Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

by A.J. Swoboda

Cultural philosopher Zygmunt Bauman has discussed the two kinds of community people often enter into in this modern world: “peg communities” and “ethical communities.” Peg communities, Bauman writes, are communities forged by disconnected spectators around a mutually loved experience like a rock concert or a sporting match. Their participation is a feeling or a sense around something shared. Ethical communities, in stark contrast, are long-term commitments that are marked by the giving up of rights and service. In short, ethical communities are built on relationships of responsibilities.7 These are relationships formed by commitment, love, covenant, and even familial fidelity. One of the fundamental shifts in our social matrix is that our relationships are increasingly made up of the peg communities rather than ethical communities.