Reading suggestions regarding communal philosophy

[Eydawn]

I think it is possible for it to work, but only if the individuals in question are fully committed to making it happen. My husband and I are not good candidates for something like this, as we've discovered that he doesn't work well with other roommates, especially male friends, in his space. We already live fairly communally as far as the garage goes, as we're one of the only folks in our group of friends with a useable garage space and everyone's a home mechanic type... and it works great for the most part until someone loses a tool or gets pissed coz they've been working on the damn Probe for the last 3 days and can't stand ANYONE let alone each other for another minute...

I like having my own space. I've discovered this since our last roommate (one of our male buddies' gf's) moved out. Communal living requires you to sacrifice certain privacies/privileges in order to gain others. Don't get me wrong- I *loved* living in the dorms in college... but I much prefer my own home, with my own husband, where we can shut out the world for time to time and regain our bearings. When you live in close community with others you are invariably affected by "group mentality"- not saying that's always bad, for example, we've got some awesome group think about EMS going on here at EMTCity and it'd very progressive. When you get down to the nuts and bolts of daily living, boy, you better be close and really committed to working out the bumpy bits with the others... otherwise, there's invariably ruffled feathers and pissed off people. And the stress that goes along with it.

Wendy

CO EMT-B

[Kiwiology]

Sure; as long as I can walk around naked, take a shit with the door open, brush my teeth while taking said shit, have a wank and leave dishes soaking in the sink count me in

I'll be respectful and play my music through headphones, see, I'm not a total bastard

Oh and have somebody on 24 hour lookout for the ATF and other Federal people ...

Edited January 15, 2012 by kiwimedic

[DwayneEMTP]

To answer above....

I have no issues with public breast feeding, but commonly accepted standards of polite conduct should be the norm I think. Men and women will shave and maintain an acceptable appearance. No hairy armpits or legs on women, no flip flops/sweat pant/5 day beards on the men.

And in a more progressive community I think that people should all have functions that disallows knitting hats as a full time activity. I imagine internet business, production/sales of items, recroutment responsibilities, etc.

To be healthy I believe that you need to produce. I've known no one without responsibilities that are healthy and happy.

Also, to privacy, that's why I think that a hotel would work well. Kiwi can shit and wank as he likes, couples can....couple, as they choose.

Afg and Mongolia, and certainly my childhood time with the Hell's Angels has convince me that we've been brainwashed to believe that 'life' happens in the privacy of our homes. And that's not true I think, or if it is, why do we spend so much time planning, and spending large amounts of money, to leave it?

Lack of life most often happens in the privacy of our homes I think. Where there is TV to suck up our spare time so that we can pretend to be fulfilled while truly only punching another hole in our life time card.

I think that respect for privacy is vital, but again, we've been raised to cherish our privacy to the point where we've come to believe that privacy is life, instead of a vital escape from it. Being productive, creative, and socializing is truly what gives our lives richness, isn't it?

Some of my richest adult life happened in Afg. We had little 6'x8' rooms made out of plywood, your neighbor the span of 1/2 inch piece of plywood from you, yet life was really good for those of us that chose to look to the positive instead of the negative. You rose in the morning, spent the day treating patient after patient next to those that you respected, (as well as some douchebags) and in some cases came to love, then watched movies, or played cards, or just dinked around, and explored life until it was time to sleep, which you did in your tiny, though private quarters....it wasn't bad really, considering where we all were. How much better could it be if you have the less limitted social options, a more comfortable place to sleep, were able to oust the douchebags, outside of a war zone?

Pretty interesting discussion from my point of view...thanks to you all for taking the time to participate!

Dwayne

[chbare]

What is wrong with women not shaving? Body hair is a natural, biological function. The only issue I can appreciate is one that is imposed due to social dogma with no significant biological basis.

[DwayneEMTP]

What is wrong with women not shaving? Body hair is a natural, biological function. The only issue I can appreciate is one that is imposed due to social dogma with no significant biological basis.

I don't mean to imply that there is anything biologically or socially wrong with it. I don't understand what dogma would be attached to body hair?

My personal experience with American women with hairy armpits/legs is that they tend to belong to one of two types of groups in general. The first is lazy, unprofessional, with little self respect. They claim to be hairy for many reasons, but it appears that laziness is their main motivation. For, what seems to me to be, obvious reasons I don't find those that would choose to live in this category acceptable company for me and my family. Nor do I believe that they would be terribly productive members of a community.

The other is from the radical female factions. The more radical feminists, and or radically regressive hippies. For this group these issues seem to be the center of their lives and focus on 'me' and the injustices that must be attacked and overcome. I've not know either group to really be at peace, nor have being at peace a main focus of their lives.

I also don't believe that there is anything wrong with the man that goes shopping in old sweatpants and flip flops or his slippers. But I do believe that that speaks to his ambition and his possible lack of self respect.

If one is focused on their hairy arms/armpits, against perfumes/deoderants, unwilling to shave their face or put on proper pants,....I wish them nothing but happiness and success in their lives...I just simply don't want to live with them nor have them as adult examples for our children.

I've not judged them inferior, nor me superior, only different in ways that I find important. I've chosen to live amongst like minded people, and my personal experience is that they are not like me. See what I mean?

Though this thinking makes sense to me, and seems to lend it'self to paving a logical path to creating a peaceful colony of like minded people, it also gives me a tickle of having something inherintly flawed in it...I just can't see what it is...

Dwayne

[chbare]

The problem with focusing on like mindedness is that we can have a tendency to become too homogenous. Creativity and diversity can lead down significantly different and productive avenues. For example, many of the greatest ideas and advances of human existence came from people who were highly unconventional to say the least. Look at people like Schrodinger, Newton, Socrates, Dirac and Feynman. They all had very different and counter-cultureish lifestyles, yet their ideas changed the course of human civilisation. Heck, even forced suicide, the fall of ancient civilisation and hundreds of years of religious oppression could not wipe away ancient Greek philosophy.

Edit: "from"

Edited January 15, 2012 by chbare

[DwayneEMTP]

So would it be your opinion then, when attemtping to create such a community as is being discussed here, that there be no boundaries or standards?

At what point does a person draw lines?

Can you invision a successful community such as this surviving, and thriving, solving social, political, physical, fiscal issues, when like mindedness isn't considered?

Truly asking, not sniping.

I think that the issues we're discussing go beyond personal preference as well and into recruitment. Based on the history of previous planned communities it's expected that people will come and go when the times are right for them, so recruitement has to be considered, planned and ongoing. It seems to me that these types of standards can only be good for that when progressiveness is considered?

Dwayne

[chbare]

I never said that we should ignore standards; however, basing standards on arbitrary, sweeping generalisations is probably not a sound method. My take is to look at the evidence and identify behaviours that are clearly pernicious and carefully develop a road map based on the evidence.

As far as "like mindedness," it's a mixed bag IMHO. The very differences and wide diversity of human societies often lead to conflict, while at the same time, lead to great discoveries. However, my initial concern remains. We develop a society that lacks diversity with too much of a focus on "like mindedness," and we develop a living situation that ultimately limits creativity, self expression and the advancement of new ideas.

I appreciate the discussion.

[DwayneEMTP]

...

I never said that we should ignore standards; however, basing standards on arbitrary, sweeping generalisations is probably not a sound method....

I don't think that they are arbitraty, but common American grooming standards for much, if not most of polite, educated society. Or am I still missing something?

...My take is to look at the evidence and identify behaviours that are clearly pernicious and carefully develop a road map based on the evidence...

I think that an excellent plan. But I'm unaware of any body of evidence based information that would point me in the right direction, exactly my reason for this thread. Are you aware of such a thing?

...As far as "like mindedness," it's a mixed bag IMHO. The very differences and wide diversity of human societies often lead to conflict, while at the same time, lead to great discoveries. However, my initial concern remains. We develop a society that lacks diversity with too much of a focus on "like mindedness," and we develop a living situation that ultimately limits creativity, self expression and the advancement of new ideas...

I agree completely in an unplanned society. But do you feel the same issue arrises when the like mindedness that is desired is exactly the type of mind/personality that relishes in creativity and the advancement of new ideas?

Conflict can certainly spawn amazing creativity, but a think tank is not the goal, but a peaceful, mind/spirit enriching place to spend one's days. I completely believe that peacefulness breeds creativity, and am for the time being going to presume that the examples are numerous enough so as not to be stated here.

Perhaps such a like minded community will be devoid of the type of creativity that conflict can sometimes create, but in conclict you rarely have any human benifit other than learning to submit, to overcome, or to learn to be better at battling. There are massive negatives scattered about with finite positives, not the soup to try and create harmony from I think.

Besides, even if we could choose the exact perfect person for each position, chaos theory, amonst a massive body of other evidence guarantees that conflict will erupt. There is no perfect formula for such a community, only the best guess of the types of personalities that might be kind, intelligent, and committed enough to understand that they are stepping into a tornado from which they need to somehow gather the materials needed to make a home. And then, disciplined enough to keep their eye on the price even while the wind is howling.

I'm not really looking for the people that will fall together into the perfect family, but those that may be able to look around, and draw a map for those that follow. That will be able to accept that landmarks need to be lay so that measurements can be taken to judge the advance or decline of our stated goals. Initially it will have to be populated with builders instead of those that just simply want to belong. It's a tough nut to crack I think, but I intend to hammer the shit out of it to see if I can get it open.

...I appreciate the discussion.

Man, I'm flattered that you've chosen to participate.

Dwayne

[Eydawn]

So how do you set up community guidelines? At what point do you deem that someone's creativity (shit stirring) is detrimental to the overall goal, and how do you determine that? How do you boot someone who no longer fits the program?

People may work very well initially, but things tend to go wonky after time in a lot of instances... how do you deal with that eventuality? And, especially since you're talking about communally shared finances in this dwelling structure... how do you make sure that things are resolved to everyone's satisfaction?

How do you deal with people's idiosyncracies? Someone may be allergic to your perfume, or simply unable to smell their own lack of hygiene... but they may be ferociously creative, passionate, productive and useful... so how do you balance that? (I've got one of those in a setting I'm in... man be rank, but he can't smell himself...)

What's the purpose of this society, other than to live nicely and be creative? If there's no overarching goal, who are you to say that knitting hats for the homeless all day is a less valuable endeavor than say, cooking for the rest of the folks or working on a collaborative research project...

Wendy

CO EMT-B