Brilliant on community , white anted by Jesus glasses

Really really good ideas on the importance of community plus solid suggestions how to do same. Skip the religious blather and focus on human beings and thus is a stunningly excellent book

The Different Drum is about building authentic community. M. Scott Peck describes what community has meant for him in his life and why it can be transformational in our lives as well. He then discusses his journey in discovering community and learning how to create it, explains how we can create authentic community, and shows how the weaknesses of human nature and lack of true community in the world have led to some of the world’s most pressing problems (and, hopefully, how a push for authentic community could lead to a solution).

I found The Different Drum to present timeless truths in a dated context, if that makes any sense. Peck’s ideas about community are still as true as they were when he wrote this book in the early 1980s, but the language and examples he uses to describe it are often a product of his time. The arms race is a focal point of the book –and while I still find the military-industrial complex to be one of the world’s greatest issues, far fewer people today are ready to admit that human existence hangs in the balance than they were in 1983 when the Cold War was at its height and nuclear annihilation seemed only a button away. Peck’s theology was a work in progress at the time (as is all of ours), but he is honest and open enough about what he believes that there’s probably something in here to make everyone feel uncomfortable, or at least that he’s identifying a little too much with the milieu of the 1970s and 80s. However, if you’re willing to suspend judgment about the language and the examples, there is a LOT of good in this book. Real community is something that most of us are missing in most of our relationships. M. Scott Peck has hit on some of the basic reasons why this is true, and if we and the people we interact with are willing to take his advice on how to address this, I do believe that the world could change.

This is an amazing book; a book about community building and an ode to individuality.
The author writes that we live in a time in which our need for community has become critical. But not every group of humans is community; this book is about what makes communities genuine.
The bottom line is that exclusivity is the great enemy to community. There is more to it, because “a [true] community includes members with many different points of view and the freedom to express them, it comes to appreciate the whole of a situation far better than an individual, couple, or ordinary group can”. The principles of this book can be applied to small clubs, companies or even countries.
This is a must-read book for everyone but, especially, for people in leadership position.

Superb, practical guidance, with excellent case studies, on forming community.

I listened to an abridged audiobook edition of this book, which was 3-4 hours long. While some parts of the book felt a bit dated (the music between sections ruled though) I think that today in 2025 there is still some good gems in here about what community truly is. It isn't necessarily your neighbors or your family or your church, but how you relate and move together within a group that makes a real community.

Great book

This book came highly recommended by my brother. I checked it out at the library, but never got around to reading. Then, while I was visiting a favorite rock shop in Eugene, OR during Christmas break, I found a used copy for four dollars. I've been reading it slowly . . . I've yet to see if it will have the same effect on me that it had on him.


****

I've read bits and pieces on and off, but I never quite got into it. Maybe it's not the right time for this book. I'll let it wait until another day.

model i've used for years and years about life...

an early inspiration for social change

Wonderful. Dr Peck is the man! This one really helps you get perspective on how the sense of community and overall mores have eroded since the age of industrialism and ultimately prosperity

One of my top 10 books of all time

This book is a must read for anyone who seeks true collaboration and understanding in this self-righteous world. Dr. Peck always reminds me that how I live is a choice, and i have the power to choose love.

This book is beneficial for anyone who wishes to facilitate group process or in the very least, small groups of community (gatherings, AA meetings, etc). Part I, while holding a strong religious bent, serves this purpose well and I see why it was assigned reading for my graduate level courses. Part II, however, is a long-winded sermon where Peck assumes that his god is the only one and it oversees all the other religions as well. He posits that all of us, even the atheists, just have trouble with his god, and then veers off the track further by discussing his opinions on foreign policy, his opinion on church and state (hint: its enraging), the arms race, and further inserting his god into greek mythology where it doesn't belong.

I don't often rip into authors like this, but Peck would be better served saving his sermons for churches where it belongs, rather than using his psychiatric career as a soap box for his spiritual and political beliefs. This book is rife with contradiction and contrivances, and anyone familiar with Peck's other work, 'People of the Lie,' will recognize his fervent use of the word "evil" to describe that which he either lacks the capacity to understand or empathize with (which, as a psychiatrist, he's rather duty-bound to do?).

Furthermore his ideas on the stages of spiritual growth seem in tandem to Robert Kegan's stages of social development, with Peck's final stages (III and IV) harkening to Kegan's stage 4, the self-authoring mind, in a confusingly compartmentalized yet simultaneous fashion. What separates Peck's stages III and IV? Indeed, atheists versus devout christian mystics, the former of which Peck claims are "cowed" by the latter christians. In contrast, Kegan's theory is far more eloquent and advanced, making this section of Peck's work seem puerile and polarized in comparison.

In summary, part I of this book is the real worth of its page weight.