Walpurgis (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} walpurg) wrote in natowelch, |
good advice
"Take the willing, and make an effort to
create communities of solidarity and real power on the smaller scale in which
they find themselves,"
Strangely, this is my dream - which may be slowly turning into reality.
The easiest way to form of subculture is online. The connections, networking and info. flow make it easy. But IMHO it lacks some of the necessary (but not sufficient) criteria for community - namely: proximity.
Our current communities are based in nuclear families. The nuclear family is a brief and unusual blip in human evolution - it hasn't been around long and it isn't our typical state of living. Many people think this isolation and lack of community is a problem and has lead to "atomisation", alienation, extreme individualism and sexual dysfunction. History illustrates our typical state:
"As a fundamental unit, the nuclear family has no special identity in the early environment of human adaption of 110,000 years, nor does it seem to have much of one in the future, if current trends are any indication (since its value as a production unit has now been lost).
In the early environment of adaption (neolithic period), groups of four sizes seem to have existed. The "intimate" group is comprised of significant others (emotional bonds), usually an immediate household unit (symbolic/stylistic bonds) of about five persons.
Next in size is an "effective" group, based upon friendship bonds, which might be comprised of a lineage (material/exchange bonds). Collectives of this type consist of about 20 persons. Twenty is the limit in size for discussion-based decision making, if information technology is not employed."
(quotes from http://secureid.org:8100/Lists/Immo
This would explain I prefer the idea of a group of 10-12 people - it is somewhere between an intimate group and an effective group. When groups get a little bigger (around 30 - known as a "band" or "deme"), individuals acquire a social identity and shared worldview in them. So with enough people you can create a lasting culture out of a small community.
I want a chosen family of friends and lovers, for a free and caring community. I believe my sense of alienation is partially due to physical isolation from loved ones (its at least 2hrs train ride away to someone other than the woman I live with). For sure, extended seperation from loved ones has lead to severe depression - and then a massive high on being reunited.
Even without 30 people, a smaller group can have its own culture and is theoretically immortal.
"Even if one individual leaves or dies, the group's culture can reproduce itself. The fundamental requirement for collective survival is the satisfaction of the basic human needs for sex and companionship."
(from http://secureid.org:8100/Lists/Immo
If our basic needs aren't met, we are living in a way counter to survival - i.e. we are killing ourselves with loneliness and repression. This is probably why suicide is the greatest single cause of violent death around the globe and almost equalled deaths from homicide and war combined in 2000, according to the World Health Organisation.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/he
As Margaret Mead put it: "99 percent of the time that humans have lived on this planet, we've lived in groups of 12-36 people. Only in times of war - or what we have now, which is the psychological equivalent of war - does the nuclear family prevail, because it is the most mobile unit that can ensure the survival of the species. But for the whole flowering of the human spirit, we need groups, tribe, community."
"Take the willing, and make an effort to
create communities of solidarity and real power on the smaller scale in which
they find themselves,"
Strangely, this is my dream - which may be slowly turning into reality.
The easiest way to form of subculture is online. The connections, networking and info. flow make it easy. But IMHO it lacks some of the necessary (but not sufficient) criteria for community - namely: proximity.
Our current communities are based in nuclear families. The nuclear family is a brief and unusual blip in human evolution - it hasn't been around long and it isn't our typical state of living. Many people think this isolation and lack of community is a problem and has lead to "atomisation", alienation, extreme individualism and sexual dysfunction. History illustrates our typical state:
"As a fundamental unit, the nuclear family has no special identity in the early environment of human adaption of 110,000 years, nor does it seem to have much of one in the future, if current trends are any indication (since its value as a production unit has now been lost).
In the early environment of adaption (neolithic period), groups of four sizes seem to have existed. The "intimate" group is comprised of significant others (emotional bonds), usually an immediate household unit (symbolic/stylistic bonds) of about five persons.
Next in size is an "effective" group, based upon friendship bonds, which might be comprised of a lineage (material/exchange bonds). Collectives of this type consist of about 20 persons. Twenty is the limit in size for discussion-based decision making, if information technology is not employed."
(quotes from http://secureid.org:8100/Lists/Immo
This would explain I prefer the idea of a group of 10-12 people - it is somewhere between an intimate group and an effective group. When groups get a little bigger (around 30 - known as a "band" or "deme"), individuals acquire a social identity and shared worldview in them. So with enough people you can create a lasting culture out of a small community.
I want a chosen family of friends and lovers, for a free and caring community. I believe my sense of alienation is partially due to physical isolation from loved ones (its at least 2hrs train ride away to someone other than the woman I live with). For sure, extended seperation from loved ones has lead to severe depression - and then a massive high on being reunited.
Even without 30 people, a smaller group can have its own culture and is theoretically immortal.
"Even if one individual leaves or dies, the group's culture can reproduce itself. The fundamental requirement for collective survival is the satisfaction of the basic human needs for sex and companionship."
(from http://secureid.org:8100/Lists/Immo
If our basic needs aren't met, we are living in a way counter to survival - i.e. we are killing ourselves with loneliness and repression. This is probably why suicide is the greatest single cause of violent death around the globe and almost equalled deaths from homicide and war combined in 2000, according to the World Health Organisation.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/he
As Margaret Mead put it: "99 percent of the time that humans have lived on this planet, we've lived in groups of 12-36 people. Only in times of war - or what we have now, which is the psychological equivalent of war - does the nuclear family prevail, because it is the most mobile unit that can ensure the survival of the species. But for the whole flowering of the human spirit, we need groups, tribe, community."
