Community as an end in itself is essentially totalitarian

Evidence

Declaring togetherness as such the goal indicates that one has forgotten about the substance of community: a humane arrangement of the world. The cult of community as an end-in-itself belongs to the National Socialists and the people’s democracies in the Russian style. It is essentially totalitarian: within it, the tendency towards the oppression of the individual constantly resonates. However, a real community would be one of free human beings. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 997

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A paradigm-shifting inversion: the communitarian ideal itself, when detached from substantive human emancipation, is diagnosed as structurally totalitarian — inverts most progressive and conservative community ethics at once.
• XREF: Connects to Marcuse’s repressive tolerance and to the debate between communitarians and liberals; also resonates with Adorno’s Minima Moralia. — connects to: Communitarian personhood defines identity through community rather than the Cartesian I — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 434; Ethnically absolutist communitarianism produces its own violence
• SEED: Article angle: ‘The Totalitarian Cult of Community’ — tracing how togetherness-as-end has served fascisms of left and right, and what genuine community would require.

Broader Connections

• Communitarian personhood defines identity through community rather than the Cartesian I #complicates (0.80) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 434
• Ethnically absolutist communitarianism produces its own violence #exemplifies (0.80)