Passing Judgment on Tech

What sort of qualities define a community? Is it a large group of people that unite under a single banner to achieve a goal? Or maybe it is just a circumstantial coincidence that a certain amount of people who just happen to be fighting for a more selfish end? What if a community is just a facade for others to take advantage of those not as capable in the group to use at their own disposal?

As the different discussions have progressed along, both in small groups and class discussions, as well as the commentary provided by the various readings from Graham Day and M. Scott Peck, one consensus, or at least an observation, that seems to be appearing is the fact that a community is a place where a group of people come together, under a common goal, and sacrifice parts of themselves for their participation in something larger than themselves. Sure, there are discrepancies between the size of this group, and maybe the fact that they have a like-mindedness towards the goal, and even the level of commitment that each has towards the group. But what is to say that everyone in this "community" has a benevolent mindset towards the others in the community? Who's to say that some in the group will not "throw" some less "useful" of the group "under the bus" or break some pre-existing rules in order to achieve their goals and possibly ruin everything else for their own ideals?

How does one associate a "community" versus a "group"? Are all of the freshmen at Tech a "community", when the only thing that many can relate to one another is that they have the same classes or are going to the same school, maybe passing by each other on the way to classes? What about the 200+ people who sit in on lectures of various math or chemistry or physics classes? It is pretty clear that everyone who is taking these classes want to at least pass them, if not excel. However, how many of them will stop and consider the honor code and compromise the integrity of not only their work, but also the work of the person they are copying off of during that physics test worth 20% of their grade, after a night of Red Bulls and cramming, to pass that test? Also, how many of those students will allow this to happen? In a hypothetical situation in which we are all in a community, does that mean that the other students should one another copy off of each other? As a community of freshmen, in a certain class in which our common goal is to pass the class, is this ok? What is wrong with this picture? Or even looking at this as a larger picture, does the means justify the end result? If Tech decided to not sell tickets to the UGA fans at the rivalry game, to gain the ultimate advantage, would that be ok? It would be part of the "community goal" of beating UGA that is such a large part of the Tech spirit and culture. Would anyone in the community speak up and say, "Hey, this is not right. We should do something about it." when it is in their best interest to beat UGA as well. In this light, Tech is not a community, and more like an association of students, faculty, and staff who learn and teach and push for the intellectual envelope, not a group that would do whatever it takes to push the community and its common ideals to fruition.