Networks

The essence of networks involving humans is that they are voluntary. This is so even though they can be subsumed for a while within coercive structures. Networks need not be self-declared or even self-aware, and do not necessarily entail direct contact between their human components, even in the case of the more active members of a network. They represent an aggregate of countless individuals appetites, orientations and conscious preferences but need not have or wish for a collective identity. Degrees of personal involvement in a network range from direct, organizational and continuous to fitful, tenuous and passive, while membership of multiple networks is entirely feasible