The problem with our modern sense of community is the social organism is primarily based on collective responsibility, with rights as reward. The problem is that when our modern society was first being imagined, a few hundred years ago, the costs of being irresponsible were obvious, so the debate only focused on rights. Unfortunately modern technological efficiencies have created enough economic excess that the need to be responsible and the costs of being irresponsible are not as severe, so the conversation has gone toward how to grant everyone universal rights, while assuming responsibility to be fairly optional.

Though the sense of commitment and responsibility to one's group has a lot more to do with one's acceptance of the group's existential claims, than the time and energy required to examine those claims. Only when we can afford to sit around and study our bellybutton, do the more existential issues arise.

These claims might well be absurd in many ways, but they do serve as a focal point to the community in an otherwise chaotic and confusing world. Sort of like the grain of sand around which a pearl forms.

Once this takes hold and the community/pearl has started to develop, there is no changing the core totem/grain of sand. Though it does tend to fracture and form branching communities, as the society grows. Now that we have bumped up against the limits of how our society has grown, like bacteria reaching the edge of the petri dish, the fractures are pushing through all the various fault lines of how we perceive ourselves and our community.