Like everyone else, I've been real interested in doing a commune-style thing with some friends, kinda off-grid-ish, because "lil tribe in woods" is the ideal, right?
And I still want it, but sometimes I wonder if we've been too permanently socially crippled to pull it off. 1/n
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I would fail as a survivalist. I don't have the knowledge to repair tools, to forage, how to prevent mold, treat wounds, etc. I was formed in a 'civilization' mold, where the most I need to know about my own shit is how to hit the flush lever. Set me into the woods, I'd die. 2/n
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I wonder how much something like this is going on with cultural tribes. Are our attempts at tribe building doomed to fail because we're trying to come at it through a 'civilization' mold? How much do we not know that we don't know about how to sustain this type of community? 3/n
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Like, did our cultural 'handle-conflict' skills get shaped by a world where you don't live near each other? Are we doing something fundamentally wrong for a lots-of-time-spent-together context? Do we have values like self expression that just don't work out in the "wild"? 4/n
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The vast majority of commune attempts fail. Group houses have high turnover, and (tho low sample size) I don't know a single 'friend-family' attempt that's lasted more than 5 years. Given how much everybody seems to want a tribe, the high failure rate is a bit weird. 5/n
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And normie stuff like jobs and housing don't help, but my guess is there's also a ton of default, invisible orientations we have to "how we are supposed to be with others" that are incompatible with long-term tribe success, and we don't have good ways of identifying them. 6/6
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I’ve often thought that western civilization’s failure was its inability to establish an indigenous culture. One that didn’t require progression to survive. I’m not sure this is true though.
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My hunch is that trying recreate a state of nature without knowing how humans actually organized ourselves in pre-history won’t work. I have theories, but 🤷🏼♂️
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I feel like most of the issues with the off-grid commune is self-subsistence is near impossible and a lifestyle downgrade. If you want that communal feel, you could try moving to the suburbs, opening up the backyards as public space with a communal garden with tomatoes and herbs.
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I'm sort of doing that right now. But 'sort of' is the key -- living w/friends, we have a big garden, goats, work shop, but we're either retired or have telework income, so we pay bills normal, have internet, etc. Lower costs, lower stress, good to have your hands in the earth.
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I'm not sure why anyone would desire to give up the comforts of modern life, like cheap/low-effort food.
I assume this is an excuse to live and connect with people?
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