Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

[jacob]

@Bicycle7: It's my opinion that we all make our own meaning, i.e. there is no universal right and wrong.

I think that such an opinion is good for getting out of Plato's Cave (freedom-from). However, once out (freedom-to), my personal meaning/opinion is that some meanings are better than others(*). It is, however, difficult to determine which is which if too steeped in the "they're all good" in order to exit the cave.

(*) If nothing else, "shared meanings" are more powerful than fractured meanings ("divide and conquer").

My hope with ERE2 is that something will emerge that is "better" than "individual retirements".

[Jin+Guice]

What I mean is that there is no objective right and wrong, only subjective. If something is "bad" or "wrong" I ask "to whom?" and "when?"

One morality or sentiment or idea may emerge as "better" or "more right" or "less wrong" to a person or group of people or blade of grass, but that meaning is always referential to the group holding the meaning.

Personally I think people are lost without meaning so that one must make up their own meaning. Subjective meaning allows you to recognize that this comes from you or some other tangible group and is referential to the time frame it exists. It is not from some cosmic force.

Which allows you to do things like enjoy the fruits of a culture you keep calling pathological, because fruits to whom and pathological to whom?

I find subjective meaning useful when I'm thinking about my personal philosophy story and life trajectory and when I'm dealing with two seemingly morally opposing ideas. Also a great party trick to get out of any political discussion. "Oh me, I don't believe in right and wrong but I always vote."

So freedom-from objective meaning gives you freedom-to subjective meaning, not freedom-to all meaning is created equally, which is so general as to be meaningless.

[daylen]

Subjective meaning allows you to recognize that this comes from you or some other tangible group and is referential to the time frame it exists. It is not from some cosmic force.

Why not the cosmos be one subject? Of which cultures are instances of how all subjective factors are contained/emulated within the one that determines/experiences them all? That is, what if instead of the universe being a clock-work machine with some of the mechanical gears being considered as having subjective experiences, the whole universe is a mind/subject that experiences other possible universes [aka its environment] as objects?

What if groups of humans are not actually the ultimate subjective forces of the universe but rather temporarily forgotten fractures or disassociations within the mind of the universe or God?

[Jin+Guice]

@daylen: Ok, but how does that help me decide between options or guide behavior?

[Jin+Guice]

Social Needs Part 1: Introversion/ Extroversion and Social Needs as a Bucket

Maslow’s Hierarchy refers to social needs as “love and belongingness” needs. Social needs are our need to be listened to, accepted by and appreciated by others. They are our needs to establish different types of relationships with different people. To find our tribe and where we belong in it.

Pathological culture has cut us off from our need for connection. It has both isolated us and eliminated social connection while surrounding us with people.

This need is often talked about in terms of introversion/ extroversion. Some prefer to spend more time in the company of others while some prefer to spend more time alone. Some are more energized by other people, others are more drained by them.

Taking the roughest view of social needs, human interaction becomes a bucket which fills as one sees people outside of the workplace and household*. Fill the bucket to the correct level and the need is met.

*The more one’s workplace and household contains relationships which are social rather than familial or professional, the more these areas too can fill the bucket.

In a future post about communities, I’ll talk about how pathological society has broken down cultural and societal institutions.

At a basic level, I think the bucket approach to social needs is helpful. It’s useful to figure out how much social interaction you need in general, what feels draining and what feels invigorating.

The challenge for the ERE individual at this level is to find enough social engagement without spending money. This can be done through various channels such as volunteering, walks in parks, nature or two centers, bring a co-pilot for an adventure, walking around talking to strangers…

This challenge may require less thought the more introverted one is. However, creativity in this area can bleed into all other areas and increased social interaction may lead to more social capital. As always, pick the right level for yourself and go from there.

Pathological society commodifies all things. Social and emotional needs are resistant to commodification. Paying for friendship** doesn’t quite meet the need. What has been commodified is the activities and venues that facilitate social interaction.

**There is still a strong relationship between social and financial/ economic interactions. I’ll cover this in a future post on social capital.

We can use our needs framework to escape the commodification of social interaction. If the default for meeting this interaction is getting drunk on the weekend with friends at a bar, break down the needs this is fulfilling. It’s fulfilling the need for carefree social interaction***, being outside the home or work place and escapism through alcohol****. This list is not exhaustive. After assessing the needs that are being met, consider whether there is a way to meet these needs which is more heterotelic to your desired lifestyle. Some creativity and/ or new friends may be required to convince your compatriots to stray from routine/ the prescribed social script.

***Elsewhere on the forum, there was a recent discussion of “friends of virtue.” While these friendships tend to be the closest, most intimate and most binding, I do think that “friends of pleasure” also have a purpose.

****If escapism through alcohol seems like a problem, again break down the needs this is fulfilling. What is it you are escaping? Is your use of alcohol homo or heterotelic to your goals? What could you change to satisfy the need alcohol fulfills and/ or change your relationship to alcohol (or other psychoactive substances).

[daylen]

It may be a useful paradigm [an idealism] to have in the bag since it may suggest a more continuous or coherent conception of "tangible groups of subjects" in relationship to "tangible groups of objects". Without a scale-free link or idealism between subjects and objects you might presume that there exists some cutoff of agency or intelligence beyond which a physical system becomes capable of "subjectivity". In other words, the universe may appear to be vast sea of objective stuff with little islands of subjective stuff. This view can be helpful but may not always be the right frame. For instance, when detecting the presence or emergence of somewhat subjective stuff in the sea of objects. For one, this may lead to some kind of blindside or conflict with rapidly evolving subjects, and for two, it might limit what is considered the scope or expanse of decision-making going on in the universe around you.

[daylen]

Subjectively, we might feel different in an open, empty space versus a closed, confined space. The way you view the distribution of subjects in the universe may directly affect your feelings of being surrounded by other subjects. You could feel more or less constrained by subjective factors and this might affect your more rational decision-making and action processes.

[Jin+Guice]

Social Needs II: Different Relationships, Different Buckets

If I expand on the “bucket approach” to social needs I discussed in the last post, that is viewing social needs as a bucket that needs to be refilled, we can think of different buckets for different types of relationships.

There are many different types of relationships in the modern world, which differs from how humans existed prior to large societies, when they knew most of the people they interacted with and one person fulfilled several roles.

Today we have familial relationships, friend relationships, professional relationships, service relationships, acquaintances, strangers we interact with for only minutes or seconds, neighbors, etc…

When considering social relationships I think it’s interesting to consider social status, power dynamics and intimacy gradient.

Like it or not, humans are finely attuned to and often vying for social status, although disagreement of perceived status is possible. It’s interesting to observe how you and those you are close to act around people perceived as higher, lower and equal status.

Power dynamics are also interesting to observe. A lower status person can still wield power over a higher status person, usually by being more confident and assertive or by swaying the opinion of people in their immediate surroundings in their own favor. It’s again interesting to observe how one and those one is close to act as the power dynamic shifts among individuals and as individuals displaying different levels of power enter and leave a social setting.

I’m borrowing the term intimacy gradient from Christopher Alexander’s “A Pattern Language.” “In any building—house, office, public building, summer cottage—people need a gradient of settings, which have different degrees of intimacy. A bedroom or boudoir is most intimate; a back sitting room or study less so; a common area or kitchen more public still; a front porch or entrance room most public of all. When there is a gradient of this kind, people can give each encounter different shades of meaning, by choosing its position on the gradient very carefully.” Alexander goes on to discuss how, in a well laid out house, different levels of intimacy will yield access to different depths of the house. He also discusses cultures where this is more common and standardized than in our own (such as in Peru). I suggest evaluating relationships on this gradient, perhaps by imagining how deep each relation would comfortably enter into one’s house.

When it comes to filling buckets for different social needs, I think it’s important to consider all of these categories. I think it’s common to need different levels of exposure, especially for different types of relationships as well as different levels of intimacy. While it’s important to be able to interact with people in all forms of power and social status, I think people generally feel most comfortable around people of roughly equal social status and when the power dynamic fluidly moves back and forth.

Becoming familiar with one's own social needs is important to decouple from the consumer-praxis. While the recent trend of WFH has been isolating (or alleviating from aggravating low-intimacy low-stimulation work relationships), many workers need to get their social needs met outside of the workplace. For those decoupling from culturally normative work and spending habits, isolation or awkwardness in social interactions can become a real problem. I think aside from “but what would I do all day?” for many, “who would I interact with and where would I go for socialization?” are large deterrents to both reduced working hours and reduced spending.

Paying attention to which type of relationships and interactions are draining is equally as important. Many low-intimacy/ low-stimulation interactions can be draining or seem "fake" or low-quality. For many, a driving force for exiting the consumer praxis is a desire to have fewer low-quality, draining social interactions. The modern world is filled with potential for both isolation and low-quality interactions, both of which will subconsciously impact someone who is unaware of them.

[7Wannabe5]

I think after a certain age, you become less conscious of social status. Maybe because you more fully realize that there are only two kinds of lifestyles; boring and happy, miserable and interesting, or some hot mix of the two. I sometimes wish I would meet some women my age whose lifestyle I envied, because it's like I'm certainly not entirely happy with what I'm driving, but there are no other cars on the lot I want to trade it in for either. And I definitely don't envy the young either.

Yay, pattern language reference! I think about this model for creating psychological appropriate spaces quite frequently. For example, a variation I have pondered with polyamory is the difference in intimacy between "our boudoir", "my boudoir", "your boudoir", and "third place boudoir." When I took the NYT quiz on the topic of how many warm (oops, was actually how "strong", I must conflate the two qualities) relationships do you have?, which asks a question along the line of "How many people could you call in ther middle of the night if you had an emergency?", it occurred to me that "How many households do you have keyholder or walk right in privileges at kitchen refrigerator level?" might be another valid question.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... -quiz.html

I know I've already recommended it many times here, but "Embracing Your Personal Village: A Practical Guide to Building Your Own Personal Community" is well worth a read. Thomas offers highly practical advice for creating intimacy at varying levels. For instance, this forum would fall somewhere in between, Chapter 5: Find Belonging in a Fellowship and Chapter 6: Generate Fine Conversation in the Stimulating Salon in terms of level of intimacy. ERE2 would be more towards "Fellowship."

Many low-intimacy/ low-stimulation interactions can be draining

I agree. Kind of the relationship equivalent of commuting. Boring and stressful at the same time.

[Henry]

I think after a certain age, you become less conscious of social status.

Since I've moved to the shores of New Oldfuckland, my experience is that people become more conscious of social status. And what makes it worse, it's based less on accomplishment and more on merely living past functional usefulness ie "I've been the treasurer of Dribblepiss Village for 20 years so don't tell me we don't need a new VCR player." And the worse are the couples. The wives don't want to admit to themselves that their husbands are sharting on the upholstery so they create new categories like who's husband can still drive a car in reverse or who has the least amount of children who themselves have died of old age. Fuck what a nightmare old people are.

[7Wannabe5]

@Henry:
Gotcha. I'm sure that's true. Maybe my perspective is informed by not being able to afford to live in New Oldfuckland, not even being in the fit-for-age shape of my wine-guzzling yoga bourgeoisie peers, but still observing no shortage of quite reasonably attractive grouchy old fucks wanting to knock boots in my tiny camper parked next to the pickle factory. Just this week one brought me an electric blanket to keep me cozy, and another called me from Lisbon where he was sadly missing me while traveling with his retired mortgage-broker wife and another affluent old fuck couple. Actually, I haven't even made myself available for sex with any of them for over 6 months, so it's something else they are seeking...

[Henry]

The critical difference with older populations is twofold: there are less people to fill out the lunch tables and men die earlier. So for the women, there will always be Sandies and Rizzos but the Frenchies will need replenishment so recruitment into the Pink Ladies is pretty much guaranteed. As far as are the men are concerned, a Putzie can conceivably rise to Keinickie and on rare ocassion, Zuko status.

[Jin+Guice]

Social Needs III: Community

Individuation is thought to be a modern phenomenon. Before humanity had individuality we had community in small bands. Help from members of the tribe was essential to survival of the individual and group. As economic conditions improved, individuality emerged.

Economically we remain interdependent. Where our mutual dependence once was self-evident, that link is hidden behind the cash registers and computer screens of commerce. Personally I enjoy thinking about the people my life has briefly intertwines with through trade. However, these interactions lack the humanity of communal transactions.

As interactive interdependence has declined, so has our concept of community. One of the last vestiges of community was organized religious institutions. As these institutions have declined into secularism, so has our sense of community. This has left us with the difficult problem of finding community where, for much of human history, default community was provided.

The erosion of extended families is another decline in community. As the extended family has degraded to the nuclear family, we’ve come to rely on a diminishing number of people to fulfill our communal needs. What used to be a network of elder relatives, aunts, uncles and cousins has been reduced to a spouse and maybe a few children (although they are expected to leave to start their own nuclear families).

The difficulties modernity places on finding or building a community are many. The decline of organized religion into secularism presents one problem, as existing default community structures are undermined. However, large scale organized community presented another problem, as they become hierarchical and rule based, individual members lacked the authority to adapt their structure to their time and place.

The extended family was another community pillar which has broken down over the past several centuries. However, family as community is limited in the amount of people one has access to and also the types of relations one has with those people.

Another difficulty in finding or creating community is the sheer volume of people one interacts with. People have a tendency to devalue or “other” those they don’t see as part of their tribe. As we exist today, forming bonds and allegiances with only a small percentage of the people we are surrounded by, we often interact with people we do not feel tied or responsible to. Alternatively, we are aware of problems which extend well beyond our own communities and feel responsible for events beyond our control.

The village or tribe as community provided a nice balance to this problem, if it was the correct size. When one tangentially knows the majority of people one interacts with, one is less likely to devalue their humanity. One has a selection of compatriots to interact with and share problems with that extends beyond direct genetic relatives.

While modernity has undermined many longstanding methods of community it also provides several advantages. Today we are not limited to the people of our birth tribe or location. One can freely move geographies or access people in many other locations through the internet. An individual today can chose their own tribe or belong to several tribes. The ties that bind us are also the chains that restrict us. Tight knit communities ubiquitously have a single set of rules and way of life that all members follow to maintain cohesion. The individual is expected to fit within these rules, whether or not it suits them. Today we enjoy great freedom to chose a community which suits us.

However, I think our greatest current obstacle is that we do not acknowledge our need for community. We take the expectation we are given that the nuclear family, a small group of co-workers who we don’t really know, and, if we are lucky and social, a small group of friends, will satisfy our need for diverse and vibrant community. This leads to outsized pressure on our close relations that we can mutually satisfy each others’ needs. Then we ask ourselves why marital and familial relationships are so difficult. In order to address this, I think it is important that we recognize our need for community (while I think we all share this need, I think it is expressed much differently in different people), recognize both the difficulties in a lack of default community and the break down of familial and community institutions and, the advantages, in the sheer number of communities and ability to chose our own community, that we are presented with today.

[7Wannabe5]

I think that on average, heterosexual men are suffering much more from the changes to community structure. Absent close relationships with female relatives, many would settle for the minimum familial-like relationship that also maximizes their freedom, which would be the "forever girlfriend." If/when women are no longer making themselves available for such roles, they can only fall back on the "drum circle" of meeting other men for breakfast at the diner and taking their turn flirting with the waitress.

[Jin+Guice]

@7: I think heterosexual men suffer from the breakdown of any non-economic institution as they are programmed even more than others to see everything as economic and have the easiest access to economic success. Thus they ignore the institutions and traditions that fulfill their other needs, which they are unaware of.

Perhaps this series is me grappling with the fulfillment of my own heterosexual male economic needs by ERE.

What do you feel is the disadvantage of the forever girlfriend vs the wife? Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but it seems you feel the forever girlfriend < wife, but the forever boyfriend > husband. If so, why?

[7Wannabe5]

What do you feel is the disadvantage of the forever girlfriend vs the wife? Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but it seems you feel the forever girlfriend < wife, but the forever boyfriend > husband. If so, why?

Yes, I do think wife > forever girlfriend, but I don't think forever boyfriend > husband. I think a mix of forever and not-forever boyfriends (plural) > husband, but mostly for my particular personality/preferences and at my current stage of life. Mostly because I think a late life marriage would be a distraction from rather than an addition to my ability to maintain and create family/community, because I don't need to negotiate or even communicate with any of my poly-partners about any plans or commitments I make with family or friends or just my own druthers.

Also, having 3 boyfriends is much more resilient than having 1 husband at my age; like if you had one car with 200,000 miles on it which you kept very well maintained in the garage vs. 3 cars with 200,000 miles on them which you kept parked in the open field around your camper, which situation offers greater probability that at least one will start-up when you need it? I would advise most younger single females to go all in on marriage, most older single females to practice polyamory, and zero single females to agree to a "forever girlfriend" rip-off contract.

[Jin+Guice]

Oh, I meant that you seem to think that: forever boyfriend> husband from the boyfriend's/ husband's perspective. If so, why?

Also, why in your estimation is forever girlfriend a rip off compared to wife?

I'm genuinely curious about the first question. The second question I'm also curious about, but mainly because I don't see a lot of difference in a world of divorce and prenuptial agreements, but I think that maybe I am missing one of your assumptions or points?

[7Wannabe5]

Oh, I meant that you seem to think that: forever boyfriend> husband from the boyfriend's/ husband's perspective. If so, why?

Well, obviously, because it gives them most of the benefits of marriage and dating with less of the expense, risk, commitment and/or effort. Of course, my perspective may be skewed due to dating a lot of men who already went through an expensive divorce (or two.)

Also, why in your estimation is forever girlfriend a rip off compared to wife?

I'm genuinely curious about the first question. The second question I'm also curious about, but mainly because I don't see a lot of difference in a world of divorce and prenuptial agreements, but I think that maybe I am missing one of your assumptions or points?

Chapter 7 of "He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys" is entitled "He's Just Not That Into You If He Doesn't Want to Marry You."

Of course, Chapter 5 is entitled "He's Just Not That Into You If He's Having Sex With Someone Else", thus would seem to clearly preclude polyamory as good choice for female, but IM self-aware O the freedom and other benefits offered by polyamory is worth the loss of total devotion. MMV.

In conclusion, if you agree to "forever girlfriend" contract, you are likely with a guy who is "not that into you", yet you are giving up the options and opportunities available to you by continuing to play the open field and/or maintaining multiple partnerships. Agreeing to be somebody's "forever girlfriend" is kind of like spending all your money on an annuity from a company with only a C+ rating. I actually think it is such a rip-off contract, I would rather be the monogamous mistress of a man who is already married vs. "forever girlfriend" of a man who is monogamous with me. In fact, I think it is the prime example of women being tricked into paying too highly for monogamy vs other qualities. As in, yeah, he just sits around the apartment drinking beer and farting all weekend, but Thank the Goddess he grants access to his junk to me alone!

Also, I would advise against marriage with a pre-nup. If the dynamic going in is skewed in a manner that would make that necessary, it's not going to work well in the long run in a dyad. Possible exception here for provisions for children born previously in another relationship. Marriage is for amateurs, not professionals.

[Jin+Guice]

I punted my reply to the polyamory thread.

[macg]

However, I think our greatest current obstacle is that we do not acknowledge our need for community.

Why do you think we have a need for community?

I have spent many years without what would be called a "community" , and would likely argue it's not "needed"....