I bitched yesterday about the weird impact of peeling potatoes on my hands, and got some surprising support for my experience. Today I am still feeling it.
But I'm fine, I'll live.
Tonight I'm thinking about "KP". In my first intentional community, a college co-op at Oberlin, there were two jobs nobody wanted, so when signup time came, they were always available.
One of them was cleaning the bathroom. There were several bathrooms, it was a big building. Nobody wanted to clean the bathrooms.
But, actually, cleaning bathrooms is pretty easy. It might be a little gross sometimes, but it's easy, and it's fast, and you're a hero cuz you cleaned the bathroom.
The other hated job, tho, was KP (kitchen prep).
And I have not the slightest idea why it was a hated job!
Most nights, KP was zero.
Some nights, KP might be peel 50 pounds of potatoes, but, hey, we were a co-op, and co-ops are wealthy, and we had a potato peeling machine. It took less time to peel the potatoes than it did to clean the machine.
People, generally, don't understand how successful co-ops can be, given only motivated people willing to pool their time, energy, and money.
My college co-op housed 40 people and fed 80 people every night, at roughly 40% of the cost of a dorm and a cafeteria.
I have lived in intentional community about 95% of my adult life.
Even today, inside my current (and prolly last) community, there are several smaller co-ops that exist.
I have chop saw, a table saw, and two generators. That's just the little co-ops.
The larger community owns a community center, a tractor, a tractor-shed, a snow-plow, a dump truck, and on and on.
Co-ops and communities are the answer to the rapacious capitalism that is destroying our world.
I don't want to suggest that co-ops and communities are easy.
They are not.
I would only say that they are not any harder than navigating exploitation systems created by exploiters.
@GeePawHill when I am stupidly rich, I plan to build an affordable, "luxury" intentional community for surviving the Climate Wars.
And by luxury, I mean a huge makers' space with supplies for every craft I've ever considered trying 😄
@GeePawHill I can't agree - I think something was sold to the people in the 60's and it was a wrong framing that still lingers.
"We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel."
Its a bit harsh and i think overly dramatic but i've always felt communes and co-ops all suffer from this view that someone else is tending the important thing like cancer care or policing bad actors, etc.
To be fair never lived in a commune, only experienced tightly knit communities online. See story below of problem communities have (as far as i see it)
Totally agree that this is just one example and there may be many examples of well run ones.
@Weatherwax The calculus is very complicated. Because intentional communities are outside the norm, we know each other, and we know when a new one starts.
There are many failures.
Living in peace with others is actually rather hard.
But it's not harder than living in peace with others *outside* a community.
@Weatherwax You've never tried it. So. I have to say, and I'm not tryna be a dick here, you have a theory-based idea of what it is and what it takes.
That's not me saying you're wrong. Community is actually pretty difficult to pull off, and there are many many failed communities.
It's me asking why, in the absence of any actual experience, you disagree?
I admire your perseverance in communities like this and, if they work for you, then fine, they work for you. My answer came across strong because I was more answering the last bit of your comment "Co-ops and communities are the answer to the rapacious capitalism that is destroying our world" - I'm not actually against intentional communities or co-ops at all - they rock (if they work). My objection is more to the sweeping anti-capitalist conclusion and perhaps the tone of moral certainty about it. I grew up amongst Catholicism and so am against moral certainty which infects so many irreligious (see how much religious fervour and certainty there is amongst the effective altruists).
I think there are many answers, most within capitalism and I don't think our world is being destroyed either. That's all.
Personally I think capitalism will save the world (fluffy communities full of motivated individuals would not have revolutionised agriculture, created vaccines and globally reduced extreme poverty) and make it all better but I get that's controversial.
GeePawHill
Rob 🏳️🌈 Rartsy Humanist
RamenCatholic 🐢🌈
Weatherwax
Irenes (many)
Waldo Jaquith