Drabinski, “The Everyday Miracle of the Occasional Community”

• What virtues does Drabinski find in the Dead community?

• How is the Deadhead scene a space of hope opposed to the excesses of modernity?

• What rituals does he find in the Deadhead community?

• What is an occasional community?

• What are the characteristics of (post)modern life?

• What does Marcuse mean when he says that Western culture is “one-dimensional”?

• What “new ethic” do we need to “revive a sense of community, to reconnect across competitive alienation” (32)?  What does ethics (as ethos) mean here?

• Is the personal and familiar nature of the lot false intimacy?

• What is the “ethos of compassion” (35)?

• Do you think the ethos Drabinski identifies in the Dead scene applies to the Phish community as well?  Why or why not?