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Community, on the other hand, is essential. We decry society's "demands," but we seek the "support" community offers. Society is impersonal, cold, and oppressive; community is redolent of maternal snugness, warmth, and goodwill. If one is "in community," one floats in the warm, amniotic fluid of caring and sharing. Conversely, belonging to no community strikes us as about the most miserable fate that can befall a person.

This shift in vocabulary has had, in fact, some beneficial practical effects. For one thing, it re focuses our attention closer to home, puts our imaginations to work on local problems like neighborhood crime and school bond elections. But semantic shifts can also disguise intractable problems, allowing us to pretend we have dealt with a difficulty when in reality we have merely renamed it. Whatever the brochure had called it, I was certain that what happened in the museum auditorium that afternoon had not been a conversation, nor did its participants constitute a community.

What took place in the museum under the banner of conversation might more accurately have been called a drama. Visualize, if you will, the stars of the cast: four panelists who sit on a low stage up front. They are assisted, in classical fashion, by the chorus, made up largely of two groups wearing T-shirts, one group in purple, the other in black. The shirts are emblazoned with the names of two separate coalitions against the death penalty. From time to time, lone speakers will emerge from the audience in the not-so-classical tradition of guerrilla theater.

But this opening act belongs to the panelists. The first, a white-haired woman who served in the Texas legislature for five years and once ran for governor, tells us she came to be an death-penalty abolitionist by education and family tradition. Still, she says, "I continue to test this position against every horrendous murder that takes place in this state, including most recently the despicable dragging death of James Byrd in Jasper last year." But not even James Byrd's murderers should be executed for their crime, she concludes, because "the ability to be transformed is the ultimate identifying mark of humanity," and execution forecloses the possibility of such transformation. Clearly resonating with these sentiments, the audience hums like a well-tempered tuning fork.

The next panelist, Huntsville's district attorney, provides the first complication for the dramatic action. A handsome man with dark longish hair and a beard, he is the panel's sole proponent of the death penalty. He too mentions his early education and family tradition. Surprisingly, he was schooled in the pacifism of the Church of the Brethren. That he felt compelled to break so decisively with such a background suggests, he says, how deeply his personal experiences at the bar have affected his beliefs.

At this, the audience stirs restlessly. As if to mitigate their distrust, the attorney adds that he still keeps up a personal correspondence with one of the men he sent to Death Row 14 years ago. The audience, unimpressed, maintains a stony silence.

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