I have a couple of YouTubes to share from a pair of sources that seem to be very like-minded. The first is an interview with Sophie Scott-Brown. According to her biography from the Institute of Intellectual History:
Dr Sophie Scott-Brown is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, where she teaches intellectual history. She is well-know for her historical work on left-wing politics, especially the post-war British left, and for her intellectual biography of Raphael Samuel entitled The Histories of Raphael Samuel – A Portrait of A People’s Historian (2017). In this interview, she discusses the path that led her towards Raphael Samuel and her wider interests in the politics and education of history.
The second group is called Eutopia. Here is their blurb:
What is the Eutopia project? We tell to spread a present of hope, sustainability, beauty and innovations that make us, our pockets and the environment feel good: ecovillages, travelers, conscious lifestyles, urban regeneration projects, alternative educational projects. Stories that sometimes seem like utopias, but that we will discover exist and are already reality so we will bring these stories and interview their creators.
I have two videos from them. The first is for a small family living the rustic life in a very small living space.
Hanna and Michael set up two tiny houses for themselves and their children to live in.
And the next is about the ZEGG community:
Ninety minutes by train from Berlin, outside the town of Belzig, is ZEGG, the Center for Experimental Cultural Design (Zentrum für esperimentelle Gesellschaftsgestaltung). As of 2011, ZEGG has 100 members, including 15 children. Founded in 1991 on a former Nazi sports camp and East German secret police facility, ZEGG has regenerated the land and buildings with an ecological sewage treatment plant, carbon-neutral heating, thoroughly insulated buildings, and organic gardens. ZEGG’s members believe that the life force of humanity, including our capacity for building a sustainable society, will only be liberated when we learn to take a non-possessive approach to sexuality. I had strong reservations about visiting ZEGG, but many people with no interest in polyamorous lifestyles encouraged me—on the basis of ZEGG’s influence on the global communities movement—to go. Having survived all manner of emotional upheaval among its members, ZEGG developed a group process called the Forum to explore highly charged feelings through dramatic enactments within a collective meditative space. The Forum has proven to be successful as well as portable. For the last 15 years, ZEGG has offered courses and seminars on the Forum for communities around the world as a tool for fostering greater self-awareness and social bonding.
Commentary
The first and most clear thing to me is that this is what’s called like-mindedness. For myself anyway. It might not be true for you. You might think differently. You may have some thoughts that are different. You might even have an argument. But I don’t really have so many arguments with these people. I empathize. I don’t really pine for a close-knit society. The world is really made up of interesting people that are best taken in small doses. In this way, these videos are a bit folly. They are trying to create a world where there are very few people around while inviting a bunch of people to be incredibly close to them.
This is not to say that everybody should have great distances between them. It is absolutely to say however that we need to keep our distance from each other even if we are close to each other. The hypocratic oath says do no harm. That’s for doctors. Just agree you’re a doctor and you care about everyone’s health. Even your own. Just pretend you’re a doctor and pretend that you care and then take a look at your neighbors and ask yourself how much they need to listen to you drown on about your terrible, terrible life. Seriously.
Which brings up the thought of why anarchy is the most orderly answer possible. That is correct. I understand that in your mind you believe the word anarchy means chaos and everything flying through the air. I suppose anarchy is war. If you never know when the bullet that’s going to kill you is on its way, that’s pretty anarchistic to me. It’s also kind of inhumane to live one’s life without understanding the difference.
Would I liked about the philosophy is that it is essentially the same as democracy. I’m talking about anarchy here. If anarchy genuinely means without strong leaders, because this is the situation they warn us about all the time, they say everything will come unhinged. But this is completely the opposite of what is true. If we stop having the social structures that keep our strong leaders in place, if we stop building pyramids and let everyone spread out a little, What you have is a lot of individuals. And if we are good about education and rational explanations about how we understand people should be on the planet, I think that means we all find that sweet spot that we dream about. Kind of sexy really thinking about it. What if they’re just wasn’t any war. Not bad anarchy. Good anarchy. True democracy. Everyone votes.
So inevitably this is my complaint. In the video about the family living in two tiny houses, it’s the drone shots from above that give it up. He is happy to talk about everything he’s doing. He is so nervous, it is everything he has to keep it together. I suppose he’s a great father. I think if you have a genius for a father, you have an interesting childhood. But the drone shot tells us that his neighbors are not necessarily disciples to the cause. In fact, I’m pretty sure his neighbors hate him for refusing to manicure lawn. This stacking rocks to give homes to bugs is exactly that these people want not to have.
They don’t like insects. They don’t like weeds. They don’t like anything that even seems to be from nature. Nature hurts. Nature is hard. All they want is to be insulated.
They like their cars. They like money. They like the world they live in because they’re very comfortable. Why are they comfortable? Because they don’t have insects bothering them. They like a world without any life in it because it’s more comfortable for them. Oh of course, you can ask our father here how long it took him to get used to living outside and he’d probably tell you he doesn’t even remember when he wasn’t happy outside. Some people like to be outside. Some people like nature in its purest forms.
I’ve been told I am very German sometimes. Now I am more like these guys. They are still German but they want to be relaxed. They’re extremely German about their relaxing. The level of technical proficiency practice is extraordinary. It is really an interesting thing when someone agrees to captain their own boat. That’s the entire story. Not everybody wants to be the captain. Most people would rather be lazy and just do what they are told. Well, they do that from fear mostly. But they like the thought of being the boss almost as much as they like insects.
But maybe I’ve got some engineer in me. My mom always wanted me to be an engineer. Well, I think she wanted me to be a male prostitute but she would say things like she wants me to be an engineer. She was dying for an engineer. She believed in engineers. Could I have been a serious engineer? If I was actually serious enough as a teenager to make this decision, I would have been Lou Gehrig. Sorry Mom, got my diploma in engineering but I’m going to be playing for the Giants. Or I’ll let you know how I’m doing in Yokohama.
I guess with anarchy we need some diplomacy. What an interesting world when everybody pilots their own boat. What do we do when pirates appear on the waters? What do you do when groups start to assemble? Theoretically, and this was said to be about public safety, there used to be these laws on the books in Belarus that said you could not congregate for a discussion publicly with more than three people. If a group of people coagulated, and we can talk about a drum circle here, they are illegally meeting and need a government permit. The permit means they get to be security. You can’t do anything as a group here because you’re just not supposed to have that much power.
But how do we deal with this? I could say that we need to stop making followers. We teach people to be followers. We smash their lives. I’m talking about our children. We crush their creativity. And if I include the psychotic Russian women who live near me, there is nothing possible that could live under their care. This is especially true for something as delicious as children. The opportunity to devour every last piece of their energy is just too much. Maybe we need to stop making addicts. Maybe we should learn what the hell and addiction is and stop giving it to people as a matter of culture to be believed in and followed and enjoyed at every celebration.
I guess what I’m saying is I’m vegan who doesn’t drink. I’m a vegan which means I don’t eat meat. I eat plants. I’m pretty happy eating plants. I think it gives me a lot of life that otherwise wouldn’t have. It also gives me clarity of mind. I don’t care about your trolling that thought. I have to solve problems everyday because I do things everyday to keep my household going. I garden. My house is rustic and requires a lot of physical labor. No machines.
So how we go about this is not really smash and grab because I’m talking about growing things. And of course, I am no longer my absolute athletic peak. That was a long time ago so a lot of this work is extremely compromised. But I have to figure out those problems too, don’t I? You can’t have a bad day. You can’t just rip out the food that’s been growing. Once you put them in the ground, that’s a commitment of several months. That means patience. That means you need to remember these things you have and that they require some attention. You see how this works? It’s called being the captain of your ship.
Well, if you ask me what is necessary, I would say what I’ve been saying the whole time. And because I’ve been saying this the whole time, when I see videos like this and creators who have this philosophy to put out there, I say this is a good thing. I say we should have more people thinking like this and acting like this. We should have a lot more people who believe philosophy is important enough to let an idea rule their lives. I mean, if the polar opposite of that is allowing someone else’s philosophy to rule your life, I’m sorry but you don’t have a life anymore. Once you become a follower, I don’t think you ever get out of line.
But I’m not talking about being a leader. I don’t want a hundred people asking me what to do. I mean, if I got a hundred people asking me what to do, I would need a lot of information about that group. Where are they? who are they? This means what skills do they have and how is their work ethics? That’s what I mean about knowing them. If I had a hundred people asking me to point them in one direction, it might be kind of nice having an eco army. Yeah, 100 people doing cleanup day in the forest. Rock and roll.
And then I guess there would be the lesson in this. These people probably needed money. I can’t really say that people would dedicate their lives to me unless I will somehow providing for their lives. Do you see how that works? That would be if I was the boss. But if I was this boss for one day, I would just ask these 100 individuals at the end of the day if this was one of the best days they’ve ever had. And I don’t just mean that perhaps not smoking or drinking while taking a walk in the forest and picking up trash is a very healthy way to pass the time. I mean juxtaposed against anything else they’ve ever had to do to make money, how was today? How great was the compromise today? How hateful did they end up feeling today?
Because then I think we probably do something like they would write me what job they were going to do and if I was the captain of the ship, that would mean I knew what everyone was doing. But yeah, I think I might just take a written request from everybody, crunch all the numbers and see where the groups lie, put that up against what problems we have and basically see if they screwed up. Oh, you don’t understand. All of those hundred people who would work for me? They are already captains. They already know the whole project and have been doing as much thinking as I have.
Maybe that’s anarchy. Maybe this is just a more sustainable way to live. Maybe it’s not a fairy tale. It’s not even for hippie types who just don’t get it that the artificial life is the way to go. I just remember that when I came here, my goal was to set up a bike shop. But immediately I noticed I had an inherent problem. Everyone was already a mechanic. Everyone already knew how to fix their own bike or car or heater or washing machine. Everybody already knew how to hook up electric motors and how to do mechanical changes. I just came here as a self-sufficient guy who thought he could be enterprising. The entire landscape was made of a people just like me who already knew what they were doing.
Anyway, I like these guys. I like philosophical people. I like people who live under a green flag. I like people who are not interested in war but in methods of finding peace amongst others. I like those people who don’t mind working hard to have that glazed happy expression on their face. I like comfortable people who don’t mind putting the effort into keeping things comfortable for everybody. I just like this sort of thing. Actually don’t understand people who don’t get it even if at one time in my life, I was probably one of them. But then again, so was everybody else in this film.
