
North American Phalanx - benbreen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Phalanx
======
Nokinside
I have nothing against communes. I have visited and know many people who have
lived for a long time in communes around the world. Communes and alternate
lifestyles are exercise in humanity.

As usual, people are the problem:

1\. Everything becomes politics. All the bad things you hear from neighborhood
associations are replicated in communes in different forms. Negotiating and
deciding everything together is nice until differences become too big to
handle.

2\. Introverts or retreating people are sidelined. Because everything is
politics, those who network and are good at influence get all the power.
Unpopular people don't have equal power. Popular people have excess power.

3\. If you work for the commune for 20 years and suddenly things go sour on
you, you leave out with noting.

Everyone who want's to build commune or equal society should start with THE
TYRANNY of STRUCTURELESSNESS by Jo Freeman aka Joreen
[https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm](https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm)
It details power relations within radical feminist collectives,

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missosoup
> Just as there was difference in eating habits, a range of religious
> affiliations existed among the North American Phalanx's resident members.
> Included among the community's ranks were Unitarians, Presbyterians,
> Quakers, Baptists, Episcopalians, Jews, Shakers, as well as agnostics and
> atheists.[18] While religious matters were frequently the object of
> discussion and debate, heated division over religious topics does not seem
> to have occurred in the community until 1853, with the climate sharpening as
> the end of the institution approached.

You can't have a tight community like this unless the members are all
homogeneous in traditions, beliefs, values, etc. This was doomed from the
start.

~~~
abathur
Maybe true, but don't lose sight of the fact that "Unitarians, Presbyterians,
Quakers, Baptists, Episcopalians, Jews, Shakers" all come from the same
tradition/belief/value family tree, as it were.

They were all once tight communities "homogeneous in traditions, beliefs,
values, etc." that eventually split (though perhaps they weren't still "tight"
communities by the time of those splits).

In any case, people are good at finding things to disagree about--and groups
of people in elective association are good at fracturing over disagreements.

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SEJeff
Here I was hoping for North American Hoplites with Dory spears and all I
learned about was a commune :(

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narag
As someone raised in a small town that moved to a big city, I'm very skeptical
of small communities as a solution to anything. Anonymity inside a big mass of
people provides freedom from nosy neighbors and relatives. It does has
drawbacks, but so be it.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>Anonymity inside a big mass of people provides freedom from nosy neighbors
and relatives

I partially disagree. I think you are assuming a set of specific circumstances
that often apply but are not universal. I think it depends on what you want to
use your freedom to do.

On a timeline measured in months or more there is no anonymity anywhere. If
whatever it is you do is so socially unacceptable as to be a problem people
will take notice. What changes is the criteria you need to meet to become a
problem and how big of a problem you need to be to get attention.

My observation is that diversity increases freedom and community resources
available to enforce social norms decrease freedom. dense cities are high in
both, rural areas are low in both.

So in the city it is usually much harder to be the tall nail but if you are
the tall nail you will get hit much harder and in BFE you're probably a
problem but not a big enough one for it to be worth the community's resources
to go after.

This is why various religious and political fundamentalists/extremest
communities tend to wind up living in a compound somewhere rural (they're big
enough and violate norms enough to be noticed anywhere, best to go somewhere
the community probably can't justify harassing you too much) and when they do
get bothered it's often by the state not the local community/government.

(if it's not obvious, I'm defining freedom as "the ability to do things that
most other people don't like without bad things happening to you").

~~~
narag
_I think it depends on what you want to use your freedom to do._

Sure. I didn't mean anything illegal or inmoral, just different enough from
the norm as to make the usual idiots to tell you. If you don't know what I'm
talking about, chances are you haven't lived in a small community.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Yeah above a certain population density you're mostly free from your neighbors
gossiping at church about your project boat yard ornament or marijuana
cultivating hobby or loud parties because you don't know your neighbors and
probably don't go to the same church but the trade-off is that if you do step
out of line they sick the local bylaw czar on you instead. This is what I mean
by more resources to track down minor deviance from social norms.

Some things are more tolerated in the city but the trade-off is that the
things that are not tolerated are addressed by the government (which means
fines that will make you destitute if you don't step in line and men with guns
who will put you in a cage if you don't pay).

By contrast you can usually tell the small town busybodies to pound sand and
unless you're actually negatively affecting a lot of people with whatever it
is you do then it's probably a non-issue. Those people are always crying wolf
about things and nobody takes them seriously because everybody knows that most
of their complaints are unfounded or not serious enough to be worth dedicating
the community's limited resources (at a small enough town level the
distinction between private action and government action does get a bit
blurry) to doing anything about it.

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rpiguy
The most remarkable idea they had was that the jobs no one wanted to do should
be compensated the most:

"Jobs were compensated at three levels, with exhausting or repugnant jobs
earning a premium and light and attractive jobs being docked a penalty"

Imagine a world where actors, and white collar workers made less than people
who dug ditches and cleaned up refuse.

~~~
Isamu
Actually it is the case that attractive, passion positions like actor,
musician, and the like are compensated poorly on average, especially when they
are not protected by unions. That's because of the surplus of people wanting
to do the dream job.

Digging ditches and garbage collection are compensated poorly because of the
surplus of people willing to do whatever to make ends meet.

~~~
rpiguy
That is actually a really fair point, I was only considering the actors and
musicians who have "made it."

The second point, the surplus of people willing to do whatever to make ends
meet - this is shrinking as more people expect to be able to survive without
working, but also a fair point.

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refurb
What’s so fascinating about history is there is truly nothing new under the
sun.

Any ideas or issues that are discussed today were discussed in the past - or
at least similar ideas.

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smitty1e
Phalanx != phoenix

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ur-whale
"The phalanxes never solved the problem of what to do about those who did not
assume their share of the work."

Something worth remembering next time you head for the poll booth.

