One of those few books that come up from left field and drastically challenge your paradigm

Even though Peck addresses, of course, his contemporary pet peeves and global issues, and the topography has shifted (in ways he’d recognize as progressive AND regressive), his call is ever more salient and perhaps too urgent to be ignored.
Say what you will about his specifics, but Peck posits a big fat grain of truth that demands attention. And, in his terminology, our global society has been as assiduously “task-avoidant” as possible in answering his call.

I read this in my early twenties after the Road less travelled. It impacted my identity, because I wasn't in the "mainstream" and I was the black sheep of my family and as most 2o somethings checking things out. I thought "aha, I"m not the only one!" It was encouraging.

What an extraordinary book! As I was reading, it occurred to me that I was finding out information and gathering tools about community that I had never been taught in church or Bible College. It was remarkable to read Dr. Peck's approach to community that is only achieved through emptiness, and how difficult this is for most people. I get that! Emptying ourselves of our prejudices, biases, our need to solve, fix, control and convert are all so much more difficult than putting down a connection to look for something easier elsewhere. The ability to recognize community by its ability to be silent together also spoke volumes to me as a Spiritual Director - silence can do so much heavy lifting in our relationships.
I would recommend this book for those who are wondering why they're not getting that deep sense of community from the church they attend and are really interested in what progressing toward community actually looks like. This will be a perspective that you likely haven't heard and, while the book is 40 years old, I found many of his observations about the church, culture and North America to still be on point. The book is well written, easy to follow and not overly scholarly. I admit that I'm a bit disappointed that he seems to be deliberately vague on his community building curriculum, but I can understand that a man has to make a buck! Keep pressing into discomfort, friends!

This is a great read! Just have a pen/pencil in hand to mark so many important and well-said ideas! I underlined and starred so much of this book. I love how Scott Peck addresses the stages of spiritual growth and how as adults we continue to mature and change. He says, "all change is a kind of death, and all growth requires that we go through depression".
I also loved how Peck talked about the importance of vulnerability necessary in community. He says, "In building community, some brave soul always has to start. There must, in truth, be initiatives. One by one people genuinely risk rejection...as they escalate the group into ever deeper levels of vulnerability and honesty".

The Different Drum engaged my thoughts consistently and to significant depth. I couldn’t read without evaluating the various communities of which I’ve been a part, whether we were close to his ideals or far from them.

After extensive empirical studies, Peck is able to break down community building into four general steps:

1) pseudo-community, in which people think being nice and avoiding conflict is what determines community

2) chaos, during which people express various dissatisfactions and conflict arises

3) emptiness, which evolves into a space within which members can speak and be heard, listen and hear

4) community, which admittedly I’m still not quite clear on. Generally, this final stage appears to be a place where members are able to live in general unity while still allowing conflict because they have learned how to work toward resolution without fear and defensiveness.

Within these categories, Peck describes additional steps and tendencies, and one I find particularly noteworthy is part of the transition to the stage of emptiness. Reactions to the chaos stage vary, but one I can identify as common to my experience is an “attempt to convert or heal,” which is characterized by people assuming the answers they have found for themselves should and will satisfy others. Until these individualized answers can be let go, true listening and hearing isn’t happening and the full emptiness that allows growth has not been achieved.

I have described only a few points from the first third of the book. Like the other Peck book I’ve read, The Road Less Traveled, Peck establishes a compelling foundation and uses it to work toward broader application, pushing toward an ideal that stretches the edges of my imagination. In The Different Drum, he envisions an ideal that I suppose could be called global community. Written and published during the last decade of the Cold War, Peck analyzes the behaviors of government against the traits of true community and sees trouble ahead if political behaviors and governments remain entrenched in their ways of thinking. As if a personal level of challenge isn’t enough, the scope of Peck’s application shows that after some hard work, there is still more work to be done. It is both inspiring and daunting.

Mother Teresa, when she won the Nobel Peace Prize, was asked "How can we have world peace?" She answered, "Go home and love your families." This book expounds on that concept.

Sounds like such a simple thing -- just get people to live in community in peace. Yeah, right. Peck understands the difficulties of that challenge, yet he seems to have found a way to achieve positive results. However, I'm not sure it's as easy as just reading his book and following a recipe. You have to be a very skilled person, with a real knack for working with people and knowing the right thing to say (or not say) at the right time. Developing those kinds of skills don't just happen overnight from reading a book. Having said that, I think the book is a wonderful start and is certainly a good guide through the process. It's worth a read if you are in the position of trying to unify a group of people into a valid community.

Non-fiction: social concerns.

It was raining. I remember standing around smoking with Scottie under a porch at Emory. He was a great chain smoker, tall and thin, lovely sense of humor, and quite warm. Must have been circa 1984-85. I enjoyed his workshop - all on the topic of this book. Funny though, now, many years later, I don't remember much about the book. His first two, Road and n  People of the Lien (have never tired of telling the story of the boys and the Christmas gun), made a much deeper impression. Come to think of it - I put 1987 down as the reading date - but I must have read it earlier - unless, I'm only thinking I must have since I attended the conference.

It had some valuable insights. Near the end, it got political. I read it for the sake of finishing the book, but I wasn'ta huge fan. He claims it isn't political, but it seemed political to me. He comes to a conclusion based on his principles and virtues, but they were painted as truth and not opinions. I think family/friend relationships and relationships between entire countries are a bit different in such a way that the methods used to facilitate community making wouldn't function the same when extrapolated.

The other 2/3rds of the book were great, though. I learned a lot and I would read the book again.

I am surprised that Peck's other books have so many reviews and this one has so few in comparison. This is another excellent book by Peck. There are some authors that resonate so deeply with me that I try to read most of their work. Peck is one of those authors. In this book he offers some extraordinary insights about community.
-Amos Smith (author of Healing The Divide: Recovering Christianity's Mystic Roots)

If you are interested in the power of community-building, read this book! BUT: the process requires a minimum of three days, and it is NOT an easy process for anybody attending it...