital). Kitchen demonstrates that a community can be filled to the brim with rocks, pebbles and sand. All three forms of community capital can (and should) exist in what Anonymous has identified as a society’s harmony of interest and what Bellah and his colleagues have identified as a community of coherence. Kitchen’s full bowl provides a compelling secular vision of this harmony and coherence. Rocks, pebbles and sand are essential ingredients in any secular vision of a viable, coherent community. Thank you, Ron Kitchens, Anonymous and Robert Bellah.
