Today we all belong to many groups, and this raises questions of allegiance and what ultimately constitutes society. It is important also to make distinction between gesselschaft and gemeinschaft . Gemeinschaft is about the informal kinds of collective relationships usually associated with community, while gesselschaft refers to more formal, contractual institutional relationships. Noddings feels that public schools in the last half of the twentieth century have been closer to gesselschaft and that isn't all bad. Nevertheless one can see what people have been missing.
Citizens have mainly negative rights and obligations.
In other forms of liberalism we find greater or lesser tension between liberty and equality. There are many schools that accuse liberalism of overemphasizing the autonomy of individuals, among other reasons because their view of persons is faulty, perceiving them as more rational decision makers than they really are. Communitarianism recognizes persons as social and cultural entities longing to belong, and puts an emphasis on the moral power of traditions. People might also fall into morally questionable groups which use words which can become frightening such as loyalty, courage, love and duty. Individuals sometimes may leave such communities, but that is not easy and it still doesn't necessarily stop the community from doing evil.