Riding a bike because you despise car centric infrastructure is punk. Advocating for your local library is punk. Evangelizing anti corporate and FOSS tech is punk. Don't you dare try to gatekeep my punk.
Oh hell yeah.
Where I live there's no community though, there are no volunteers or "odd jobs", people keep to themselves and don't speak in public, there are no local groups and if there are, I've never seen them, the only local people I even found on the internet was randos on nextdoor complaining about street buskers 100s of miles away.
I always hear this shit about organising and community but it's like from another dimension or something from a movie and always so vague, I've yet to see any organising or community IRL or any instructions as to what this actually means step by step.
Do you have a local Food Not Bombs, DSA, PSL, or other org?
No, I'm from the UK. There was an anarchist fed in London that ran a solidarity cafe at a gay club during the day, though eventually shifting to mostly zoom calls, but it closed because no one went there, probably because they just had Facebook and a mailing list and finding them organically online was almost impossible.
Sounds like your first step is organising a community.
Yeah, but how? What is the actual step by step guide here? What does this even mean really, "organizing a community"?
It’s gonna be different for each area.
But you’re going to need to do:
Outreach: Make connections with local people, get them aware of you and what you’re wanting to do, get their input on what they would like to see.
Planning: Come up with things you want to see your community doing, maybe start with a small street party each year.
For example you might live in an apartment, so you knock on some doors and meet with your neighbours and they say they’d love a garden. Now you’ve gotta plan how to get it started, maybe a local council or vacant property could be converted. Once you’ve got an activity or place, you can get people to start using it and spending time together. Maybe your first harvest comes in and you all have a large picnic which you can advertise around to get more awareness and engagement, etc.
Where are you based? I found myself facing the same problem. In my small rural community a 2nd hand and artisan market proved to be effective to get people out of their houses and meet up. No need to throw political theory at them immediately, it's just great they appeared. Though I do admit there's already a bit of a community to work with and entertainment is sparse around here so it's easy to get people's attention. Where are you based? Not sure what would work best there.
The organizing steps that worked so far for me and bf are described in the Community community of this instance (and the many social anxieties suffered by a person who wants to encourage community but isn't very social to begin with).
I'm in South East England. There's a weekend market here, but it's all organized by the council and such, it's not something mere mortals can really influence. Other than that while entertainment here is sparse, I think most people just stay inside the home. I wouldn't call this a rural community, it's a small town, I'm not sure if it would be harder or easier if the population was in the hundreds instead of hundreds of thousands.
Thanks for linking that! I'll check it out. I'm pretty outgoing and social, at times it seems the only person in the world who seems to be okay just chatting to people, but I also want to get it right, so it'll be good to read up as much as possible before any action.
It's probably an effect of the design of your city/town/surroundings, if I had to guess. May I ask what type of place you live in? Like, is it a suburb or something similar?
Also, you might like to read this person's story that I've been following along on here. ~~I'll put a link for you in a minute~~
On a side note: please use our own instance of Alexandrite to not leak your password to a 3rd party: https://alexandrite.slrpnk.net
I've lived in London, UK in dense urban housing, the only time I've ever spoken to anyone in the area was when a neighbour below had a water leak caused by the floor caving in underneath what could only very charitably be called my bathroom.
He could barely speak English and seemed to be living in the same squalor studio but with a family of 4, he was a man and like 20 years older than me.
Then I moved out to a flat in a smaller town, very suburban, closest shop was like a 10 min walk. I don't think I've seen a single person ever speaking in public apart from groups of university students, whom I wouldn't want to approach for fear of being accused of being a groomer (I'm trans and besides that frankly I would've kept my hand firmly on my wallet if some adult approached me out of nowhere when I was in uni), and 50 year olds out on the town either with kids or just getting lunch for work.
I tried to organise with my neighbours once to get the landlord to install some sound insulation, but I asked them to at least stop blasting the music from speakers at night at their daily house parties of 20-30 people (they already lived in a house share of 6, packed like rats) in the meantime, which apparently crossed a line and caused a conflict that endured for years and involved attempts on their behalf to scam me into paying their energy bill by going to the landlord.
All other attempts at talking were met with gaslighting and aggression, I had to resort to discussing it with the landlord because I was worried they were gonna cave in the ceiling with their attempts at smashing things at their floor so I'd give up and leave, fortunately a guitar amplifier aimed squarely at the ceiling blasting the X-Files theme throughout the night got them to stop and we are now in a temporary cease-fire.
That's probably the closest to earnest human communication I've experienced with a stranger. Fwiw I don't think I've ever witnessed anyone else talking to anyone else like that either, in fact I'd say by sheer coincidence I'm the only person I know who even has seen their neighbours.
Closest my best friend got was an auto-generated emaul from their landlord's agency filing a noise complaint on behalf of neighbours when we both could've sworn their place was empty of furniture, nevermind people.
He doesn't "do politics", and when I prompted him, he didn't seem to even understand what the word meant or how policy would even relate to anyone's day to day life. All he follows is K-Pop and gadgets. I only know him from school, the rest of my friends are my exes.
Some anarchist I am, huh?
When it comes to friend circles, either people are exactly as radicalised as I am in theory, but don't bother with any praxis because they don't know what to do either or are so incredibly depressed by even broaching the subject they avoid it altogether, apart from maybe donating to the green party or more realistically some weird debate streamer, or some of the more far removed acquaintances don't understand politics and probably couldn't even name who the current prime minister is, all they care about is football and maybe if they're nerdy - FIFA on da Xbox with the lads. Nevermind politics, even basic history usually escapes them. Maybe they've gone on twitter once to look up their favourite brand and now say Trump seems like a charismatic funny guy.
A friend of mine used to say that about Putin - that was the extent of her political opinions that and being "kind", despite the fact I repeatedly told her it's not very nice when I'm a literal refugee from Russia thanks to the guy.
A mutual friend of ours did get radicalised eventually - she became a nazi, not like rightoid or alt-right but dead on "dear leader" hitler-loving nazi and excitedly once showed me a portrait of some SS guy she drew which she expected me to like despite knowing I was trans, (later, she offered me to try meth with her, which was funny but not actually that odd since we did drugs together all the time) we used to at least have stuff to talk about though because she seemed to at least think actively about the world, even if her conclusions to almost all problems were invariably some form of eugenics and "more white people", even public transport would be solved with this, according to her.
When it comes to the workplace, I think we used to have some vaguely political discussions, but as my immigrant status hinges on maintaining a job, and it's in tech - for what has now been acquired and is now managed by an American multinational and with that brought the attitude of that culture, I tread very very lightly.
Needless to say, the alienation is brutal. Most people generally seem like a different species, I think me and my cat have far more in common than I do with any people, whether it understands Kropotkin or not. People and events seem procedurally generated, they appear just as randomly and quickly as they disappear, no one seems to have more than 2 lines of dialogue.
Even outside of politics, most everything I am deeply invested in is something seemingly no ordinary person has ever even heard of, at least on the internet people seem real, hivemind af sure, but not as atomized. Maybe in the US people are just way more engaged with this stuff.
Thanks for linking that post, it's a neat story, but it seems to start in medias res of having already organized an entire event, not exactly helpful instructions wise, but inspiring for sure.
First of all, a hug from far, and may the alienation go away soon.
Second, I've found there's no point in discussing politics with people. Not with friends, not with strangers. There's no point in trying to find people 'aligned enough' with my political ideas. Since I've accepted that I feel that my attempts at spreading anarchism lead so much further! As long as I never mention the word (or any other political jargon), and always, always approach my fellow humans as humans and try to inquire about what moves them, not tell them what I think they should do.
What do you think is missing in your neighbourhood? If you think it's human contact, try to start there and invent ways to encourage friendly contact. Maybe create a point for food sharing or book sharing. If people are too shy to speak to each other in person at this point, give them other options, so they can lose their shyness gradually.
Alienation from other people and thinking they are not worth the bother is a relatively sure sign of depression.
I am not saying its only a you problem, and people around you are probably depressed as well, but I think it's worth viewing your interactions with other people through that self-reflective lense some time.
As an expat here in England, you guys really hate each other and it's super odd. I've experienced more psycho neighbors here than I have literally anywhere else, I've never had problems before moving here. I never have problems here when the neighbors are other immigrants like me, though. There's a big cultural issue here with this and it's worse the closer you get to London. It's definitely not everyone, though and the good ones are the kindest most smart, meek individuals I've ever met... I highly recommend the book Watching the English. Classism and bullying is deeply ingrained here but there is a lot of hope. It is changing. Scotland isn't like this.
What sort of things do you like to do? Do you want to be outside, work with the elderly, teach, or ?
German economist Niko Paech once said:
"Yeah I've read Marx and stuff, but if you want to do something super radical then start darning your trousers."
It's like when someone falls in a mosh pit and everyone instantly pulls them up. Hardcore is not about hurting people. It's just about being hardcore and everyone having a good, safe time.
Ok, let me address the punk thing.
Punks are people who resist oppressions and who defy rules, mostly censorship and mostly in arts. Singing profanities in a democracy and doing things that are legal is fashion-punk. As soon as improving your community, and progressing towards more acceptance and inclusiveness is legal, you don't need to be punk anymore.
Punks have no future because their own fight is to make them irrelevant. It is to turn a fascist society into one that does not need them, one where it is effective to engage in social works and to collaborate with public institutions.
Solarpunk is a joke on "cyberpunk", that's all. It is an utopian movement in which punks are irrelevant.
If you want to write punk stories in a solarpunk setting, then you need to construct a dystopian antagonist.
It is to turn a fascist society into one that does not need them, one where it is effective to engage in social works and to collaborate with public institutions.
And we don't actually live in that society yet, and therefore protesting, feeding people, helping drug addicts, and doing odd jobs for your neighbors all remain punk af.
JFC. Selling food without a permit is illegal. Doing most home repairs without a license and permit is illegal. If I install a set of solar panels for my neighbor and she pays me in raw milk and eggs we could both be arrested. Don't tell me helping your community isn't punk.
Please pasteurize your milk.
Not if you want to make cheese with it
Perhaps strong communities are exactly what we need to resist modern fascism. Communities of high trust and resilience that can resist culture war propaganda.
Strong communities are good for a ton of different reasons, resisting fascism (or maximizing relative safety even if fascism comes) being a big one
TV killed American communities, and they haven't really recovered. Everyone just sits in their house or goes in their car.
I'd argue TV is a side effect of the same thing that killed strong communities in the US, not the cause. Look at Europe, they all have TV's and screens, plenty laying video games, but they still have active third spaces.
I think your comment on cars is more right. Americans "embraced" (thanks car companies for buying and killing our public transit) suburban sprawl through our embrace of cars. This meant we moved away from denser downtown areas where people could intermingle by chance and moved instead to splintered specialized places (thanks for having the way to our modern hell Edward Bassett). This got mixed with the American dream picket fence and lawn pushed by Monsanto post WWII and sprinkled with some casual racism and other issues to become a death spiral away from mixed use zoning and into large separate houses and plots of land. So life became "simple". Home, grocery store, work.
You can't just walk five minutes down the street anymore to a coffee shop or jazz club and find yourself rubbing elbows with people, and everyone driving cars to a dense social area just doesn't work, if everyone tried to go to their city's downtown the parking would just not support it. So we replaced this socializing with TV. A symptom sprouted from the root cause, not the cause itself.
There's been a push to change zoning laws back to allowing mixed zoning which would directly improve this, but NIMBYs are out in force against it because it will lower the value of their home, which is a whole other related issue.
First off, solarpunk is literally a literary AND art protest movement in direct response to the greed that is fueling climate change and harming the earth.
https://builtin.com/articles/solarpunk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk
Punk is a music AND art protest movement that is in direct opposition to consumerism and greed that exploits the working class in interest of profit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_subculture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_rock
Gatekeeping is not very punk
"If you want to write punk stories in a solarpunk setting, then you need to construct a dystopian antagonist."
Here's a great list of dystopian antagonists for you.
Peter George Peterson
Carl Icahn
Sheldon Adelson
Mark Zuckerberg
Silvio Berlusconi
Gina Rinehart
Alice Walton
Rupert Murdoch
Charles and David Koch
Peter Theil
Rioting is part of anarchism, as is being the shock troops of leftward revolution. But the anarchism most will practice is love of one’s fellow living beings. When I treat all people as my equals I am practicing my anarchic beliefs. When I share freely I am practicing my anarchic beliefs. When I choose to help those I know others won’t, I am practicing my anarchic beliefs.
Nothing is more punk than food not bombs. It’s just feeding everyone who shows up whether the government likes it or not.
Nothing is more punk than food not bombs. It’s just feeding everyone who shows up whether the government likes it or not.
Yes, and, Food Not Bombs is a great example to bring up, because they don't only feed everyone, they also share literature and talk politics and organize community action. From FNB's how to guide:
Your meal is not a Food Not Bombs meal if you don't provide literature and display a banner. Otherwise the public will think you are a church and have the impression your group believes that our political and economic system is fine and that all we need to do is care for those who are not able to make it. We are not a charity, we are seeking to build a movemnet to end the exploitation of the economic and political system.
I think very few orgs do "the personal is political" better than FNB.
In a world that has commodified existence, the most punk thing you can do is sharing anything for free.
Yk what's punk? Voting.
No, there's nothing rebellious about voting on which of the two turds is less evil. That's just damage control.
I'm not American so this doesn't really apply to me. There are also other elections than presidential elections.
In a system geared to reward sociopathy the most radical act is kindness
The space to discuss Solarpunk itself and Solarpunk related stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere.
Join our chat: Movim or XMPP client.
