Commune-ism

Fascinating article in the NY Times about people organizing group living situations in the city.

The article is everything you'd expect and serves as a beautiful illustration of how difficult it can be to put together satire in today's world where actual craziness tends to vastly outstrip anyone's ability to exaggerate it.

Perhaps just a few choice quotes with some commentary...

Consider the efforts of Ms. Berger, 28, and Ms. Hazard, 24, who advertised eloquently for roommates before even settling on a house: "Some of the things we like are: permaculture, living sustainably, gardening, dancing, hula hooping, yoga, herbalism, making music, active listening, non-violent communication ..." they wrote, in part.

It's kind of sad the way they are clearly trying as hard as they can to be unique people fearlessly carving their own way in the world and yet are ending up as hopeless cliches every bit as ridiculous as the conformists whose restrictive reality they no doubt believe they are bravely fleeing.


A house in Philly apparently had this listing:

"You will probably not feel at home here unless anti-ableism, anti-ageism, anti-classism, anti-racism, consent, trans-positivity and queer-positivity, etc., are very important to you," the ad read.
Anti-ableism?
Ms. Feigelson, who works as a political organizer and volunteer, explained: "It means against the oppression of those who are physically or mentally disabled, and extends to language. Like you wouldn’t use the word ‘lame.’ "

Ah yes. Because you wouldn't want to get a roommate who is in favor of the oppression of the handicapped -- as so many in today's society are.


You know, this tendency to imagine yourself as a brave warrior courageously fighting evil opression is one I've noticed for a while, perhaps I should pull together my thoughts on it at some point and share them.

Basically, the driving force seems to be that while it's a lot of fun to be bravely fighting oppression -- it's romantic and all that -- it sucks to actually live in a place that's full of real oppression with lots of power behind it b/c then, for all the romance, you tend to get thrown in jail, beaten, killed, that kind of downer stuff. So what's really fun is to come up with definitions of "oppression" that are so mild that very open, very accepting societies can be shoe-horned into meeting them. Then you get all the pleasantness of living in an open, free society bereft of much actual oppression AND all the romantic fun of proving how moral you are by bravely standing against oppression -- nevermind that this oppression exists mostly in your own imagination.

I don't pretend that this is a recent phenomenon -- indeed, based on my cursory knowledge, it seems to have been a significant force animating the late 1960's -- but it def. seems to be on the rise of late.


Then later, the reporter (fn1) asks a personality expert about the ads:

Yet she worried that other personality types, the sort who know how to fix the toaster or program the VCR, weren’t being invited into these houses.

That's not really a concern though, is it? After all, everyone knows that toasters are a tool of the patriarchy designed to oppress womynkind; VCR's, in their conceit to 'record' something that 'happened', are reflective of a normative heuristic favoring certain dominant frames of reference over others; and as for "programming", don't even get me started on how inherently oppressive the idea that it is right or even possible for one being to impose its designs and desires on another is...

Somehow even after reading this article about these brave iconoclasts creating a new type of society, one based on profound thought and deep insight about the role of humanity in the world, my conviction that Western Civ. is on its last legs and disaster will follow remains unshaken...

fn1: Who, somewhat oddly, openly admits in the article to "fretting" over her interview subjects, though that's a topic for a separate post. One on my old favorite: the NY Times. The open sympathy of their reporters -- even in the "hard news" sections -- for their subjects, when those subjects are on the 'right' side of the political spectrum, is getting pretty out of hand. But, as I say, a topic for another time.