Why don't we help each other?
There was a brief mention of the Amish and their self-sufficiency in the Capitalism topic that got me thinking, so I thought that I'd share my thoughts and start another discussion.
My understanding of the Amish way of life - as someone who is probably thousands of miles away from them - is that they are not really self-sufficient insomuch as they are insular. They don't like to rely on the government, but they heavily rely on their community.
A lot of us here are leftists - some might even go so far as to call themselves socialists or communists. But for the most part we are advocating for government to provide support, and often it's the federal government rather than their local governments. For those of you who do, my question for you is this: why aren't you trying to help out the locals. And I don't just mean your city, I mean your neighborhood or even just your block.
I'm not talking about things like homeless shelters or nonprofits, I'm talking about mutual aid societies. People are complex; they don't just need things, they need people. They need assurance, motivation, and love. These are things that the government does not provide. The US Surgeon General state we are having a lonliness epidemic right now, and that it's majorly affecting people's health. We've had conversations about the lack of a third place but an even bigger problem is the death of our community hubs. It might be a good thing that people are getting less religious, but losing the church was a much bigger hit than people give credit.
We've had many comments in the past deriding "slacktivism". When you throw your voice into the void, you have no real power. But if you put your voice into your town hall, you have tremendous power. Giving money to the government is like having one billionth of a difference to a great many people, but helping out a person in your community is a huge impact in their life which might be the one thing they need to stop them from falling off a cliff. I don't think you'll find anything more socially gratifying.
I titled this "why don't you", but I'm also very much interested in hearing from people who do community work why they do and how they manage to fit it into their lives.
Now to reveal I'm a huge frickin' hypocrite.
This idea honestly terrifies me.
I've never really talked to the neighbors. The closest I've gotten was talking to one who was moving away and wanted to sell their car. I've started taking morning walks recently and saying good morning to the people I pass honestly stresses me out. I've got a ton of other reasons why, but next to my general social problems they feel more like excuses no matter how legitimate they might be. Even online I'm bad at socializing; I'll play social MMOs and walk around hoping to talk to someone but when I see people who look like they're open for it I'm too afraid to start.
I never thought it was that bad, but now that I've put it into words I realize that this is a real problem for me, one that I need to fix.
Hell yeah. I just struck up a conversation with the lifeguard between laps and it turns out this is his side gig. He is an animator from Cal Arts who worked in Hollywood for a dozen years but left to do his thing, designing his own modest video games.
Big coincidence. I am an actor and writer who did Hollywood for a dozen years then left to write my novels and run my own YouTube channel. Within a couple minutes we got really excited about developing projects together. We both have multiple skills the other does not. But more importantly, he’s one of the very few artists I’ve met who, like myself, really is prioritizing the art over the commodification. Nearly everyone I’ve ever encountered working across the arts for the last four decades can’t seem to get the capitalist mindset out of their art.
But the way things work these days—unless you start the content creator game as a rich kid—is to create content online with your own blood sweat and tears with little to no expectation you will make money from it. Everybody goes into this ass backwards and immediately tries to monetize their podcast with 30 listeners instead of actually building a community first.
We both use our side gigs to put food on the table and reserve the best of ourselves for long term collaborations like these. To find someone in my own neighborhood like this felt like hitting the jackpot.
Hey, that's progress! You're doing your best. It's great that you're trying. It's okay to feel stressed.
Take it slowly. If saying good morning is too stressful, try just making eye contact and smiling. Or a small wave. Or a nod of the head.
It takes exposure, and that is what you're doing. The more you do it, the better you'll get. I believe in you!
I really, really understand where you're coming from with this. I don't have any answers at all for you, just wanted to let you know that I very much sympathize.
My dear Sibling, you describe social anxiety.
To fix such a probablem you need to see a therapist, it's by far the best solution.
For what it's worth, realising that you aren't OK with it and you want to make a change is the first step to doing something about it.
You've probably heard the rhetoric before, but (especially with something like socialising) it takes a lot of practice and you're gonna get it wrong a lot in the beginning. And that's OK.
After the pandemic it got to me how people had become even more insular than before and just generally bad at communicating. I made it a bit of a mission to improve my own skills and I'm not amazing, but I'm very happy with my confidence now. It takes years though to build it.
I wish you the best of luck!
Your story is very, very familiar to me. I'm sorry to hear that your experience of anxiety is interfering with your ability to interact with people even in low-risk contexts.
I don't know if this will be helpful to you, but I've trained myself to reinterpret many of those dreaded sweaty-palmed, dry-mouthed, stage fright sensations as excitement and curiosity, with a therapist's endorsement.
It's difficult to lean into your fears and work with them. It takes tons of practice and can be extremely depleting at first for natural introverts. But one of the most useful tools I've learned from my spouse (who's nearly as introverted, but grew up in a major metropolis) is to ask questions that let the other person do the talking. Not only does this free you from the "stage fright" aspects of worrying about what is appropriate to say and how to present yourself, but you also receive the intellectual rewards of learning about people, as /u/EarlyWords demonstrated.
One of the seductions of online conversations for introverts is that you can leave at any time you need respite. You can choose who receives your attention in face-to-face casual conversation as well, with the application of some simple courtesies to excuse yourself without causing your social partner distress.
Practice this process enough times, and you'll be granted the elevated social status of good listener and trusted friend. Sometimes the people you talk with are boring or disturbing, and I've had conversational openness mistaken for sexual interest more than once. But overall, the perception of anxiety-provoking risk in social interaction has diminished over time, and I've learned to savor the depths of connection that can be achieved in person.
Likewise, there are relatively low-contact or controllable-contact mutual aid activities. I've volunteered with Habitat for Humanity (which is a modestly helpful organization for getting people into single family shelter), and you're not stuck into big group meetings if you don't want to be. Much of the volunteer labor is physical - cleaning up donated items for the charity resale shop, light carpentry, and other manual skills.
I also volunteered for Crisis Text Line during the pandemic lockdowns. That involved no face-to-face contact whatsoever, and the conversations were non-vocal, heavily scripted. Experts were available as a second line of assistance. But it proved too taxing for me to work with people in crisis while completely blind to their situations, with only text to guide me. Online conversations can be just as stressful and traumatic as real life if not moreso, particularly when there's an expected time of response before your conversation partner is disturbed by your silence or inappropriate/insensitive words.
Even though "Effective Altruism" has recently gotten a terrible reputation as an excuse for naked greed, if you have a well-compensated talent, you can donate to aid societies that will use their specialized skills to help others.
Social skills are just that, a skill and need to be sharpened and honed. The more you do it, the better you'll be at it and the more comfortable as well.
I used to get severe social anxiety and refused to talk to strangers out and about, but then I married an extrovert with a big family who dragged me into social situations.
Long story short, I've been President of my community organization for 3 years now and I strike up conversations with random strangers at the store now, it doesn't bother me. I do still get social anxiety in large groups, but I know how to cope with it now and how to resolve the issue when it appears.
At any rate, the problem these days is that if you're like this, you can simply sit in your bubble and avoid it entirely. Have a WFH job, order groceries online, etc; the modern age has made it easier than ever to hide and not deal with your issues and many people are content to do so and thus, don't want to be involved, don't want to help their neighbors, don't want to participate. Going back to my community organization, I can't get any participation these days because of that, not to mention the fact that it seems Americans like to act like life is a zero-sum game and won't do anything unless it directly benefits them immediately.
It's genuinely suspicious how much of online 'leftist' discourse can only conceive of social improvement via implied state violence. The attitude that because we cannot snap our fingers and get rid of The Bad Guys, we just have to...tax the rich and give more power to the governments who've proven themselves infinitely ready to defend the positions of plutocrats is deeply demotivating and alienating, almost as much as any procedural hangups.
The difficulty here lies in not wanting to call anyone out for just trying to cope. If you're struggling to pay rent and eat decently it feels incredibly shitty to hear "you should consider spending more time working, but for free", or "you should stop spending money on video game or clothing sales so that you can afford to lend a friend money when they need it". And yet...these are the sacrifices we have to make. Literally, the bare minimum if we want things to change.
And of course, people are justified to find those suggestions absurd. They're just trying to get by! But getting by via idle consumption is killing us all, and justice has nothing to do with it. We cannot pretend that settling for comfort is going to improve anything except the pockets of the people selling junk.
It’s “easy“ to call for violence, especially when you’ve never been involved in a revolution and the political system seems intractable. I suspect many folks think a revolution would be a quick affair, when it likely isn’t the case, especially (hypothetically) for the United States. The Russian and Chinese Civil Wars took years (in the latter case, decades), and left millions dead and many more injured or displaced. You wouldn’t be talking about massive peaceful marches that cause Trump to flee to Russia, it would be gun battles in major cities that may take months to advance a few blocks, with many leftie cities surrounded by very conservative rural areas.
I think some of this relates to what @catahoula_leopard said in another thread; that there is a prestige associated with activism, but real on-the-ground activism is hard, whereas slacktivism on Instagram or Tik Tok is a lot easier.
Yes. In that comment I mentioned that I see leftist activism posts being made that are heavy on shame tactics - the other common theme is indirectly calling for violence and/or chaos.
I live in Minneapolis, so we're no strangers to actually burning down police stations. Now three years later, the neighborhoods impacted by riots and fires have not recovered, and our police force remains largely unchanged (except they seem more relaxed than ever when it comes to responding to crimes.) Living through the 2020 riots in Minneapolis was genuinely terrifying, there were a few nights where people were just guarding their neighborhoods all night, carrying around guns or hammers, closing off their street blocks with makeshift barriers. And I'm not sure what it accomplished at the end of the day.
I'm really not sure what the best way forward is, but what I really don't like is when my more radical friends look down on people who put good effort into working with the system.
Ultimately I think some people should focus on mutual aid, others should focus on making institutional change, etc. But there's a lot of work to be done, and I don't think social media posting is high on the priority list.
Anyone thinking the US would have a Civil War 2.0 is taking crazy pills. The realistic future of potential political violence in the US is like The Troubles. Think a Tim McVeigh style bombing every few months (plus even more spree shootings) for years on end.
The Troubles but the President goes on TV after each bombing and tells the terrorists he loves them and they should just go home in peace.
I'm not calling for violence here, just for mutual aid. I'm of the opinion that undermining the establishment will be of more use than taking 'it' on directly. A violent revolution is inevitable in my mind, but I'm certainly not under some illusion that it would be easy, or even useful at the moment.
I focused on small, attainable goals that may help to develop local safety nets for a reason. My goals may be revolutionary in posture, and in their intentions, but you're right to point at the uselessness of online seething.
Don’t worry, I wasn’t accusing you of calling for it. The way I read the post it seemed you were calling out other folks for only being able to conceive of state violence.
Oh, I see the miscommunication. In that phrase, I'm referring to the way that it seems that online progressivism has fallen back on dreaming that one day the oppressive governments which enable and enact such horrors will turn around and just start Doing The Right Things. State violence in the sense that the State is doing Violence, as all states must in order to maintain their claim to legitimacy, not violence against the State.
In this model, mutual aid is actually a form of violence against the state, as it starves it of its primary goal: to perpetuate itself.
I really gel with this idea. Finding ways to undermine/subvert and cause change aside from both violence (whether or not we deem that at some point there's some inevitability or necessity) and pursuing what may be a hopeless ideal of fixing oppressive governments/states.
A revolution should be a last resort, if only for the fact that most revolutions fail. For every American Revolution, there's a thousand Arab Springs. Turns out that building a peaceful system by using violent methods is really hard.
I do unpaid community work online, locally, regionally and nationally in my country.
It's hugely fulfilling, especially in roles and doing work I know someone else wouldn't just pick up. It makes a difference.
Especially for the online work community work I do, people just assume there must be something in it for me, that I get paid in some way and am not just donating my time. I want these online arenas to exist. I spend time on them. I'll give back, otherwise the quality there would deteriorate. That's all that's in it for me. I spend time both building and maintaining community spaces, and helping individual people online.
For local volunteer work in my area, a small group of active people contribute. I meet a lot of the same people in different venues, because we're the ones who choose to spend our time this way. These are social events, community building events that I enjoy and make living in my area more attractive in general. It's investing my time in my neighbors and local community.
Regionally, I'm elected to two roles where I represent others. The organizations pay for travel and food (just like work trips); I donate my time (unlike work). If I were to bill as I do for my time professionally, we're talking time equivalent to substantial donations. Here I gain valuable experience and this regional work is partly about self-realization and representing my local community in a larger context. If I weren't asked, no-one else from my area would be. We'd simply not be represented.
Nationally, I'm elected to one board with a very specific scope, and sit on three subcommittees that follow from that work in specific areas. Here the organization buys me out from my employer so I do not suffer economically or professionally for my time. The board is responsible for around 30 fulltime employees, and a budget that's above $10 million a year putting on significant events.
At my age, it's an honor to be considered for this national role (and subroles that don't necessarily follow). It's career-building, even though I'm in the lucky situation that I've been financially set for life since early in my professional life due to selling a business I built.
The tasks themselves are very meaningful, I have an impact, but the opportunity costs both of using my time and the responsibility entailed means I wouldn't do this if it weren't seriously career building or gave the recognition it does in my field. Significant time spent going through documents and so on aren't in and of them selves interesting, but it's worth it due to the context.
I don't watch a lot of tv, and have a busy life. I travel more than I otherwise would so I see family less. That's essentially everything I'm giving up.
The worst part about volunteering are all the people questioning your intentions and thinking you get some sort of shady payout.
Hey I love your post, it's very inspiring!
Can I ask what you mean by:
What does that look like? Just trying to get ideas for myself.
Online I'm part of teams that run groups/forums for trading/giving away stuff locally/regionally, putting on events or sharing events and collaboration.
Locally, I'm a part of groups that clean streets, put on events (Halloween, block parties/events etc.), putting on sports and sports events for kids (and maintaining the sports arenas). There's plenty of other stuff I'm not involved in, relating to music, arts and activities for adults. You've gotta pick your battles.
As I wrote in my last comment, what I do regionally and nationally is typical board work. I'd rather not go into detail on the areas that work covers as it renders me easily identifiable.
Might I ask how you got into your local volunteer work?
I knocked on doors and asked what it'd take for us to get together to fix the shelters at the bus-stop.
I was promptly invited to a host of other things and events locally we could do. And we fixed the bus stop rapidly afterwards. Turns out a guy had a connection for large used glass windows, so the cost of the project wouldn't be an issue.
Edit: I wanted to say I appreciated you giving me your time and attention on this one. Its very encouraging, and I hope to show y'all as we get things made and done. First thing when I get there is getting a big sign made, so that'll be the first thing I show folks :)
I decided the best way I could go about working toward helping folks was to resurrect the idea of a Third Place and go make one. I don't think much about it would really be useful to folks, but I'll put it out there anyway. I'm right on the cusp of heading out to go do it, literally got about five days until it starts.
Where I've been living, none of the volunteering went anywhere. I did it for about six years. Protesting just landed us in a bunch of trouble and didn't change anything. I canvassed during election years and got all kinds of ridiculous abuse for daring to suggest folks should have easy healthcare. The orgs which haven't succumbed to perverse incentive and egotism, move very slowly and you have to do too much menial shit to get buy-in from them on anything halfway important. Usually because they're systemically constrained. The everyday folk around me are pretty much totally apathetic. That's a lot of pessimism, I know, and not every single person actually fits those descriptors. It's a bit exaggerated. The point is to say, I've tried what all I could around me, and nothing came from it. So I'm gonna go do my own thing, see what I can do.
The goal, if it all works out, is a space for sharing time and entertainment. I intend to use every means available, to position this space as "the town's". As in, this is not just for me and mine, it's for all of you too. It's not just where folks have a wedding, or a dinner, it's also where the after school reading club meets, where the local musicians perform, that sort of thing. It is a business, but only because it needs to be, for now. No orgs, no parties, no religious affiliation. The point is to spend good time together, sharing what makes us happy and enjoying what we each can do, and these other things distract from that. This place has its point, and those have theirs, so they must remain separate. I will know I've hit the right spot when I feel comfortable offering a pre-arranged vacation for my friends and family.
If that works, the next step is to change many paid offerings to free offerings. To accept alternative forms of payment - work, food, whatever. Change the nature of our transactions, to remove the middle bit and provide direct assistance to each other. My hope is, if I hit the point where this feels realistic, enough people exist to begin a kind of "self sustaining" network. Maybe not truly, but enough to be able to say it justifiably. Enough that we don't really need outside assistance. Anyway, point being, strip out economics, take away some of the market logic from the equation. Because what can come from that are bonds, instead of business relationships. I'll know when I've hit this point, when I can say we don't actually need the money to continue with what we are doing.
Now we're hitting territory I almost never think about because it's too far away to matter right now. But, to indulge a second, with this network developed, the goal would then be to scale it up. As far as can be done, as long as I can sustain and maintain. I find people within the network who properly understand the point and get them ready to do the big deed - turn the community over to itself. As in, with the network made, the system built, give it to the people who helped make it, so they can take it where they wanna go. By this point in time, it probably has a different name, maybe even an -ism if we really nail it. Plant the tree, after having nurtured it in its own little pot.
I know it comes off vague and idealistic, but this is all stuff that has concrete planning and people behind it. I'm already in the process of taking the shot.
I don't care if I fail, nor am I going to wrack my brain about what it all means or which word properly describes its governance. That's all shit we will work out ourselves if/when it matters. Far as I'm concerned the social contract got shredded already, so I'm free to act how I want. What I want is peace and stability. So I will try to do this thing, so I can have that, and then see if I can make it happen for more than just me. Folks can doubt the plan and intent all they like. When I get there and they feel bad, i'll know, and then I'll invite them over.
I find this so interesting. I feel like if we were in person I would talk to you about it for hours.
Is this an existing place you're renovating or is it something you're literally building from scratch? What exactly is it that you're building, and how are you planning on making the income to get it started? Does your city have a community center already? If so, why not invest your time in that? And if not, why not try to get the city involved in funding it (assuming you haven't already, of course)?
I appreciate you asking and especially appreciate that the questions are pointed. I'll try my best - a lot of how it came together is a story of life taking a bunch of strange turns at once. I don't wanna ramble but I'm happy to clarify or share a bit if something doesn't make sense. But I think it's important to know the personal nature of it a little, because some of it may never make sense without that. I am cool with clarifying bits of that too, but will be intentionally vague with some of that.
It's an existing property, in good working order. It's publicly visible, a house named Belle Rosen in Brookhaven, MS. No renovations are needed in the near future, but would be nice long term. There's an additional little building, an old carriage house, which could be renovated for the sake of having more offerings. The goal is to be a venue for local events, weddings, dinners, tours, and photography. The house is one of the original six from which the town grew. It's in the National Historic Registry, so renovations can be pretty complicated, but also tend to be very straightforward. There is a community center, but Brookhaven lacks resources for really supporting it. It's not non-functional, it just can't really be any more than what it is, and that's primarily a space for school clubs and local sports. I wouldn't mind the city providing support, the primary thing is where the power to direct the endeavor goes - if support entails obligation I'm gonna be very precise about what's acceptable.
That's my grandma's house, and she used it to host weddings and dinners for about seven years pre-covid. She did it through word of mouth and a Facebook page, and despite hosting practically every important group in the town (~650 events across 7 years) never tied herself to anything. It's still in their Chamber of Commerce database, grandma has kept that up despite being closed for a while, and is still a member. She still works, as a psychometrist for the local school system. She doesn't have to, but does it anyway because she enjoys it and it's a job not many people do in that area. She still hosts events for friends and close acquaintances.
I visited her on her birthday last year. She is in her 80's (I won't say the number because she wouldn't want me to lol), so I went with the intent of expressing some important stuff to her. She's been the source of the happiest memories of my childhood, and gave me the tools for understanding and valuing myself. My relationship with her is special, it goes very deep in a way usually reserved for a mom (not taking a shot at mom there, grandma just nailed it is all). I wanted to tell her about that. So I did, and as we continued she told me about what she really, truly wanted.
She feels folks are splitting apart and unlearning how to be good to each other. She wanted to use her venue, her network, to try to show folks what they were losing. Not to teach them a lesson but to bring them back home if that makes sense. In order to accomplish that, again she felt, it was important to deliver the experience of family, of being part of a group that cares about you and will act to help you, family in its most positive/healthiest sense, done for its own sake. She tried with my folks to bring them over to this idea, but it didn't take, and so she just continued in her way as well as she could. But what she wanted was us all working together, for each other, for ourselves, and ultimately for everybody. If COVID hadnt happened, she was on track to scale it up.
That house means everything to her. She stuffed it with all the weird antiques she could get and just lived it out from there. She wants that to stay with us, and to be a place where folks in the future can go, to make the sort of memories I talked with her about. The antiques were part of the plan. She does enjoy them and will keep a few, but most of them she bought for the express purpose of selling later. Had covid not stopped it, she was going to reach out to me about cataloguing, organizing, and selling them to kickstart pushing the business further, and then ask if I'd want to help with the business.
I'll just be plain, that's literally the only thing I've ever really wanted to do. From as far back as I can remember. I lived things out and put together different goals when it became clear it wouldn't happen, but I never forgot. After the visit, I talked with the rest of my family, and put together the complete picture of my own finances. The company I worked for had been acquired a few years prior, so I'd been in a mode of just saving up for the inevitable rug pull, plus what id rolled along in a 401k across my different jobs. I maintain a shop on eBay too, where I mostly sell collectibles and electronics, so there's some additional support provided I give it enough time to operate. All together, more than enough to quit, see my friends, move away, and contribute to expenses until we've got regular income from the business.
All of this comes before the bigger ideas I wrote about prior. What I realized was that I could potentially take the experience and fulfill something bigger, so I tried to be precise about what such a thing would be. What all I wrote is the best I can think of that threads the needle, of needing to work against deterioration and maliciousness while also having a life I want. It has to be agnostic of things in order to do what it's supposed to do. It wouldn't be an expression of both, my grandmother's wish and my own desire, if it were framed around an ideological purpose or directed toward those ends. The problem I feel I am attempting to work at, is a lack of something fundamental, not something which transcends but rather, exists beneath politics, maybe is a way I can put it. I think we really have fucked up something basic about us and it takes different work to address.
There's plenty more to say, and from a lot of angles, so ask away if you like. I like answering because it helps me clarify the positions and goals, and of course folks gotta know it's a thing for it to do what it does.
This sounds pretty neat. I hope you are successful. I used to be a deacon at my church. While there were some things I didn't like about it, we did manage to do some real good. However, we also had our fair share of people trying to exploit our generosity, and it created an attitude of suspicion that really hampered our ability to give freely. I hope you are able to avoid that experience, or find a way to manage it that doesn't sour the rest of it.
It's a big piece of the whole deal that I try to confront my own cynicism and make it stop. I could put together a narrative, of various moments of having the floor give out so to speak, and it probably would be compelling. The important parts come from seeing what people were capable of, and what they were willing to do for what they got. A whole lot comes after getting the business end set up well though, too. With that I do intend to be about as shrewd and effective as I can be, and try to surround myself with folks who don't need me to be that way. Might be impossible for all I know, I will see in the end.
I think your strategy is the right one. I thought I was surrounding myself with people like that, and I turned out to be wrong in some cases. So I might be slightly gun shy and cynical right now. I am hoping to recover some of that faith in humanity.
The word I keep coming back to is "dogged". I think because I have a dog, for one, but that word describes an attitude I want to have. Dogged pursuit of something better, a certain stubborness toward an actually good end. Take the sort of risk taking, determined attitude we usually see folks use for their careers and orient it a bit differently. Keep to the goal and let everybody figure out the words for it later. It's gotta get done first, then we can argue over what to call it. The closest I get to having a label I guess, is that I do think material conditions drive history. The things get made and then we slap -isms on them, a lot of the time. It's not often the -ism comes first, and the history there is uneven to put it mildly. I'm not going to bank on an approach that doesn't have a solid record, and it seems to me the whole deal of deciding on the -isms and then pursuing them, doesn't end up working out. Folks get wrapped up in that and lose sight of the point, which was (ostensibly at least) to help each other. The things that persist, acquired their labels after they proved their longevity. I'm oversimplifying, but that's the foundation for why.
It's also that I'm just tired of the arguing. Folks can land on good points pretty quick. Folks who don't want to are pretty obvious about it. I don't think there's much use crafting the best argument for people who either don't know how to do that or have deliberately thrown away all the tools for it. They've got a real phenomenal power of rationalizing away even the best words. What can't be denied, is a system that actually is providing. So, step by step, piece by piece, thats where the work will go.
I think part of it is that it is hard for people to interact with unknowns. You have to open yourself up. Especially, when you get into online communities (not unlike this site) you tend to find more introverts than the opposite.
A few years ago I joined a fairly anarchistic (it's not an organized group with Officers or anything and there's no leader) disc golf group that plays informal league. It took a bit to open myself up to be willing to join a group of largely random people. It helps when you share a hobby. But, it's just as much a philosophy of family as it is of throwing discs of plastic. It's one of the most open and accepting groups that we have cultivated that support each other emotionally and sometimes financially when available/applicable.
Additionally, I'm an Officer for our regional Disc Golf club. We do a lot of community volunteer work on courses, running competitive tournaments and charity tournaments.
An interesting topic. Thank you for posting it and for being vulnerable with your own struggles.
I agree with you. We need to each be involved at the community level. I like the quote "be the change you want to see in the world." It's easy, I think, to rationalize to oneself that you're going to focus on awareness and other people will take care of the dirty work of implementation. With humility, though, I think we can all recognize that we could be better at being the change. If we're only arguing about ideology on Facebook and not doing anything concrete to make the world a better place, there's probably room for improvement.
I'd like to believe that the main reason I don't help nearly as much as I could is that, in order to participate in a mutual aid society, I'd have to talk to a lot of people. So this is in an instance where I put my own well-being before the well-being of others. I am a special kind of hermit.
The reason why I don't donate money is that don't have a lot, and anything I can amass goes directly to cover my very expensive doctor, psychotherapist, and medications. No, I don't live in poverty, and I do have superfluous pleasures. But I am, by no means, in excess of money.
I sure hope that at least some of the people I've talked to since the times of mIRC, often in an "official" role in emotional and spiritual support channels and communities, saw value in my efforts. I was once a speaker and educator in my real-world spiritualist organization, but after our center was closed I was unable to integrate with any other group. I was also part of a group that took food to those in need for a brief period.
In reality, the only reason I was able to integrate into the first group was that I was so completely and utterly suicidal at the time that acted out of desperation.
I love people, people are wonderful. They are also the worst ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think we maybe do help each other more than we realize. It's easy to build up a view of society as selfish, but despite all of the bad, despite how sad it is that it's even necessary- people come together for mutual aid online (gofundmes, etc). People volunteer. Neighbors help neighbors (even when fundamentally being political opposites). Workers sometimes offer help to customers in ways that subvert their corporate overlords. People do march and do voice their concerns and do amplify the voices of others. And many many people find ways to help that fit their abilities or restrictions.
For some of us, as many mentioned, it is difficult- whether due to medical reasons or anxiety/social reasons. I am extremely introverted so I find it difficult to do some things that would require an IRL presence from myself. Also, the capitalism currently weighing on my shoulders and the mental exhaustion I feel after working my job makes it difficult for me to do much of anything outside of work sometimes.
That said, I have contributed to mutual aid campaigns online, I have donated to people in person that were in need, I have helped people here and there in various small ways (helping neighbors with technical/computer issues). There are all sorts of ways I think we can take positive action that isn't just "slacktivism" and suits who we are that contributes to making the world a better place.
I think the worry about slacktivism and the distraught view that no one helps each other are overblown. One becomes an easy source of ego and continuing a negative feedback loop- and the other ignores the fact that it's mostly bad things that are reported/known about. We're far more likely to know when people hurt each other than when they help each other. A lot of help probably stays unknown, and often, purposely anonymous. That doesn't mean it is not happening.
And that^ is why I think I'll stay away from the other thread- I think my view there has already been shown by others- that I just fundamentally disagree with many that think human nature is fundamentally selfish or broken or uncommunal/unhelpful to others (and I think this fundemental level disagreement underscores most of the other arguments being had, and informs the opposing views found in them).
The religion I was raised in makes that a key point of their ideology, because it allows them to provide the cure if they can convince you you're broken- when the truth is, they often turn out to be to most selfish after all- not by default- but twisted by ideology.
I find it amusing (and heartwarming in an awkward way) that maybe in being kind (not surface level nice, but kind) to a neighbor who fundamentally disagrees with my political views or sees my heavy metal and satanic bumper stickers or whatever (when they're religious)- they'll realize that those political/religious views are only part of the story, and maybe I'm not the 'evil' they would assume someone like me would be.
I'm not saying that local support structures don't exist, just that they've been weakened and underappreciated. I also don't want to call out the so-called slactivists; just because their real-world support for the big causes are relatively weak doesn't mean that they aren't helping in local support structures themselves.
I also agree with you that I don't think that people are fundamentally selfish. People are predisposed to altruism much more than we give them credit for. On the other hand, I do think that people tend to lean towards laziness in the form of conveniences. Though to be fair, that might just be self-reflection.
I can agree with that. Convenience and comfort (not necessarily wholly "selfish" in a bad way) can contribute to a weakening / underappreciation of support structures, because they're easy to retreat into, for sure. Reflecting on myself, I can see it. I do think that things outside of ourselves, bigger picture problems or systems, might incentivize us towards convenience/comfort too. There's so many factors at play, internally and externally.
I also don't deny that (at least in the US) hyperindividualist sentiment is strongly present - as a symptom stemming from a complex set of causes- though I do think the tide is slowly turning on that, and I feel it's not a ubiquitous thing- hundreds of factors (geographical location, nations, policy, incentives, cultural norms built up over time, etc) contribute to the strength of community, support structures, etc
I live in one of the most remote places in the lower 48 of the States. And we community HARD.
Pot lucks, and work exchange, spontaneous therapy sessions, elder care are all extremely common things in which our community members daily participate. We have a very well run crisis center that distributes food once a month along with a multitude of other assistance programs. Many of us volunteer regularly for the crisis center.
I got a flat the other day, and so I stole my neighbors car (temporarily out of town) to get to work and called him up later to let him know. I'm currently at another friend's house who just got out of the hospital and doing some cleaning for her. If I say I want to cook, folks will show up with an assortment of ingredients and I cook a big meal for everyone. I haven't experienced any other place where I can truly live a life of service and sustain myself on just that. It's really an amazing thing to witness and be a part of.
My town works hard, parties hard, and everyone is always invited. Conditions can be incredibly harsh here, so it's vital that we look out for each other and help each other out in the ways we can. My favorite is community events where the whole town dresses up and gathers to celebrate. We also have a lot of shared non business community space that we all spend quite a bit of time at enjoying each other and the beauty around us. Community is everything here, and I'm so grateful for it.
I’m going to guess either North Woods Maine or the Inland Northwest?
Have you noticed any trends regarding volunteerism and community over the years?
Actually I live in a desert. And the community started out in the 60's with a small handful of people who all had to rely on each other, and has now grown to over 100 people full time, and another 100 or so part time who've maintained that ethos of interconnection. There are a few children, and there is a school, but the community largely reproduces not by offspring but by attracting people from elsewhere who fall in love and stay.
It's a come as you are and ask and you will probably receive kind of community. Real small town shit but spread over a huge chunk of land. And the terrain and ecosystem here are included in that community. We are very much tied to the land.
As far as volunteerism goes, the younger generations, after having witnessed the works of the older generations take up the torch. Our crisis center very rarely suffers from lack of volunteers, and there's few enough people that when a specific problem pops up we all know the specific person or people who we can ask to help.
I personally take care of some of the older folks, and spend my evenings going around checking on my friends who are struggling with mental health. My closest friend here is my same age and much like me, so we're able to divide and conquer or tag team on such work depending on the situation. I get to witness the direct impact of my work, which is deeply gratifying.
Having open community areas where we gather daily is also a great boon. It allows us to recap our days, spend time relaxing and laughing and talking, and share knowledge, challenges and daily success with each other. We also talk about the weather A LOT. Especially effects of recent weather and what we need to prep for upcoming weather. Wind is a big deal around here.
Now, I'll be a bit more transparent and share that the majority of us come from various backgrounds of trauma, and we have found that the land and community here allows for a path out of that trauma cycle. We have all and do all struggle in various ways, but we've found each other and we live in, in our opinion, the most beautiful place on earth. We so often sit around and just watch the world around us to exclaim, "we get to live here!" To be in a place that humans are the exception not the rule really puts things into perspective.
Now for a bit more balance in my reply. I have found that some of the older generation hit points where they feel a disconnect from the community. Due to health or other things, they find they go out less and participate less in community gatherings and events, and thereby become more isolated on their land and from other people.
Some of this is by choice but some of it is due to circumstance. My friend and I work to mitigate that to some degree. Many of the people i work with have know each other for years, and often ask me about each other even if they don't want to deal with the person directly. So I act as a bit of a local news carrier, sharing info and updates so that my older friends can feel more connected even though they don't go out as much. One might call it gossip but I have found that keeping up on each other as one of our prime pass times keeps us more connected and invested.
I think it's the inability and the lack of will to enforce community boundaries to distinguish in- and out-groups.
I think that the leftist tendency to welcome everyone makes it impossible to have traditional social reputation and punishment systems. You get the Tragedy of the Commons: it is in human nature to want to take more than one wants to give.
The ideal contract is that people give when they're doing well, and they take when they're not doing well. And hopefully in long run, everyone prospers.
But the real dynamic is that people hop into the community, take aid, and then hop out. The givers burn out because they're being taken a ride for, and the system collapses.
I'm part of an anarchist org and community. It's going badly, and we're going to run out of money and shut down if things don't change. It's anti-police and anti-surveillance. We have no cameras. There were recent gropings and assaults by strangers who somehow accessed the space: after they fled, we had/have no ability to ban them or even identify them for the police, so many women have quit. Expensive things get broken or stolen—again, we can't catch who's doing it—so donations are drying up. But a few people are too ideological to support common sense measures: they'd rather let everything collapse than compromise on the original vision. Ha, how are we going to push back against capitalism if we can't even keep a single building from falling apart.
Anyway, the right-wing version of a mutual aid society is the church or mosque or some other religious orgs. I find that they are a lot more prosperous and functional because they are clearer about who's in and who's out. Some of my relatives go to church: they support each other, providing mutual financial aid and career networking, so they collectively prosper. They have frequent potlucks. They know each other very well. They're very reluctant to move away and leave behind their church friends. They're careful to vet people who join their community.
A while back, I listened to this series called The Orange Wave that chronicles the rise of Christian nationalism in southern California. One of the things they talk about is the shift from mainline denominations that were mutual aid societies and a force for social normalization to the evangelical church that is so much more prevalent today. Part of the story was that the mainline denominations weren't able to respond to the rapid social shifts in the 60's and 70's.
Part of the things I was thinking about while I was writing this was learning about moai in Okinawa as part of that Netflix documentary on blue zones. Yes, there is money involved, but it's only a small part of what makes them special; it's the friendship and comraderie behind them that's important. It's really hard to weasel your way out of them, and ideally you wouldn't want to because you're emotionally invested in the people in the group.
Then they talked about the Seventh Day Adventist community in Loma Linda and I seriously considered finding religion and trying to join their church for a hot minute. :P
With the way OP phrased the title, I expected this thread to be the beginning of a Tildes mutual aid movement for sharing resources & knowledge, whether to help each other or provide support with local community projects.
I expect a lot of people want to do more than they do and they encounter barriers at various points. From what I’ve read so far, I bet Tildeites could help folks overcome many of those barriers.
I agree!
There are a lot of people here who have the ability to develop apps (MeetUp is expensive and sucks), crowdsource ideas and money to fund improvements (is NextDoor entirely about bitching about neighbors now?), nurture goals and support for a variety of interests (free swimming lessons would save lives, youth leagues keep kids from picking up bad habits/hobbies).
I'd like to see more people frame things in the context of "how can I use my skills to be productive in a new and interesting way?" Or "can I improve my skills by helping with a project outside of my usual scope?" I see posts about that on Reddit sometimes, but they're few and far between.
Anyway, at the end of the day if they're an attorney, programmer, electrician, writer, or literally any other profession, they have a skillset that someone can benefit from (possibly even remotely). They just need to find a way to help that makes sense for them, and obviously there are a lot of variables (free time among them) that go into that, but it's doable.
Many people (myself very much included) deeply appreciate all the many modern technologies and social norms that allow us to practice greater solitude than ever before. To be quite frank, I don't think society has gone quite far enough for my needs in this regard — I still find myself so exhausted by necessary social activities that I put off healthcare appointments, shopping trips, etc., for weeks or even months just to give myself more time to recharge — but there is so much rapid improvement in this area that it has me convinced that there are a whole lot of introverts out there, toiling furiously away on these problems, than any of us fully grok.
For many people, this is not a loneliness epidemic; it's a new era of self-actualization.
The loneliness epidemic plaguing non-introverts is often placed at the feet of introverts working hard to carve out a space for ourselves, but I don't see how this can be accurate. A reduction in forced interactions does not necessitate a reduction in voluntary interactions. Why don't lonely extroverts still meet with each other? Surely it is still their natural impulse to eat out with friends, host parties, join sports teams, and all those things that give their lives color and energy. So why aren't they doing it?
I don't think this is a loneliness epidemic. I think it's an anxiety epidemic. And that is a much more difficult thing to address.
I do actively try to buoy the confidence of people around me in myriad different ways — not only by saying encouraging things to them, but also by cheerfully humbling myself and letting people see my failures without shame. And I actively expressing appreciation for moments of authenticity whenever I see them. One of my biggest hobbies is gardening, for example, and so when I see a truly loved garden — even if it's overgrown, even if there are children's toys strewn about, even the space is filled with tacky ornaments, even if the owner was going for a certain look and fell short, etc. — I make a point to express the joy it brings me. Just saying to a friend, as we walk past, "Look at this house's front yard. I think this has got to be one of the most loved gardens in the whole neighborhood. It's so different from my garden, but I stare at it every time I go by because it makes me feel so cozy and happy!" can do so much to make that friend feel at ease being themselves with me — and hopefully by extension with others, and hopefully then those others will as well. Self-confidence and gratitude are infectious.
But I think the anxiety epidemic is a lot more complicated than people needing to hear more nice things. For example, I am worried that endocrine-disrupting pollutants may play a huge role in our ability to regulate our fear emotions. What can I do about that? It's easy to donate to research and cleanup efforts, but I can't go into someone's home in my community and scrub it clean of microplastics. They are everywhere, inside and outside of us.
Another factor is that we may be so excessively connected to one another that we all feel too much like small fish in a big pond. For most of our existence, humans lived in such small groups that almost everyone could feel like they brought something important to the table. How can I address this? And should it be addressed? Global communication has done so, so much to combat the racism, nationalism, etc., that have historically plagued society; I am doubtful that it's a good idea to society to revert back to small, insular groups just because they make people feel safer. So many social issues arising today are borne of people voluntarily organizing themselves into these confidence-boosting echo chambers.
This is perhaps an eccentric viewpoint, but I actually think that doing cooperative charitable work — almost regardless of the charity itself — is, itself, a potential avenue for addressing the anxiety epidemic: not for the recipient, but for the participants. Charity is great because it gives you some additional motivation that you don't get from normal social interactions; you aren't doing it because you need it, but because someone else needs it, and that's a lot harder to talk yourself out of even if you're scared. Then, when you get there, you have a task in front of you. It's not like a party where you feel excessively awkward if you can't make small talk; you're still needed and wanted even if you say nothing at all, and so it makes for a more gentle, self-paced social atmosphere.
I have written a little about this before, but I think this is basically what we need to become a less lonely and anxious — and more cohesive and accepting — society:
Yes! And because it‘s Tildes I add that sometimes I get to know people where insular acts of community are possible. Where I don’t need to play social ‚games‘ as to speak. That’s where I bloom.
I belong to a few of these circles all my life and I'll share my two cents.
There's mutual aid when there is need, sure, but relationships can't be sustained if everyone is continually at need all the time. There must be folks who have for each person who has not.
And thus, there must be some reason to maintain that space week after week, year after year, banking and saving up positive resources for the rainy days when someone among that community needs something. It's like friendships and bank accounts: you can't make withdrawals alll the time, and what there is to draw must be deposited before a need arises.
Why don't people who don't have third spaces and their own mutual support circles seek out or host their own? I'm thinking D&D groups, welcome wagon, volunteer circle, knitting circle, choir, PTA, sport club....what else? Hobbies don't hold people that well: when we get busy we drop them. Most things have a limited range of ages and stages, and then when we age out of the group it sort of dries up and dies.
For a group to be self sustaining, it needs to meet regularly, to welcome many ages and types (even if not all), and be about something that folks are willing to be at least a little self sacrificial about: you give a bit more even when you don't super want to, you get up a little earlier one day a week even if you'd rather stay in, you try a little harder to stay in the group even if that one guy drives you up the wall.
You go even if you have social anxiety and you reeeeeeeeeally don't want to talk to anyone. Thankfully the meeting focuses on non talking for two hours, then afterwards you can hide in the basement and make coffee and prep tiny sandwiches and be busy cleaning instead of talking during coffee hour.
Groups can turn into mobs and cults, but more often than not, they're just boring knitting circles, boring food banks, boring bingo clubs, boring potluck group, boring book clubs that somehow escape the doom trajectory of Hobby Groups because the members meet up beyond their tiny silos to do something bigger together. For every church that's awful and so very terrible, there's probably many more that are just full of boring people helping each other and helping their community quietly.
How come the massive and growing secular population hasn't come up with its own replacement yet? How come atheist churches are so rare?
You should check out your local library! It has become exactly that in many towns and cities, at least it has in every place I've lived. I'm not sure what the situation is internationally, but at least in the US your library probably has a calendar of events open to the public that are run by volunteers. You can also always start your own. My local library has a Lego building club, a parenting support group, book clubs, crafting circles and all sorts of things going on a weekly and monthly basis.
There was a period in my life about five years ago when I went pretty much daily and attended or hosted all sorts of events for little kids. God bless librarians.
And tabletop games stores I guess to a lesser degree
But getting back to what OP said about social supports, is the library a place where one can get help one another during short personal crises? Is that where one would go if one got laid off and needed money until employment insurance kicks in? Does the library directly deal with emotional support for domestic problems/life events or is it just a referral to outside sources? Does the library community celebrate my birthday or my wedding anniversary?
I definitely think the library is super valuable and it serves the community in priceless ways, but I don't think the library can hold a candle to what that atheist church in the link is providing for its members.
Newer link with more examples, ten years after that other article! And they even have a mega church equivalent called Oasis!
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/secular-churches-atheist-congregations-sunday-assembly-worship-oasis/
@Akir maybe this is what you're looking for :D there could be a non religious congregation near you.
Check out Oasis' core values!
People are more important than beliefs
Reality is known through reason
Meaning comes from making a difference
Human hands solve human problems
Be accepting and be accepted
I would probably agree with nearly all of those with an asterisk! I hope more people who don't already have a community would give something like this a try :) there are a lot of secular humanists who could find like minded support for all kinds of things in life or just a sort of companionship of folks doing good things making a local difference
And if you're looking for a secular organization that does a great deal of good for people who have short-term urgent needs, United Way sponsors the North American 211 phone number, which is a connector to community services of all kinds. It's sadly emblematic of the fragmented, inadequate, inefficient model of scattered private charities and minimal public services that yet another charity has to coordinate access, but it's still getting help to those who need it.
I am a second-generation atheist; my parents became atheists before I was born. They both grew up in very active Christian households, and I guess because they missed the community that came with that, they have always been active in a lot different church-adjacent secular organizations. The two I remember best are The First Existentialist Congregation in my early childhood and the The Freethought Society in later years. So I spent much of my childhood getting dragged out of bed early Sunday morning to attend these services. I do have fond memories of them—singing, lighting candles, putting on skits, eating potluck food, going off-site on trips, and all those fun things.
But starting some time in my early teens or so, I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with the shepherd/flock format — where one person speaks at a relatively passive audience. I began looking foward to the service being over, because then we would mingle together and talk, and that's when I really felt like I was getting something out of it; back-and-forth conversation brought me so many deeper philosophical insights than just listening to a speaker, even if they were an extremely intelligent speaker I respected enormously. There is just no replacement for dialogue.
Then I started asking myself why I was waking up so early, on what was supposed to be a day of rest, just to attend a service whose value I was becoming skeptical of. As the magic of Sunday services worse off for me, I guess my parents picked up on it, because they transitioned away from the First Existentialist (which was much more like a traditional church with a preacher, sermons, and music) to The Freethought Society (which was more about guest speakers who came to talk about a variety of atheist-related subjects).
I did find the Freethought Society more intellectually engaging — even thought it wasn't quite so brimming with cozy tradition — especially because each speech was followed by a Q&A session and a long period of mingling over potluck lunches. But everyone besides my sister and me was of my parents' generation, so it was a little hard to connect with people as peers. And it was just so...atheist-themed. Maybe it's because I'm a second-generation atheist and never went through the pain of losing religion, but atheism just isn't that noteworthy to me. I don't have any particular communal feelings toward other atheists, any more than I do toward other brunettes or other people who wear glasses. I was getting just plain bored with the subject and having a hard time connecting to others over it.
The death knell, for me, was the New Atheist movement. A lot of online atheist discourse suddenly became toxic, and when some of that started spilling over into real life, I just couldn't anymore.
My parents do still go to assorted atheist-adjacent events (although, these days, Sunday is devoted to tabletop gaming with their friends), and they get up to all kinds of stuff with their community; for example, one of their atheist organizations connected them up with someone who has fallen on hard times and they are now housing him in my old bedroom. When I go to visit them, sometimes I'll tag along with them when they attend their atheist events. Thankfully, the New Atheist movement is dead and buried in their circles (otherwise I wouldn't go), but it's still the case that I am overwhelmingly the youngest person there — and I'm no spring chicken anymore. I go to bond with my parents, but I feel no connection to the community.
I know tons and tons of atheists my age (we are far more common than atheists my parents' age), and I don't know a single one who regularly attends any sort of atheist church. But I also have tons of religious friends, and none of them go to church/synagogue/etc., either. Everyone seems to be pretty meh about it, and when I ask them why, they tell a story that loosely parallels mine: it was magical when they were young, became intellectually understimulating as they got older, and finally stopped feeling like a community they belonged to.
So I think atheist churches are rare because most atheists are of a generation that isn't into church so much, for reasons I'm still trying to work out.
I have been toying with the idea of attending my local city council but they look to be an order of magnitude more boring than my childhood memory of church. Perhaps a bit more sacrifice than necessary. There is also a group of library volunteers that I am looking into. My town is supposed to have a pretty good community center but they don’t seem to have anything of much interest to me.
Something I've not seen mentioned in any of the comments yet is the difference in urban vs rural communities.
Obviously it's not the same globally and this is purely anacdotal experience, so I'd be interested to hear other's thoughts.
I've moved from suburban to urban and then out to rural and found the community support and general social interactions to be pretty linear from rural to urban.
In the city neighbours intentionally waited for me to leave my apartment before putting a note thought the door to ask me to give them their package I had so they didn't need to talk to me. And they'd leave the communal garden in a total mess, totally disregarding the space even after polite discussions.
Suburban people like to chat, say hello to each other. You might get a friendly neighbour or two and have dinner once in a while or ask each other to water the plants or feed the cat when you go on holiday. I'm sure they have your number and they'd call you if you weren't in and something was wrong.
Rural people everyone helps out everyone, one guy has a snowplow, he clears all the roads and drive ways when it snows. One guy has a big van, you give him a call if you need something moved or he'll stop and ask if you need a hand and he's driving by.
I dunno if it's the setting/situation or if it's the culture of these places and it's hard to shift them, but in my experience that's the case.
I think is partially result of rural social networks being sparse and stable enough that reputation systems can be maintained with coherence and continuity.
Good deeds in urban communities go unnoticed: neighbors don’t know each other well enough for word of your good to propagate, neighbors might not be able to identify you in the first place, people may assume some municipal service did it, etc. And any karma you do accumulate can easily dissipate as people, especially renters, move away.
On top of that, in urban areas with services available for everything, people can easily have their needs served via hirable services. In rural areas, services are scarcer, so people rely more on each other to provide services.
This is not a new phenomenon. It aligns exactly with my grandmother’s stories of moving from military bases to the suburbs. The closer your neighbors, the less you get to know them.
At risk of being overly dismissive: when?
I used to do more volunteer work, political activism, blood donations, etc. But I had much more free time. Invites still come my way through the DSA and other organizations but it's always evenings when I'm already booked up. Then there is the balance of "do I spend my only free day volunteering or recharging for the next week?"
Something needs to change in our labor market, there were shifts toward more empowerment of labor through Covid. We've seen increases in union action and accommodations made for non-union labor. But inflation ate up any progress made on wages and businesses are reasserting power over flexible work.
I tend to agree with an economist I work with frequently. There are structural frictions causing high dissatisfaction with work. Until those are addressed I'm honestly unsure how many people have free time for giving back in their community.
Only you know your own personal situation, but I wondered if it can be generalized that people have less free time. I found this article that suggests that we probably have about as much or more free time compared to a few different points in the last century. They do have some data that people feel more rushed than they used to though. This article is from 2007, but average work hours hasn't increased since then.
I think it's tempting to view everything as some kind of economics problem, but the economic component might be overstressed in discussions like these. Surely there are factors that result in reduced participation in local community that are not just money or time issues. Even if I had more money I wouldn't automatically become a more social person. Actually, it seems like the higher paying jobs are more isolating in general. At one point I worked in an industrial assembly kind of role, and I chatted idly with my coworkers all the time. Now I work at a desk all day, some of it remotely, and most of my interactions with coworkers are in meetings discussing business. I make a lot more money now, but I kind of miss the social atmosphere of that old job.
I think it’s a general climate sort of thing. Even if hours worked are about the same or fewer than before, money doesn’t go nearly as far as it once did and even for the more fortunate among us it can still feel like our situations are fragile and prone to collapse at any moment. We’re always wondering when the other shoe will drop.
This no doubt leaves people feeling drained and disempowered, making it seem like their hands are full just taking care of themselves and their immediate family, let alone anybody else.
While having enough money to not work (or comfortably work only part time) wouldn’t automatically make me more social, it’d give me a peace of mind from not having to worry about my continued existence and give me the time and means to pursue not one but multiple hobbies conducive to socialization. It’d take a bit but I think I would become more social with time.
At least in the US, the library seems to be the new secular community hub. In each town I've lived in there's been some great community events with at least some weekly or monthly activity I could get into. It's definitely worth a look and if you want to help your community in a more hands on way you could even start your own regular event. It's a wonderful way to meet new local people with similar interests.
I'm supporting and enriching my local community in my own way too. My husband meets a lot of people through team sports and work so we try to scoop up all of the people we vibe with and then host parties for everyone to meet each other and play board games. I know a lot of adults our age, especially nerds, have trouble making local friends, so we try to be a social hub when we're able to. One of my favorite things to do is throw a Friendsgiving every year for everyone we know who doesn't have somewhere else to be that day. Sometimes 20+ people come and sometimes it's less than ten, but at least I know all of the people I care about will be able to enjoy a nice meal and the company of others that day. I wonder about why it seems hosting parties has become a lost art. You can be that "third place" yourself and provide meals and support for the people around you without any formal labels or institutions. When you do, hopefully you can inspire others to take the initiative as well.
There's a lot to unpack here, and thank you for bringing it up.
In the interest of time and positivity I want to just touch on one main topic. Basically, you don't have to give 100% all the time to be doing something good and pretending that's a requirement of altruism is putting unnecessary (and impossible) obstacles in front of yourself. You don't have to work at a soup kitchen, or do aid work in a remote Southeast Asian village to be doing good. There are a lot of different places and paces to consider and if you need an idea, reach out to me, a relevant community, or someone you know who might have some ideas for you.
Replying to myself because I guess I have a lot of thoughts on this specific topic and want to continue hashing out how to frame them in a positive way.
People experience what's around them in vastly different ways and then look around at how other people process that to try to fit their perceptions into an understanding of healthy, normative, or the most passively acceptable behavior. There's a lot of psychology to unpack there that I'm not qualified to talk about. But let's stay positive. :)
Our behavior is not just about how we're feeling and what we want, but how those around us are feeling and behaving and what they want or need. We all also have our biases and motivations. It's normal and healthy to have biases. Whether it's nature vs nurture or environmental vs experiential, we all have them for some reason. It's normal and healthy to have some of those biases demotivate us or prevent us from doing things that might enrich ourselves, or those around us, because some of those biases suggest to us risks that perhaps fundamentally we shouldn't accept -- or aren't ready to accept, because we haven't gone through the very healthy processes to get to that point of overcoming or acceptance, whatever those risks may be.
Motivation can be hard to come by, but for some reason people on the internet often agree that arguing about it is more entertaining (and less risky) than actually getting up and doing something about it. But fundamentally, every little bit actually helps and the more we can encourage a healthier way of thinking, the more likely we are to encourage bigger improvements. That's one of the benefits of socializing -- comparing notes and saying "hey they got that done, we should celebrate that." The opposite also holds true, and we love to complain about how negative the news is while doing nothing productive about it (have you ever donated to, or even retweeted an article from, a positive news outlet? I didn't think so.).
So do something. And if you don't feel comfortable doing something, or you're not able to do something all the time, encourage spend a little of your valuable argumentative time convincing someone else to do it instead. No risk to you, right? ;)
For me, that is this. I do some volunteering, I am alternating between being more and less active socially locally, and in between I try to spend some of my time encouraging people to also be active in a way that makes sense for them. There are lots of opportunities to get out and do something and have a positive impact without risk to yourself, the question comes down to whether you want to focus on something locally or outside of your region or even your continent. There are also secondary outcomes that carry major benefits -- you'll meet people (yes, even people with similar views as yours!), you'll get opportunities you wouldn't otherwise (I have ethically been snuggled by a cheetah and also know that they can't climb trees), and you might get introduced to other activities that are more fulfilling (I met a celebrity, even though I'm not a movie person, lol!).
Inaction is a choice and it's usually a choice that only serves to help or motivate those who would act against you. So act in your best interests and take that step to do something then, once you've done that, chalk that up as being productive and take the rest of the day off. You earned it.
Also, and I can't stress this enough, convince your employer to become a corporate donor to a worthy organization. Whether it's the local national or state park, a humanitarian/cancer research charity, or a marine life/wildlife NGO, please convince them to give. They get tax benefits for doing so.
What was that website posted on Tildes some months back—some kind of experiment where people barter in hours worked rather than a currency? That was a very interesting idea.
People intrinsically want to help others. It's an evolutionary trait.
On the other hand, people are also highly sensitive to knowing they are being taken advantage of.
By creating this new currency of "hours worked," with everyone starting from zero, it feels fair. It might not last forever and it's not perfect, can probably be abused. But I like what it brings to the table: a public ledger tracking who's spending time helping others, so you can decide where to spend your own volunteer time. Choose where your hours may have the greatest leverage, knowing the recipient will pay it forward.
(Of course people who don't have time to participate are pretty much left out in the cold. Again, it's not a perfect system; it's an experiment. It's a possible starting point for people who do have extra time and want to contribute while not being taken advantage of.)
You are thinking of a Time Bank
That's exactly the concept I was thinking of, thanks.
The Wikipedia entry on Time-based currency has some history about similar small community projects like that in the 1800s, and the first proper "time bank" made by an activist in Japan in 1973, apparently.
You might look at the history of what happened to actual mutual aid societies, historically: they got replaced by health insurance, life insurance, and government programs like social security.
Those things are very expensive nowadays. The modern equivalent might be a gofundme campaign. I think most people consider them a poor substitute for actual health insurance.
I would love to help others more, but I either lack the time (between work, side work, and life-stuff) or more likely the energy due to fatigue. I find it very difficult to promise my time and energy in advance, because it's hard for me to gauge if one evening I'll be extra-exhausted from a particularly draining workday, or wake up migraine-y/tired from stress and lack of sleep. Sadly, paid work simply takes priority for me given my finances and the current climate of where I live (mostly v. expensive housing). Not really using this as an excuse, it just is what it is and I hope I can find myself in a more flexible situation in the future.
That said, I do try to help others within the capacity I have. Often, it's only little gestures with strangers: they look lost so I offer directions; they drop something so I pick it up; they need to merge in heavy traffic so I let them in. Maybe I'm optimistic, but I know I've felt uplifted when receiving these kindnesses, and I think these tiny gestures can help create a small sense of belonging in an otherwise lonely society.
On a bit of a larger scale, I'm a member of a couple very large, local(ish) Facebook groups for non-money trading and helping (gift cards are allowed, which is admittedly just a cash workaround). People post with items or skills to trade / freely give, or post asking for items, free advice, or help with tasks. These groups were huge in helping me and offering some community spirit when I first moved to the area: I got lots of cheap/free household items and also a lot of advice about the area. In turn, I also offered advice when I could, helped out strangers a few times, gave away items I no longer needed for cheap/free. I think these groups work in part from very involved moderation, but also because they crowd-source help and no one person ever feels overly committed to something: individuals offer help only when they can, and there is enough critical mass that someone is often able to.
I realize neither of these are on the scale you (OP) asked about, but I think they're nonetheless useful small steps for people who want to support a community but feel hesitant of giving too much of themselves.
I’ll add another friction point: cars.
Most tilderinos are on board with the idea that car-centrism needs to go, and this is yet another consequence. When everyone is always in their car, there’s a lot kf barrier and distance between folks. It sucks. The necessary car infrastructure creates even more distance. And of course, the aggressive look of so many modern cars adds an aggression-defense attitude that makes it harder to connect.
Sadly the bus (the only transit option in Raleigh) goes few places, few times, and hardly ever works for me. But when i have taken it, I’ve talked to people and its been awesome.
The very few walkable neighborhoods, where one might walk not just for walking but for transportation, are very expensive, and even then, very difficult to get all needs met without a car. Impossible if you have kids.
I’m ranting now, I have no solution but to cheer the efforts at 15 minute cities, and, cheer the return to small towns.
I live in a rural community that's half step down from a small town, and it's actually much more isolating than living in the city. Incidentally, same when I visited people in mega-mansion Texas suburbia or even regular size single family home suburbia Vancouver: you don't know your neighbors.
When you can drive in and out of your own house without bumping into anyone, when kids need to walk 50+ m to your door for trick or treating, when there are no landmarks to walk to within reasonable distance that you can't drive, and (in Texas) when the pavement is SO HOT and the grass is full of fire ants......people don't talk to their neighbors. Or they can't talk much because they'll catch on fire.
When I lived in a metropolis where you can hear everyone's doors open, where you are in the same lift as them for a minute every day or waiting for the same lift in the hall, where a thousand people all pass through the same gates every day, that's when you make inadvertent and lasting social connections.
For someone like me ( introverted and has face blindness), I don't want to talk to or be talked to on the bus. But if I am on the same route every day eventually I will at least greet and small talk a few of the regulars I can recognize.
Proximity, especially among groups we didn't choose, is a very important element of life we seem to have done away with, due to cars, to our detriment.
This is interesting, as it’s exactly the opposite of my experience.
I grew up in car-centric suburbs; there were some kids in the neighborhood to play with, but school, other friends, all shops or other venues were generally 5-30min drive away (occasionally longer). Nearby neighbors talked, took turns keeping an eye on the kids outside, shared house keys in case of emergency, and so on. When we did drive somewhere, whether it was the grocery store or something more interesting, it was common to chat with the other (driver) strangers there if the opportunity arose, like waiting at the deli counter or standing in an elevator. Plus all of the benefits of having personal transport.
Comparing that to living in and near (not just visiting) several US cities and Singapore, there’s practically no interaction in public. On public transport, everyone’s sleeping or looking at their phone or otherwise signaling they don’t want to have/continue a conversation. Neighbors in dense apartment buildings barely know what the others look like, let alone speak a word to them even when taking the same elevator every day. Most “community” related activity is a scheduled organized event/effort rather than something ad hoc and organic. Plus the frustrations of public transport, even in a place where it is as well regarded as Singapore.
I’m looking forward to moving back to the suburbs one day for the community, space, and cars.
I'd put a lot of money into building and living in a "mutual aid" neighborhood. I wish it was possible. I scour IC.org all the time and its pretty close. But there are a lot of religious nutso and hippies on there and its hard to discern.
Years ago I looked into something called co-housing. There seemed to be many different forms, but they usually consisted of a bunch of residential houses and a community center in the neighborhood. People could get together in the evenings at the community center and have a meal and socialize. Some would have a playground for the kids. You could do a movie night. It could be run with combination of volunteering, time bank or monthly service fee, similar to a YMCA or HOA I imagine, but hopefully without the negative impression I usually have of HOAs. You could also add other benefits such as mowing lawns, snow removal, child care, community garden. It reminds me of cult without the cultyness - no crazy religion or suicide pills. I've thought about different ways to accomplish something like this. The easiest way is probably to just convert existing neighborhoods or add/retrofit a community building. I think back to something similar to playing SimCity 2000 and building archologies. Basically a self contained building with housing, commerce and recreation built into one. With some of the big box stores closing I wonder how feasible it would be to convert them to something like an archology with apartments, and recreation center and maybe a convenience store with member discount. You could also augment funding with some of the commercial projects like hair salon, or other businesses you are starting to see in built into the front of Walmarts. I've always had an interest in find a place like this or attempting to build it, but I don't have enough money or skills to pull it off.
I could say things like I don't have a car or don't know where to start, but actually I'm just afraid to start new things and sometimes get overwhelmed by the presense of other people.
I try to do what I'm comfortable with, buying people food when they ask for it, covering people's bus fares when they're short, reaching for the high shelves
For the rest I don't exactly "trust" the government to use my taxes to help other people, but without the free psychiatric clinic I don't know how I would've been able to get to the point where I earn enough money to pay taxes and buy my own ADHD meds.
I have trouble asking for and receiving help. So when it comes to mutual aid, giving is fairly easy, but it's the other side of the equation that's hard for me, even though that help could balance things out to make me more free to help others, or just happier overall. Part of it is the introversion problem others have mentioned, but part of it is a trust problem. If I start relying on people and they let me down, it sucks. If I get "help" that is more of a hindrance, that just makes things harder. People have such busy lives that neither of us can spend the kind of time together that would be required to build that trust.
You may be able to find a good local mutual aid society in the form of a community cooperative.
I know of one creative idea someone had for the St. Anne Hill's neighborhood in Dayton, Ohio... a co-op brewery: https://www.fifthstreetbrewpub.com/our-story/
Maybe this is not exactly what you had in mind, but all it takes is one individual to start a project like this. The problem with making the society specific to a street for example is convincing people with different goals that they should pitch in. It is easier to find people online with a similar mindset than on your street.
I wish starting a co-op was as easy as starting a subreddit on reddit, but it takes a little bit more work in the end. I don’t know too many people that want to invest so much. Most of us just want to be a member or volunteer.
I would posit that this stems from an interplay of several key factors: social constraints, societal atomization, and media-fueled disillusionment. Dunbar's Number sets the first hurdle, limiting our meaningful connections to roughly 150 individuals, leaving those outside the bubble less likely to receive our direct aid. Further complicating matters, technological advancements and the siren song of hyper-individualism have atomized society, replacing local communities with fleeting online interactions. This geographic and emotional untethering, exacerbated by high mobility rates, weakens the social fabric necessary for sustained altruism. Finally, the media's distorted lens cultivates a "mean world syndrome," amplifying societal ills and fostering feelings of cynicism that sap the individual's sense of agency, making individual action appear futile.
Dunbar's Number posits that humans can maintain stable, meaningful relationships with approximately 150 individuals. This cognitive constraint likely places a practical limit on the scope of our altruistic inclinations. When our emotional and mental resources are already stretched thin by existing circles, extending beyond the Dunbar bubble becomes increasingly difficult. Family and coworkers are more than enough to breach this hypothetical upper limit.
Diffusion of responsibility is a psychological phenomenon wherein individuals feel less accountable for their actions when part of a larger group. In altruistic situations, this diffusion can lead to a decreased sense of personal responsibility, as individuals may assume that others within the group will address the situation. This phenomenon can hinder altruistic behavior by diluting the perceived impact of individual actions and reducing the likelihood of intervention in moments requiring selfless acts.
Media cultivation effects influence individuals' attitudes and behaviors based on prolonged exposure to specific media content. In the realm of altruism, media portrayals can shape societal norms and expectations. If media consistently depicts a culture where self-interest prevails over altruism, it can contribute to the normalization of such behavior. Recognizing the role of media in cultivating societal values is essential for understanding and challenging narratives that may hinder the promotion of altruistic tendencies.
American culture also emphasizes individual autonomy, self-expression, and personal success. I think this worms its way into our subconscious more than we realize. I would be shocked if this hyper-individualism doesn't greatly contribute to a society where individuals prioritize their own needs over communal well-being. Altruistic actions may be overshadowed by a competitive pursuit of personal goals, further isolating individuals from collective endeavors.
Further complicating matters is the atomization of society, a phenomenon fueled by technological advancements and the pervasive reach of capitalism. "Community life" has, to a significant extent, been relegated to the digital realm, where interactions are often fleeting. Social media platforms, designed to optimize engagement and monetization, prioritize curated online personas over genuine human connection.
This atomization, driven by technological advancements and hyper-individualism, often leads to reduced face-to-face interactions. As individuals become more engrossed in their digital worlds, the opportunities for meaningful in-person social engagements diminish. The resulting limited exposure to diverse social situations may contribute to heightened social anxiety, as individuals find themselves less equipped to navigate real-world interactions due to a lack of practice and familiarity.
I believe our personalized and individualized digital experiences can inadvertently reinforce social fears. In isolated social bubbles, individuals may curate their online interactions to avoid discomfort or disagreement, leading to a skewed perception of social dynamics. This reinforcement of avoidance behaviors within digital spaces can contribute to heightened social anxiety, as individuals may fear the uncertainties associated with unscripted, diverse social encounters. Social media often becomes a breeding ground for social comparison; individuals may perceive their lives and social interactions through the curated lens of others' online personas, fostering feelings of inadequacy and social unease. The constant exposure to idealized representations of social lives can contribute to an unhealthy cycle of comparison and self-doubt, amplifying social anxiety in those who feel they fall short of perceived societal norms. The lack of strong community bonds and diminished social support networks may leave individuals more vulnerable to the negative impacts of social anxiety. The fear of judgment and rejection in social situations can become more pronounced when individuals lack a sense of belonging and shared identity within their communities. Ultimately, this ends up creating a feedback loop.
Exacerbating this atomization is the high degree of geographic mobility in the United States. Unlike in past generations, individuals no longer live and die within the same community. This constant geographical flux weakens the ties that bind us to specific locales and communities, making it more challenging to establish the lasting personal connections necessary for sustained altruism. The fleeting nature of social interactions in transient societies leaves little fertile ground for the seeds of true empathy and mutual aid to take root.
The influence of media cultivation effects shouldn't be ignored either. Constant exposure to sensationalized portrayals of crime, injustice, and dysfunction, while highlighting real problems, can create a skewed perception of reality. This "mean world syndrome" can amplify feelings of cynicism and hopelessness, diminishing an individual's sense of agency and the belief that their actions can make a difference.
Finally, locus of control refers to an individual's belief regarding the degree of control they have over their lives. In the context of altruism, individuals with an external locus of control may feel less empowered to make a difference, attributing outcomes to external factors beyond their influence. This can impede the initiation of altruistic actions, especially when individuals perceive societal challenges as beyond their individual capacity to address. Fostering an internal locus of control becomes crucial in promoting a sense of agency and encouraging proactive engagement in altruistic endeavors. In general, left-leaning individuals tend to have a more external locus of control than right-leading individuals. (Which is not, I suppose, terribly surprising.)
All these factors create a landscape where individual altruism can feel insufficient and even Sisyphean. To many on the left, the sheer scale of societal challenges like poverty, healthcare access, and educational disparity necessitates solutions beyond the scope of individual acts of charity. This perspective aligns with the core tenets of "leftism," which emphasize collective welfare and social justice. The belief in systemic forces shaping individual opportunities and outcomes leads naturally to advocating for systemic solutions. For instance, a leftist might argue that while volunteering at a soup kitchen is commendable, addressing food insecurity on a larger scale requires systemic reforms to income inequality and food access infrastructure. The sheer scale of the problems we face, coupled with the aforementioned limitations and a distorted media landscape, can fuel a sense of disillusionment and even despair. The feeling that individual efforts might be drowned out by systemic forces or media hype can lead to a sense of paralysis, further reinforcing the belief in collective solutions.