Marcus wrote:
Glen writes:
I use it myself in choosing to donate money, rather than labor to the
community garden.
At some cost premium, and perhaps quality penalty, I pay money at this
place called a grocery store.
I've been there, it is convenient as all hell... and the stuff they
offer up... amazing! It is clean, uniformly colored and textures,
extremely rare to find a worm or even a mite. Things you couldn't grow
here in a hothouse appear magically from halfway around the world. It
is a magical place, I don't know (literally) what I would do without
them. But I think it would be a tragedy if everyone quit growing their
own, buying from local farmers, etc.
On 1/14/14, 12:34 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
The rest of the "commons" *was* managed by taxes... this was a tiny
oasis within it. It had a quality that could not be bought with
taxes or any other mode. Too bad if you have never experienced
something like that.
When people care about something, especially when they are skilled,
cooperative people that have time and motivation it shows. It's
better. On the other hand, there's the possibility that contributors
(generically speaking, not just the case you describe) just see a
`community' project as better because they have investment in it, or
because that is the context in which they see or make friends.
It is obviously the sensible thing to do, and because makes many
more big things possible. I want professionals to do the job. I
don't want to be sneered at when I accidentally sit on a `community'
swing or picnic table or whatever because I don't show up for the
weekend love-in. (I'm not going to show up.)
If you read what I wrote you might recognize that roughly half the
population in the neighborhood did *not* show up for the love in. The
homeless who slept there and hung out mid-day did not show up... or
the teens.. and nobody ran any of them off, nor sneered at them.
They were all relatively welcome, and they did their part by NOT
abusing the situation... fading out when it was time to fade perhaps?
Abuse the situation? Fade out? Norms are being asserted here.
Norms are being acknowledged and recognized collectively, not asserted,
in this case. I think it is a crucial difference.
But provincialism is not my main objection. My main objection is to
the possibility of cutting professional maintenance and city planning
assuming volunteers will step in.
That would be folly.
In the interest of some implied merit of `investing in my
neighborhood', which defined in some way that I'm not getting to
define, and I mostly don't care about.
Virtually every "neighborhood" I have lived in as an adult is dominated
by what you describe (lack of interest in establishing and maintaining
community). I think it is a loss, but obviously I am in the
minority. I have sought out situations which I thought might be or
could be otherwise... and have settled for living relatively isolated.
My true neighborhood consists of that which is in my working memory,
over time. That may or may not include other objects or activities in
my geographic proximity. Some geographically-local infrastructure is
necessary to support those other dimensions, but otherwise is
incidental. So I expect to pay taxes to support that platform, like I
would anywhere. If the platform is falling apart (in some objective
way, not that the color of varnish on the play equipment isn't
beautiful enough), spend more on it and raise taxes to pay for it.
Wow... you almost describe yourself as "a brain in a box"... I know the
feeling, but I never actually left my body... and now I do enjoy
inhabiting not only my whole body, but the extended body of community
whereever I can find, create and groom it.
Then I do what I'm relatively good at, and the the landscaping
people, etc. do what they are good at.
Landscaping people aren't good at investing themselves in their own
neighborhood. They are good at (if you are lucky) doing what they
are paid to do better than those who pay them.
I would say that's fine, provided they enjoy their work. (See
adjacent remark.)
Everyone deserves to find (ok, seek) right livelihood. My point is that
right livelihood can be broader and more engaged than what tends to
occur when the only medium of exchange of value is the abstraction of
currency. Thus my point (on deaf ears earlier?) that "she who makes
the gold rules", "but only rules those who value only gold". I will
continue to tend my own gardens and visit those who also value
similar. I don't mind that many seek a less "messily engaged" life,
our modern world seems filled with ample arbitrary messiness as it is.
One approach is to minimize said mess at every turn, another is to seek
to choose the messes one involves themselves in.
Carry on,
- Steve
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