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Musings Report 2023-17 4-22-23 We Don't Know What We've Lost
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We Don't Know What We've Lost
If we never experienced something that is no longer present, we don't even know what we've lost.
I think this is an apt summary of something that is often touted but rarely experienced: community.
In my view, much of what passes for "community" now is ersatz, a thin veneer of bonhomie that's for show ("look at our wonderful community!").
Much of what's referred to as "community" is little more than political advocacy for government action or funding. Most of the rest is commerce glorified as "community."
Take away the political pressure for specific government action and the commerce, and all this "community" vanishes into thin air: nobody actually cares about anyone else in these faux "communities," and they only need others to transaction some business: buying and selling or advocating for funding.
I wonder how many Americans have ever experienced community as it was once lived, not for show or a once-a-year spectacle funded by sponsors, but a web of family / personal ties and obligations that fulfilled real human needs rather than the desire for slick PR.
Numerous books have spoken to this erosion of real community (a.k.a. social capital) over the past two or three generations, two of the most well-known being Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations and Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.
Christopher Lasch's other work, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy speaks to the abandonment of community by elites, and Daniel Bell's The Cultural Contradictions Of Capitalism illuminates the drift from not just the work ethic but from community ties, to a self-absorbed desire for personal gratification via conspicuous consumption and the scramble for elevated status by any means available.
In a previous Musings, A Time Capsule from the 1930s: What's Different Now, I discussed the memories of my 92-year old Mom-in-law, who grew up in a rural plantation town in Hawaii--a unique and long-gone setting I experienced when I moved to the Pineapple Plantation island of Lanai in 1969 as a teen. (That plantation diminished in the 1980s and closed down in 1992).
"Community" wasn't a feel-good PR label plastered on self-serving advocacy or commerce; people needed each other and the result was community. Households and small business had to make do without many government services, and given the close quarters and low mobility, everyone had to get along with everyone else in the camp / neighborhood--and had strong incentives to do so.
People didn't just wave to others as "strangers who happen to live nearby"; they helped their neighbors with the core rituals of life and death. Kids grew up together, often spending their entire schooling with the same group of kids. Adults interacted with each other at church, the neighborhoods of small lots and modest homes, in the kumiai (neighborhood shared-help group), and in bygone days, in the communal baths.
This activity wasn't organized by sponsors for a one-time event after which everyone went home and didn't interact again for a year. One's family, neighbors, coworkers and fellow students were the warp and weft of everyday life. "Community" didn't even need to be labeled; it was simply life being lived by people who needed and valued each other, despite the petty (and not so petty) squabbles, gossip, etc. that is the normal churn of humans living together in close-knit groupings.
The communities I'm describing weren't Utopian or idyllic; they were functional, and what we might call the natural order of human life.
These were immigrant communities, and as such they were somewhat self-selecting: those who were physically or mentally unable to do the work didn't immigrate, and those who couldn't do the work on arrival were dismissed by the plantation.
But it was also a semi-random mix of people thrown together by the common need to earn a living.
The immigrants of various ethnicities shared common values: family first, a strong work ethic and frugality. This commonality of values helped everyone get along, and enabled leaders to emerge whose leadership arose from their sharing these values.
Socio-economic stratification was minimal. There were few if any wealthy households and no homeless. Everyone earned about the same and owned about the same. Some opened small stores or service businesses, but they worked long hours and did not mint fortunes. The plantation managers and the town doctor were the only people who earned more and owned more. (On Lanai, these few lived on "Haole Hill" where the expansive homes of the manager and assistant manager were located.)
Work was meaningful because the earnings could be invested in one's children's future and saved to take care of elderly parents.
Community events were shared because if people wanted a bit of entertainment or fun they had to create it themselves.
My Mom, now 94, lived in a gated subdivision for a few years about 15 years ago. This is considered desirable because the houses and yards all look the same due to strict guidelines on what's acceptable and the gates and security personnel keep out undesirables. I understand why my Mom wanted to feel secure, but the sterility and lifelessness of the place was striking.
Like many such subdivisions, it adjoined a golf course. The "community center" overlooking the course was depressing, the opposite of an actual community. One resident watched a TV tuned to a sports channel alone. It was the acme not of community but of lifelessness and loneliness.
What was "security"? A gate and a security service, rows of houses that look alike and nobody around. The streets were empty, the yards were empty and the "community center" was empty. It was like a neutron bomb had gone off and left the buildings untouched even as it dispatched all the people.
Working class neighborhoods felt secure because people were out and about and watching for anything out of the ordinary, what's known as "eyes on the street." These communities were stable; most people were residents for years or decades. You knew your neighbors, and they knew you.
In densely populated cosmopolitan cities, people are wary of engagement with strangers or neighbors, as those who attempt to engage are often unstable or trying to get something from you. Mobility is high in many urban locales; neighbors come and go such that it's rarely worth even trying to establish some friendly connection.
Not everyone is capable of being in a community. Some individuals have so many inner demons that they're disruptive; others "keep themselves to themselves." If you pore over family trees or Census data, you find numerous "maiden aunts" and "bachelor uncles" cared for by families. Once families dissolve, there's no one left to care for those who are unable to function in a community.
It seems we no longer need others. We buy what we need/want, and the government is expected to fund whatever needs funding. Commerce is passed off as "community."
Contrast this with my Mom-in-law's immigrant mom, who was astonished to receive a small sum of money from Social Security every month after she retired from the plantation. No work, no money, that was life. Where did this "free money" come from?
A functioning community requires a specific set of values and skills. It seems many people have lost the values and the skills. Life has devolved to moving from the work bubble to the shopping bubble to the home bubble.
Community can't be forced; it has to be chosen. So-called "intentional communities" are organized around the idea that the group gets to select its members from those choosing to apply for membership, thpse who agree to comply with the group's standards. Examples include co-op buildings and co-housing.
I wrote about Co-Housing (a Scandinavian import) 25 years ago. While I favored the idea, when I visited a few small co-housing projects, there was something artificial about them. This might have been my bias, or the result of my own experience of more organic communities. Perhaps what I felt was the difference between compliance with rules governing all members and compliance arising from values embedded in families and cultures, not actually compliance but reciprocity: freeloading off others was anathema because it was wrong and harmful to the community.
Nobody seems to need community now. Everything's for sale except authentic community. This might change going forward.
One of the core messages in my book on self-reliance is that self-reliance isn't self-sufficiency. Self-reliance demands living and working productively with others in mutually beneficial networks. Overlay these networks and you end up with community.
It's hard to start a community. Most people aren't interested. In many cases, they don't know what's been lost because they have little experience with real community. They may be unaware that they lack the necessary values and skills, and have little exposure to opportunities to learn.
If you want to experience some sense of functioning community, it's easier to find some place where there are still some remnants of shared needs, values and reciprocity, and find something to share with those of like mind and spirit.
Highlights of the Blog
Extremes Get More Extreme, But Everything's Fine 4/21/23
Over the Falls: Credit, Collateral, Risk, Asset Valuations 4/19/23
The Housing Bubble: Owners Trapped by Low-Rate Mortgages, Buyers Thwarted by High-Rate Mortgage 4/17/23
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Given the abundance of green beans (Northeaster variety) coming out of the gardens, I revisited an old favorite recipe from Shirley Fong-Torres' 1990s cookbook In the Chinese Kitchen (page 97), Chicken with Long Beans. This is a main course, not a side dish, so it's a one-wok dinner.
From Left Field
NOTE TO NEW READERS: This list is not comprised of articles I agree with or that I judge to be correct or of the highest quality. It is representative of the content I find interesting as reflections of the current zeitgeist. The list is intended to be perused with an open, critical, occasionally amused mind.
Many links are behind paywalls. Most paywalled sites allow a few free articles per month if you register. It's the New Normal.
‘It can be incredibly profitable’: the secret world of fake online reviews -- only read the long reviews, ignore the 5-star ratings....
The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps'
Jerry Mander: 1936-2023 -- author of Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
Al Jaffee, legendary Mad magazine cartoonist, dies aged 102
Greater Internet use is not associated with faster growth in political polarization among US demographic groups -- they should have studied social media, not the Internet...
The End of Computer Magazines in America (via Benedict E.) -- no print computer magazines coming in the mail... end of an era....
END-CRETACEOUS ASTEROID CAUSED MASSIVE GLOBAL TSUNAMI, PEAKING AT A MILE HIGH
Thorium Reactors Remix - LFTR in 16 Minutes (via Patrick S.)
New Farming Robot Uses AI to Kill 100,000 Weeds per Hour (via Tom D.) -- no mention of initial cost, operational costs or maintenance costs...
Re: Oil/Inflation-Supply/Demand Curves & OPEC+'s Fantasyland. (via Cheryl A.)
Bad Trade--When nations compete by suppressing wages, globalization can leave us all poorer
Why Societies Can't Avoid Collapse: A homogenous world is a weak world
"Don't change on me. Don't extort me unless you intend to do it forever." Tupac Shakur
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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