Where I live there’s no community though, there are no volunteers or “odd jobs”, people keep to themselves and don’t speak in public, there are no local groups and if there are, I’ve never seen them, the only local people I even found on the internet was randos on nextdoor complaining about street buskers 100s of miles away.
I always hear this shit about organising and community but it’s like from another dimension or something from a movie and always so vague, I’ve yet to see any organising or community IRL or any instructions as to what this actually means step by step.
Where are you based? I found myself facing the same problem. In my small rural community a 2nd hand and artisan market proved to be effective to get people out of their houses and meet up. No need to throw political theory at them immediately, it’s just great they appeared. Though I do admit there’s already a bit of a community to work with and entertainment is sparse around here so it’s easy to get people’s attention. Where are you based? Not sure what would work best there.
The organizing steps that worked so far for me and bf are described in the Community community of this instance (and the many social anxieties suffered by a person who wants to encourage community but isn’t very social to begin with).
I’m in South East England. There’s a weekend market here, but it’s all organized by the council and such, it’s not something mere mortals can really influence. Other than that while entertainment here is sparse, I think most people just stay inside the home. I wouldn’t call this a rural community, it’s a small town, I’m not sure if it would be harder or easier if the population was in the hundreds instead of hundreds of thousands.
Thanks for linking that! I’ll check it out. I’m pretty outgoing and social, at times it seems the only person in the world who seems to be okay just chatting to people, but I also want to get it right, so it’ll be good to read up as much as possible before any action.
I would just like to both validate and challenge your view of the UK. I lived in Torquay (Devon, so the southwest) for a good long while, albeit during the height of lockdowns, and community felt nonexistant. There were some punk-type-folks attempting to get stuff started right when I moved away, but only just then iirc.
I moved to Inverness (Scottish Highlands) and it’s night and day. There’s a queer community doing hella shit, there’s a tool library popping off, lots of good local initiatives are being organised and taking off.
My kneejerk response is to say that Inverness beats the hell outta Torquay. But the thing is, about 4-5 years ago NONE OF THE STUFF I mentioned was going on. The queer meetup was organised by one dude who moved up from London and was gobsmacked that there wasn’t an active community. Now it’s consistently a huge, weekly event. There are even offshoots of quieter meetups that had to be created because the main one is So Successful. But all the local queers will tell you that before this started, they thought they were all alone up here.
And the tool library is only about a year old, but keeping on well.
So on one hand, yeah, I think the UK has a very… independent culture. But once someone identifies a need in a community and fills that need, people tend to show up and appreciate it.
Also, i reckon this is a good time to be an organiser. People are tired of being alone during a pandemic, people are tired of seeing what other communities do via the internet and want their communities to do the same.
Tl;dr be the change! There’s an appetite for it.
That’s so cool! Very jelly. Would you mind sharing how you found all these communities when you moved around?
I’m very surprised a guy from London was gobsmacked by this, London if anything was the most alienating of them all and I never found any communities there either.
Do you have a local Food Not Bombs, DSA, PSL, or other org?
No, I’m from the UK. There was an anarchist fed in London that ran a solidarity cafe at a gay club during the day, though eventually shifting to mostly zoom calls, but it closed because no one went there, probably because they just had Facebook and a mailing list and finding them organically online was almost impossible.
It’s probably an effect of the design of your city/town/surroundings, if I had to guess. May I ask what type of place you live in? Like, is it a suburb or something similar?
Also, you might like to read this person’s story that I’ve been following along on here.
I’ll put a link for you in a minuteI’ve lived in London, UK in dense urban housing, the only time I’ve ever spoken to anyone in the area was when a neighbour below had a water leak caused by the floor caving in underneath what could only very charitably be called my bathroom.
He could barely speak English and seemed to be living in the same squalor studio but with a family of 4, he was a man and like 20 years older than me.
Then I moved out to a flat in a smaller town, very suburban, closest shop was like a 10 min walk. I don’t think I’ve seen a single person ever speaking in public apart from groups of university students, whom I wouldn’t want to approach for fear of being accused of being a groomer (I’m trans and besides that frankly I would’ve kept my hand firmly on my wallet if some adult approached me out of nowhere when I was in uni), and 50 year olds out on the town either with kids or just getting lunch for work.
I tried to organise with my neighbours once to get the landlord to install some sound insulation, but I asked them to at least stop blasting the music from speakers at night at their daily house parties of 20-30 people (they already lived in a house share of 6, packed like rats) in the meantime, which apparently crossed a line and caused a conflict that endured for years and involved attempts on their behalf to scam me into paying their energy bill by going to the landlord.
All other attempts at talking were met with gaslighting and aggression, I had to resort to discussing it with the landlord because I was worried they were gonna cave in the ceiling with their attempts at smashing things at their floor so I’d give up and leave, fortunately a guitar amplifier aimed squarely at the ceiling blasting the X-Files theme throughout the night got them to stop and we are now in a temporary cease-fire.
That’s probably the closest to earnest human communication I’ve experienced with a stranger. Fwiw I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed anyone else talking to anyone else like that either, in fact I’d say by sheer coincidence I’m the only person I know who even has seen their neighbours.
Closest my best friend got was an auto-generated emaul from their landlord’s agency filing a noise complaint on behalf of neighbours when we both could’ve sworn their place was empty of furniture, nevermind people.
He doesn’t “do politics”, and when I prompted him, he didn’t seem to even understand what the word meant or how policy would even relate to anyone’s day to day life. All he follows is K-Pop and gadgets. I only know him from school, the rest of my friends are my exes.
Some anarchist I am, huh?
When it comes to friend circles, either people are exactly as radicalised as I am in theory, but don’t bother with any praxis because they don’t know what to do either or are so incredibly depressed by even broaching the subject they avoid it altogether, apart from maybe donating to the green party or more realistically some weird debate streamer, or some of the more far removed acquaintances don’t understand politics and probably couldn’t even name who the current prime minister is, all they care about is football and maybe if they’re nerdy - FIFA on da Xbox with the lads. Nevermind politics, even basic history usually escapes them. Maybe they’ve gone on twitter once to look up their favourite brand and now say Trump seems like a charismatic funny guy.
A friend of mine used to say that about Putin - that was the extent of her political opinions that and being “kind”, despite the fact I repeatedly told her it’s not very nice when I’m a literal refugee from Russia thanks to the guy.
A mutual friend of ours did get radicalised eventually - she became a nazi, not like rightoid or alt-right but dead on “dear leader” hitler-loving nazi and excitedly once showed me a portrait of some SS guy she drew which she expected me to like despite knowing I was trans, (later, she offered me to try meth with her, which was funny but not actually that odd since we did drugs together all the time) we used to at least have stuff to talk about though because she seemed to at least think actively about the world, even if her conclusions to almost all problems were invariably some form of eugenics and “more white people”, even public transport would be solved with this, according to her.
When it comes to the workplace, I think we used to have some vaguely political discussions, but as my immigrant status hinges on maintaining a job, and it’s in tech - for what has now been acquired and is now managed by an American multinational and with that brought the attitude of that culture, I tread very very lightly.
Needless to say, the alienation is brutal. Most people generally seem like a different species, I think me and my cat have far more in common than I do with any people, whether it understands Kropotkin or not. People and events seem procedurally generated, they appear just as randomly and quickly as they disappear, no one seems to have more than 2 lines of dialogue.
Even outside of politics, most everything I am deeply invested in is something seemingly no ordinary person has ever even heard of, at least on the internet people seem real, hivemind af sure, but not as atomized. Maybe in the US people are just way more engaged with this stuff.
Thanks for linking that post, it’s a neat story, but it seems to start in medias res of having already organized an entire event, not exactly helpful instructions wise, but inspiring for sure.
First of all, a hug from far, and may the alienation go away soon.
Second, I’ve found there’s no point in discussing politics with people. Not with friends, not with strangers. There’s no point in trying to find people ‘aligned enough’ with my political ideas. Since I’ve accepted that I feel that my attempts at spreading anarchism lead so much further! As long as I never mention the word (or any other political jargon), and always, always approach my fellow humans as humans and try to inquire about what moves them, not tell them what I think they should do.
What do you think is missing in your neighbourhood? If you think it’s human contact, try to start there and invent ways to encourage friendly contact. Maybe create a point for food sharing or book sharing. If people are too shy to speak to each other in person at this point, give them other options, so they can lose their shyness gradually.
Schmorp! I was just talking about you!! :)
Alienation from other people and thinking they are not worth the bother is a relatively sure sign of depression.
I am not saying its only a you problem, and people around you are probably depressed as well, but I think it’s worth viewing your interactions with other people through that self-reflective lense some time.
I connect with some people just fine, and I’m not low on mood or anything, I’m a pretty thick-skinned in this regard so I don’t think it’s me really. All of this, as shitty as it is, I don’t let it get to me, I huff the green utopia flavoured hopium
I think it’s just this country sadly, as the other poster mentioned, every single person I’ve connected with is either from another country originally (or still) or has more of a global cultural outlook thanks to the internet.
I’ve got to say, a lot of your responses seem like you are pre-convinced that there isn’t any solution to your problem. I think that’s why you’ve been getting so much snark/pushback. (Are you looking for genuine help, or just needing to vent? Either way, it’s ok. Separating the two might be beneficial to you though, that’s all I’m saying here)
Did you read Schmorp’s full story, or just the one link I sent? I know it’s not step by step instructions, but if you’re serious about organizing something I feel like there are a lot of good tips you could pick up on from the way that they did/are doing things.
Do you have any libraries you could frequent? Many of the unknowns you have could be addressed at a library and I think they would have much more relevant answers pertaining to your locality.
Also, here’s a link to something that I just saw here, that seemed like it could be potentially relevant/useful: https://mobilizon.fr/
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True honestly, I’m not a Briton originally, and the people I’ve made the best connections with aren’t either, or are heavily global in culture thanks to the internet.
As for what I want to do I’d love to organize some kind of thing for queer people, immigrants and maybe other outsiders, in my perfect fantasy of a community I picture outdoor activities, maybe hikes or bicycle rides or longboarding or some such, and facilitate culture sharing exchange and just a place to get to know people, who may be one day able to help each other with mutual aid and whatnot as well as organize ways we could all pitch in and perhaps help the unhoused etc, all in an unofficial manner, under no banner as simply good samaritans if that makes sense. Doing that, with other like-minded people - I think would be as close to paradise as one could reasonably expect in our time.
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On a side note: please use our own instance of Alexandrite to not leak your password to a 3rd party: https://alexandrite.slrpnk.net
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Ok, let me address the punk thing.
Punks are people who resist oppressions and who defy rules, mostly censorship and mostly in arts. Singing profanities in a democracy and doing things that are legal is fashion-punk. As soon as improving your community, and progressing towards more acceptance and inclusiveness is legal, you don’t need to be punk anymore.
Punks have no future because their own fight is to make them irrelevant. It is to turn a fascist society into one that does not need them, one where it is effective to engage in social works and to collaborate with public institutions.
Solarpunk is a joke on “cyberpunk”, that’s all. It is an utopian movement in which punks are irrelevant.
If you want to write punk stories in a solarpunk setting, then you need to construct a dystopian antagonist.
It is to turn a fascist society into one that does not need them, one where it is effective to engage in social works and to collaborate with public institutions.
And we don’t actually live in that society yet, and therefore protesting, feeding people, helping drug addicts, and doing odd jobs for your neighbors all remain punk af.
JFC. Selling food without a permit is illegal. Doing most home repairs without a license and permit is illegal. If I install a set of solar panels for my neighbor and she pays me in raw milk and eggs we could both be arrested. Don’t tell me helping your community isn’t punk.
Please pasteurize your milk.
Not if you want to make cheese with it
Where do you live?
German economist Niko Paech once said:
“Yeah I’ve read Marx and stuff, but if you want to do something super radical then start darning your trousers.”It’s like when someone falls in a mosh pit and everyone instantly pulls them up. Hardcore is not about hurting people. It’s just about being hardcore and everyone having a good, safe time.
Yk what’s punk? Voting.
I’m sorry, but did we read the same post? I couldn’t find where it mentioned that you shouldn’t vote. So I dunno, maybe run along to someplace else where people actually care for these sorts of low effort comments?
Woah, calm down. I was just adding something, it wasn’t a criticism of the post.
Do I seem not calm to you? Or are you just using that as a way to put me down because you don’t like being called out for your behaviour.
I pretty strongly believe your comment added nothing to the conversation. I am just starting to become so tired of these low effort comments poisoning the english-speaking internet just because it’s a US election year.
Well you seemed angry and this new comment doesn’t make me believe that less. Also what behavior? I said nothing wrong.
In addition, I’m not even American - it was just a general statement, I don’t even follow American politics.
Try not to assume so bad intentions from people in the future. Have a nice day.
The point of the post, from my reading, is that there are other things you can do that are quite punk outside of a political context. I’m not angry, I’m just mildly disappointed that you seemed to miss the point entirely.
I would also daresay that there are far more potent political actions you can take as a punk. Not to discourage voting, I’ve voted in every single election I’ve been eligible before. But personally I think it’s far more punk to attend protests and rallies to show politicians an overwhelming distaste for their cowardice.
So IMO voting is only punk when it’s done in conjunction with other actions.
I don’t think I’ve missed the point. I did not read the post as being somehow in contrast to what you do in usual political contexts (like voting). I don’t really see what in the post suggests that.
I don’t disagree that there are other things that you can do as well. Again, I wasn’t criticising the post, just adding something. Another version of my comment could be “Yk another way you can contribute to your community? Voting.”
I strongly disagree that the act of voting, in and of itself, counts as “contribut(ing) to your community”. Maybe that’s where our opinions differ.
Where did you “add to the conversation”?
The post itself was low effort… Let’s say that ‘‘where solarpunk organize’’ was the motto of the instance thinking about a place where to organize and share informations of praxis more than falling in the giving each other compliments for thinking alike… Probably will have to make another place :o
I mean you’re the moderator, not me. If these sorts of posts aren’t want you want here, then make a rule against them. I do enjoy the other posts here quite a bit, and wouldn’t want to see the space overrun by these sorts of “meme” posts.
I’ve not been a mod for quite some time, I’d rather not “force the hand” just ‘cause I founded it
You are still a moderator of this specific community 😅
i guess i’ll have to enter in the xmpp chat lol
I think that a level of “forc(ing) the hand” is necessary at times to keep a community aligned with it’s original vision. It can mean that people choose to unsubscribe, but they can make the choice to create a new community elsewhere if they want as well. Hell, maybe even a more “meme” oriented community here on slrpnk.net
Obviously that would also have to be a discussion to be had with the other moderators to come up with a unanimous vision.
No, there’s nothing rebellious about voting on which of the two turds is less evil. That’s just damage control.
I’m not American so this doesn’t really apply to me. There are also other elections than presidential elections.
