Reframing and Visualizing a New Society 1

Jared Diamond writes in his book The World until Yesterday about how indigenous peoples lived for most of human existence in tribal societies.  He doesn’t paint a utopia, yet explains why the tribal system worked overall.  Relatively recently in human history we moved from hunter-gatherer tribal systems into farming communities and then the ‘civilized’ city states where we became conditioned to hierarchical control.  I have commented in previous posts how the hierarchy has always been a problem for us.  I often talk about our need to rebuild ‘community’ such that we not competitive individuals relying on a government and corporate system to provide our basic needs, but as individuals that work collaboratively to live well in a given area with our basic needs met within the community structure.  Daniel Quinn uses the term ‘New Tribalism’ as a way to live Beyond Civilization and its hierarchical control.  I use Community as a term to describe a similar situation, but the terms are not synonymous!  Cultural Anthropologists have debated Diamonds ideas and I find myself liking some but not agreeing completely with him.  One of the biggest problems is the notion that there is a ‘model’ out there to use as some sort of boiler plate ideal in which to rebuilt a future society.  In this disagreement, I agree with Quinn that there is no one right way to live, but I do propose that there are principles we can use to guide us as we begin and continue to grow into a new society.

When I looked at studies of peasant societies before the industrial revolution, and even more recently before the advent of the consumer mindset, we find lots of self-sufficient communities that gave full support to all its members.  Again, not utopias, but ways for people to live cooperatively.  I explore in my SL text the ideas of local knowledge, and how modern living has eroded cultures throughout the world with almost messianic zeal to create a homogeneous hyper-consumer worldview.  People across the world want to retain their cultures while they move forward into a technological world.  I believe that much modern strife exists because of this resistance to homogenization.  In the U.S. in particular, the erosion of community has been relentless, with anonymity becoming more common, even in the face of relentless social media assaults on how we communicate.  From my SL text, I wrote: “life could be hard, but as one peasant born in France in 1899 said of his peasant village life, “The only thing we were short of was money.”  The peasant life ended, not because that way of life was inferior to modern living, but because it was undermined by industry and the import-export (growing globalization) economics of the world outside the boundaries of the village, which happened at almost lightening speed (within a couple of decades in many instances).” I’m not advocating returning to peasant society or to indigenous tribal living.  What I am talking about is looking at what did work well and then moving forward with what works well and can be salvaged from modern living to create a different way of living.  I do explore this at depth in my SL text, and even give a notion of what that might be through my Espe character story at the end of each chapter.  Tribal systems where also communities in that people lived together and made a living together!  Modern communities may not necessarily entail that all its members actually make a living in the same place.  Daniel Quinn explains that a new tribal system is one where people ‘make a living together’ and could be people from different communities in which people live within a specific community culture.  People could have one community in which this actually live yet also be members of two or more new tribal systems dependent on the skill sets they may have.  Tribe – efficient social organization of making a living easy for all.  (Hierarchy – easy living for a few and hard for rest.)  Tribal survival is how to keep overheads low, with a decreased interest in material accumulation and capital expansion.  A description for a new tribal member would be an experienced scuffler (generalists not specialists).  Communes are NOT tribes.  Communes are merely shared living together.  Tribes are a shared way of making a living together.  “Can you extend our way of making a living to include yourself?”

The ‘new tribal’ benefits:

• Mixed competencies and willingness as equals to do all tasks in the tribe
• Modest standard of living ($ not the goal but QUALITY OF LIFE)
• “Think-Tribally” – not expect set wages, take what you need (Think family Thanksgiving potluck feast)
• “CRADLE TO GRAVE SECURITY” – only a system that looks continuously after ALL its members will work
• The intentional community IS ITS MEMBERS – not employees – a group of people making a living together. No one right way – many ways each adapted to each unique area.

When we take charge of our own destinies then we will become free.  Economist, Antony C Sutton stated: “[T]he power system continues only as long as individuals try to get something for nothing. The day when a majority of individuals declares or acts as if it wants nothing from the government, declares that it will look after its own welfare and interests, then on that day the power elites are doomed.”  What we MEASURE as success is what we focus on  it determines all our BELIEFS and ACTIONS.  Hence MONEY is currently the prime measure for success and hence what we think we want, BUT, what do we really want and what should we measure?  Recall what I said in previous posts that can be summed up as a GOOD QUALITY OF LIFE (QOL).  Note, that I always say quality of life is NOT the same as standard of living (SOL)!  A good SOL is good, but a better QOL is preferable!  If a OQL includes a good SOL, so much the better, as long as the SOL has all the attributes that create a good QOL!!!