Self-organisation of the community :: democratic republic or anarchic utopia

This paper examines the implications of widespread behavioural characteristics and values found in human communities for the operation of fuzzy logic in social organisation. It distinguishes between community and society, after Nancy (1991). The paper argues that there are features of human behaviour and values which are so general as to be regarded as fundamental aspects of mankind, notwithstanding some variations in their rankings between and within communities. Amongst these features are mankind's essentially social nature. Communities are comprised of individuals who are interdependent on each other and who interact with each other. The interactions occur according to fundamental patterns of human behaviour and values, notwithstanding the capacity for the exercise of free will and independent action. This understanding of the nature of communities stands in contra-distinction to perspectives that treat people as autonomous individuals. Complexity theory suggests that superior outcomes in a complex adaptive system are to be found at the transition phase between chaos and order, in which there is a moderate level of organisation. The paper presents a case study in which superior outcomes are associated with a significant level of social regulation.