community

[butter_fly_]

i really want to live someplace with a strong community, where everybody looks out for each other. nuclear families are important but i don't think they're the be-all-end-all of society like the rest of america seems to think. i think there's too much stress on people when they're expected to deal with shit as an autonomous unit instead of as a

Comments

[cranbonite]

Maybe you should try a stint on a kibbutz in Israel. I'm sure there are other places like them, but this is the only place I can think of that has multiple fully functional communities that are like this. They are extremely communal and focused on the group, though in fact they tend to *break up* nuclear families...most aren't religiously oriented at all, either, though they tend to be strongly associated with Zionism, don't know how you feel about that. (It's kind of one of the reasons I'd be uncomfortable with going to one - but also, it's really not my kind of lifestyle at all.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz#Ideology_of_the_kibbutz_movement More handy info :)

[butter_fly_]

thanks for the link. it kept me busy all afternoon at work... yes, wikipedia ate my soul... =)
to be honest, i haven't thought about zionism much since the paragraph they had me read about it in high school. i know the issue is loads more complex than that, so i think my official opinion is that i don't have an opinion. (yet.)

[blackhandgang]

I see one problem with this and that is it wouldn't work on the larger scale. What I find that a every communal idea to come around that is supposed to make the world a better plae is that it never accounts for human nature. If you were take all of America and make it more communal than it is now their would be strife. What would you do for the people who don't want to in that community. That's a right that everyone has here. What would happen is either you allow them to be on their own but then tension would grow bwtween them and those who become strick adherents to the new society or you would have to force them into it which would basically destroy everything the country is about. Now I'm not say that smaller groups pocketing areounf the country wouldn't be bad because if people want to live like that then can and should. But once you try to dictate how a society is to run, it's not long before dissedents and revolutionaries try to change it

[butter_fly_]

well, i'm not actually trying to project this model onto unwilling people, even though i think that it's been the most effective (not necessarily the best) model of human organization historically. i certainly don't believe that a community of unwilling participants is a good thing, and maybe it couldn't even be called a community at all. i think of community as needing to be, at least to some extent, voluntary

[fimoc]

Of course, you already know my stance on why Capitalism isn't necessarily a bad thing, and how I'm against the destruction of the family, and am think hunter-gatherer societies are a horrible devolution, but I don't have time to take it up right now

[butter_fly_]

two points.
one: i didn't say anything about destroying families. if within a community there are nuclear families, great. my belief is that when nuclear familes are expected to function as completely separate units, without the support of a community (which is the de facto situation in the us of a), that it is too much pressure and stress on a family. what i would like to see is more community, in whatever way people choose to implement it. this could potentially mean "destruction of the family" (follow the link daphne supplied above to read about a specific example), but it could also mean greater integration of the family into the larger community. i'm not necessarily advocating any particular manifestation of community in the main post, nor have i followed this line of thought to the point where i am prepared to do so.
two: if you don't have time to take it up, and you know that i'm aware of your views... why bother posting?