IS COMMUNITY CENTRAL TO WHO WE ARE?

I read an article by Nancy Kaffer from the Detroit Free Press on January 25, 2020. It is partly a review of a tv show called "The Good Place" and partly her reflecting on what is important in life as portrayed in "The Good Place." The premise is that we need to build up points for good behaviors to get to the "good place." Yet another question comes out about what do we owe to each other? Nancy Kaffer wonders if we owe each other "radical inclusion" that says every human life holds equal value, and that we need to practice radical empathy as Grace Lee Boggs [an author, social activist, philosopher and feminist] challenges all of us to ask what it means to be a more human, human being. 

Kaffer then reflects on how it can be difficult to be good as we are more aware of the unwanted consequences of our good decisions that end up reinforcing negative outcomes like income inequality and racism. She discusses a drop in attendance at churches but now a growing awareness of the importance of "community" in defining our obligation [relationship] to each other and that "proximity" helps us to see the humanity in those we might otherwise see as "other." Finally, Kaffer refers to an unnamed activist who recommends that we "love our neighbor as we love ourselves." A shift from "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" as it might be that to love others we need to love our selves. This loving ourselves might allow us to be able to live empathically as we recognize each other's "essential humanity," regardless of our skin color or country of origin, so that we can see others as fully human as we see ourselves.

So, is it important to us homo sapiens sapiens that we feel part of a community and does that require that we allow ourselves to be close enough to others to see them as just like we are [humans] and then be open to loving them as our neighbors and as we love ourselves? Would we then automatically include all others into our community and feel an empathic connection to them? What do you think?