a few thoughts on why I'm wary of communities

[goddess32585]

b/c invariably, at the moment a community can usefully be said to exist, it now has momentum, definition, an in and an out, cultural signifiers, and a drive for self-preservation. People are social, they like to have fun, and why fix it if it ain't broke

Comments

[nakor]

I like people. I've never met a community. I think communities are optical illusions. Human brains are wired to see them, but they aren't really there. There's really just people, in some combination of caring and not caring about each other and about each others' relationships. You can write A cares about B for a person B, or A cares about (the relationship between B and C), or A cares about (the relationships about B,C,...J). But only the people actually care. Relationships never care about anybody. I'm sure I have some details wrong, but the core seems solid: care about people, expect/demand/hope that others care about people, and don't be too surprised or hurt when people show that real people are flawed and imperfect.

So when some person demonstrates that real people are flawed or imperfect... why poke a community? Is there a community to poke? Why not just poke *that one*. If he doesn't care, and there's some person you think ought to do something about it... why not poke that one? If there are lots of people who should care, if you want a stoning or an ostracism, poke lots of people and get them to start poking too. It's sort of like a barn raising: the community didn't build that barn. Farmer A and Farmer B and Farmer C did.

I'm still working out the details of the above, after watching the most kind and thoughtful people I know behave in this humane way.

[goddess32585]

I suspect communities exist in consensual reality; the relationships between a group of people are often greater than the sum of the individual relationships between them, especially if identity is tied up in it. Also, I've spent years being cynical and unsurprised when people are dicks, but somehow that doesn't erase the hurt. Pain doesn't work that way, so far as I can tell.

As to why I want to deal with the community rather than the individuals, it's because that's what tells me what I need to know. The individuals in the community do the work, but they reach consensus about whether to do the work at all, and how to do it, in many cases. If a single person is being a bigot, my interest is really not in engaging with them; it never ends well, and isn't worth my time. Empirically, however, for every person who makes a statement like that, others around feel the same way; I need to know how many of them there are, so I can know whether to back away fast for my own safety, or if this is still a space in which I can contribute usefully. And especially in groups where consciousness-raising and calling others out on their bullshit is part of the mission, I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation that, hey, they take advantage of practice opportunities on their doorstep. If they can't do that, I seriously question their ability to do it anywhere else.