I'm writing this section with deep appreciation for anarchy, but with some realizations about its limits, at least in the way we tried implementing it. in founding cric house (culture rehabilitation internship center) we wanted to create a real experiment in anarchist utopia. we posited, that some people are ready for anarchy because they don't need any external system of authority or incentives. and in general, when you trust people to operate out of their best selves they would rise to the occasion. I want to talk about the way we failed but not without analogies. the mud room why do we have mud rooms and not just muddy entrance to the house? the mudroom is a "liminal space" in anthropological terms. it means its in between places, where both muddy boots and clean socks are welcomed. in the house no muddy boots are allowed, but the mud room enables the transition. if a muddy entrance was allowed it would be continuously extended into the living space until its all muddy and nobody takes off their boots. I am speaking from experience as I've seen this happen in public spaces in my community. people want to take their boots off but they don't want to step where mud from other boots is on the floor. so they take a step further in to take them off. sometimes, just a line drawn on the ground or a carpet can create that Meetings are not compulsory, so people attend them at first and one by one find something they would rather do than attend. or they might do other things symultaneously, or move in and out of the meeting, or chat at the same time. after a while people stop coming and only ask "what did you guys discuss at the meeting?" down to "was there anything interesting at the meeting?" down to "did anyone go to the meeting?" Oh sleeping together, what radical cuteness. I get so nostalgic looking at these pictures. but guess what, it doesn't last. with time, people get more intune with their sleep schedule and some people like to stay up late and some like to get up early, and they end up needing different sleeping spaces. since its anarchy, and no "bedtime" I wonder if I'm ironically trying to hold on to a favorite part of a song by pausing it when I wish we could just keep loving one another and want to be together to the point, where it doesn't matter what we do, just being together is so fun, that we stay together whereever we go. maybe its just a honeymoon phase and it can't be sustained. as time goes by relationships solidify and start to form cracks until the community all falls apart. but how? we aren't bad people, just like communism, we were too optimistic thinking we could be our best acting from our best intentions. but even the completely "rational" players in economic models can act to shrink the economy under certain conditions. we failed the way many couples fail to grow their love to one another and end up keeping parallel lives. imagine how much harder it is when its way way easier to leave the relationship. love and intentions are just not enough. there needs to be designations of time, of space, and a forum for investment in relationships. love needs maintenance and maintenance needs a schedule. in our new community good things will be scheduled, like celebrations, gratitudes, art, intimacy, work, education, snuggles, even orgies if necessary. there is a basic fallacy here: we think love is something we feel towards people for who they are. its actually what we feel towards people for what the relationship is. we think the value we experience towards community is the sum (or average) of its members. but its not. not at all. its the square sum of COORDINATED love everyone expresses at the same time. and so it went, stupidly recapitulating the economic depression so common in communist countries, instead of give what you can and take what you need it became give what you have to and take all you can. its not hard to hate capitalism, but its not easy to find a successful communist alternative. we totally failed to keep our social economy growing. people don't believe in GOD based on his qualities. they believe in god based on the group power of all the believers around them. there will never be a drive-through church or synagogue and certainly not a "special deal on pagan rituals" or "monotheistic prayers are buy one get one free" religions and social psychologists know its the power of the group that creates faith. but communes don't necessarily get that, or they forget and let people do things on their own until it doesn't feel meaningful anymore like all the unsustainable practices they detest, they too, watch their life giving top soil erode under their feet and wonder why year after year the social fertility goes down until its time to move on. our society teaches us the individualist ethos, often by means of advertisement. we witness images of people "doing their thing" with such confidence and charisma that we think its possible to be a self-contained meaning generator. but these acts, like the one below, though worth millions of dollars and sale boosting, would be considered really weird or even crazy if we witnessed it real life with the normal background of people just walking by
4 Comments
Jim
8/30/2018 08:23:12 pm
Thank you for this thought-provoking piece, I relate to it a lot. I've been attempting to create successful anarchist economic models for around 40 years now. I'm more convinced than ever that it's possible and necessary, and that the key is cultural - the intentional creation of liberating cultural dynamics and processes and protocols. Since culture is a substantially unconscious phenomenon, and very few of us have grown up in egalitarian cultures, we face a chicken-and-egg problem in trying to create successful anarchist culture and economics, when we have never fully experienced it. I think we will eventually get to the point where we have developed the minimum number and quality of effective methods and processes by which we can reach a critical mass and intentionally transform our personal and group cultures, in the ways that are needed to make our egalitarian experiments more consistently successful. Changing culture is hard, the key may be for us to develop a kind of language through which we can more effectively share with each other what we have learned, so that everybody can more effectively learn and utilize and build upon what others have been experiencing.
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11/2/2018 02:06:26 pm
And thanks for your comment, as well. After plenty of decades of social justice activism myself, I continue valuing the need for identifying my spiritual orientation. With all the experience and research I´ve done on alternative models, I certainly was rewarded by my work in Social Services, which in fact introduced me to the 12 step group Recovery MOvement along with taking a range of personal development and self-help workshops including Buddhism and Shamanism. My political activism in some short work stints, and longer citizen support for the PIRGs, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Oxfam, and so on, fueled my interest in shopping at Health food stores, and then joining a food co-op. In New York City, no less.
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11/2/2018 02:19:40 pm
Wonderful to read your reflections. It occurs to me that love is not just in the other, nor in the relationship, but also in our own self-awareness, and spiritual development. My years of interest and involvement, ongoing, in the 12 step Recovery Movement, Non-Violent Communication, and interfaith spirituality with Buddhism, Therapeutic Psychology, Tai Chi, yoga, Christian healing practices, and so on, has all related to my being able to transplant myself and experience very unfulfilling circumstances and able to offer only limited contributions always leading to my spiritual practice.
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