woolly individuality

AKMA wrote "Or does the kind of intellectual integrity that I stake my life (my identity) on make no difference?" and later followed it up with a discussion of Tom's thoughts on the woolly individuality of bloggers. That is what I would like to think we are about--intellectual integrity and woolly individuality. And I think we are making new spaces for that. But we can never fully escape the problem of social control. Liturgical Churches have traditionally had some method of corporate discernment of the validity of individual spiritual experiences, because there is a suspicion that people who go off on their own will be led astray. I want to just believe in my own experience, but I understand that from an institutional point of view that can be too unstable. To what extent does any community have to function to smooth out our woolly individuality?