I am reading an essay from Robert Bellah called, "Community, Commitment, and Individuality" and he mentions the phrase "community of memory and hope". What does he mean by this? Explaining it in simpler words would be very helpful! :)

Question

Thanks!!!!!!

Answer 1

<<Again, many people who talk like this don't act like it. A successful California lawyer who has sustained a long marriage and was accustomed to explain all his action in cost-benefit terms was finally pressed in our interview to see that no interest maximizing calculus could really account for what was in those terms an irrational commitment. In other words, no marriage that lasts thirty years is that exciting all the time. And so at last he affirmed that his happiness with his wife comes from "proceeding through all of these stages together. It makes life meaningful and gives me the opportunity to share with somebody, have an anchor, if you will, and understand where I am. That, for me, is a real relationship." Here he is groping inadequately but groping, I think clearly, for words that would express the sense that his marriage is a genuine community of memory and hope-a context that actually helps him define who he is, part of his identity, and not merely a forum in which an empty self maximizes its satisfactions.>>

I seems he defined it himself in that paragraph. Reread what I put in bold.

Paraphrase it this way" a genuine grouping of memories, and hope for the future"

Answer 2

Thank you soo much. It was very useful!!