Building Circles of Community: "LONE RANGERS" Cannot Survive Collapse
 

BUILDING CIRCLES OF COMMUNITY: "LONE RANGERS" CANNOT SURVIVE COLLAPSE, By Carolyn Baker
Saturday, 28 July 2007

The inexorable reality is that any community that does not process feelings and build trust by doing so...is NOT, I repeat, NOT sustainable.

A treasure trove of information pertaining to preparation for collapse can be found on the internet and in libraries throughout the world. Earlier this year I reviewed Mick Winter's book on preparing for Peak Oil and have since posted on my site Stan Goff's piece on "35 Ways To Prepare For Peak Oil" My own article, "What To Do, What To Do?" addresses preparation for collapse from yet another perspective. Websites such as Matt Savinar's Life After The Oil Crash, Energy Bulletin, and Post-Carbon Institute offer ongoing suggestions for preparation as well. Yet the one topic which receives almost no attention is the notion of how individuals create community in the face of the collapse of civilization. This is curious since, in my opinion, all individuals raised in the culture of empire are deeply wounded emotionally and spiritually and have little experience of living harmoniously in community. In fact, more often than not, people who are preparing for collapse tell me that their experiences with attempting to create and maintain community have been disappointing at best and disastrous at worst, so it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out why so few people address the topic.

Last Updated ( Monday, 30 July 2007 )
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Re: Building Circles of Community: "LONE RANGERS" Cannot Survive Collapse
 

Some of us, having grown up in communities forced upon us, simply want to be left alone. Left to our own devices and ingenuity, we'll then learn to trade and cooperate with people of our own choosing. Or we'll be left alone to die, if we want.

Re: Building Circles of Community: "LONE RANGERS" Cannot Survive Collapse
 

Moreover, even if I have learned every skill imaginable, if I and my companions in collapse cannot deeply listen to each other and speak our truth with compassion, none of us will survive, and even if we did, an internally vacuous emotional domain would render survival nothing less than absurd.

I think he's barking up the wrong tree. Yes, communities are ultimately the key to sustained survival for most of us, but the sort of community he seems to expect to find is the sort of community that is only going to emerge when the stakes of the game really are life or death. In a true survival situation, the labor and responsibilities in a community are going to fall on members according to their strengths and abilities. "Deeply listening to each other" and "speaking truths" is not what sustains a community in hard times. Indeed, I'd be surprised if people have the time, energy, need, or patience for it in such a situation. Each member contributing to the best of his or her abilities and each member being willing to sacrifice a bit for the sake of the whole is what it's going to take to survive. The traditions and culture a community builds up over time is what's going to cement the members together in a common sense of identity, and their shared stake in their survival is what's going to give them cohesiveness and a sense of community.

The author also seems unusually oblivious to the risks of forming a survivalist-type community ahead of a collapse.

Geez, I hope this guy isn't in my community! If the SHTF, there are far more important things to be done than "deeply listening" to each other. As long as he carries his share of the load, I don't particularly care if he's got the warm and fuzzies about our community.

Re: Building Circles of Community: "LONE RANGERS" Cannot Survive Collapse
 

No kidding Maddie. Community will develop, I also think, after things get tough, and 'deep listening' sounds kind of strange in that context. It won't be so much group therapy, I think, as working arrangements that create necessities for cooperative people.

Ways to work together that are mutually beneficial will be what is most important.

Re: Building Circles of Community: "LONE RANGERS" Cannot Survive Collapse
 

People who talk about the need for hugs always come with open...and empty...arms.

:bawling: They maybe waved at us on their way to the Mall.