In genuine community

Here's more from the chapter The True Meaning of Community from M. Scott Peck's book "The Different Drum, Community Making and Peace":

"In genuine community there are no sides. It is not always easy, but by the time they reach community the members have learned how to give up cliques and factions. They have learned how to listen to each other and how not to reject each other.

Sometimes concensus in community is reached with miraculous rapidity. But other times it is arrived at only lengthy struggle. Just because it is a safe place does not mean community is a place without conflict. It is however a place where conflict can be resolved without physical or emotional bloodshed and with wisdom as well as grace. A community is a group that can fight gracefully.

That this is so so is hardly accidental. For community is an amphitheater where the gladiators have laid down their weapons and their armor, where they have become skilled at listening and understanding, where they respect each others' gifts and accept each others' limitations, where they are committed to a struggling together rather than against each other. It is a most unusual battleground indeed. But that is also why it is an unusually effective ground for conflict resolution."