Problem
Community demoralization
Experimental visualization of narrower problems
Other Names:
Flagging community spiritLow community morale
Debilitating community self-image
Lack of community self-worth
Unfruitful images of community identity
Depressed community will
Embarrassed civic pride
Nature:
Although there is increased concern about recovering the significance of small towns, many self-images of such communities are self-defeating. There is environmental deterioration, with abandoned buildings, overgrown lots, and old ruins witnessing to past glories and present squalor. Many of the vital structures and activities which gave small towns distinct identity have shifted to the larger nearby towns, and many residents have also moved there. Local history classes do not attempt to recapture the history of the local pioneers, there is simply an image of uncertainty for the future, which destroys community goals and ensures that projects fail before implementation even begins. The disparity between the great accomplishments of the past and the sense of oppression of the present becomes immobilizing and overwhelming. Taken together with a deeply fatalistic attitude to life, such primary images ensure that no profound or lasting social and economic change can occur without creative transformation of attitude. Broader Problems:
DemoralizationDeteriorating community identity Narrower Problems:
Drained social urgencyLack of pioneer spiritCrime deters improvementShrinking community lifeCommunity under-fulfilmentOppressive prevalent imagesUndermined citizen confidenceDetrimental story of community futureContinuing expectation of community declineDemoralizing image of urban community identityDemoralizing images of rural community identity Aggravates:
Resignation to problemsDisincentives to inventionMistrust of communal commitmentUnderutilization of popular wisdomDistrust of professional service deliverySelf-defeating style of community planningDiscrimination against community enterprisesDeclining community confidence in its ability to change Reduced By:
LibertarianismStrategies:
Exhausting moral resourcesRomanticizing communal lifePromoting community self-confidenceSustaining community moraleForging distinctive community identityOvercoming debilitating situationsAbstaining from community valuationLowering morale Subject(s):
Society → CommunitiesSocietal Problems → Scarcity
Government → Civil
Government → Citizenship
Psychology → Psychology
Psychology → Imagery
Individuation → Individuation
Individuation → Psychoanalysis
Innovative change → Change
Innovative change → Appropriateness
Related UN Sustainable Development Goals:
Problem Type:
F: Fuzzy exceptional problems Date of last update
16.02.1999 – 00:00 CET