Yeah, fair enough. I’m just thinking that individualism has already done quite a lot in that direction. We’re much more isolated than people in past societies: many of us barely know our neighbors, can go months without talking to parents, and have few friends outside of work. So if we’re discussing further individualist proposals, like basic income, maybe it’s worth spending some time thinking about the consequences to the social fabric (never thought I’d use that phrase...)
IME, the need to make a sustainable living is a big reason for why people can’t fix those individualist problems. At least in my social circles, there are plenty of people who have all kinds of communal projects and would want to spend time doing meaningful things with people who are important to them… but none of those things bring a living, so instead they have to burn most of their time and energy earning money and have much less left that they could use to build a more communal society.
It’s no wonder that people have few friends outside work when work and family combined leave little time for anything else. NYT on why it’s hard to make friends after 30:
As external conditions change, it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other, said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology and gerontology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This is why so many people meet their lifelong friends in college, she added.
In the professional world, “proximity” is hard to maintain, as work colleagues are reassigned or move on to new jobs. Last year, Erica Rivinoja, a writer on the NBC series “Up All Night,” became close with a woman, Jen, when they worked together on a pilot. Almost instantly, they knew each other’s exercise schedules and food preferences. Jen could sense when Ms. Rivinoja needed a jolt of caffeine, and without asking would be there with an iced tea.
“But as soon as the pilot was over, it was hard to be as close without that constant day-to-day interaction,” said Ms. Rivinoja, 35. They can occasionally carve out time for a quick gin and tonic, she said, but “there aren’t those long afternoons which bleed into evenings hanging out at the beach and then heading to a bar.”
The workplace can crackle with competition, so people learn to hide vulnerabilities and quirks from colleagues, Dr. Adams said. Work friendships often take on a transactional feel; it is difficult to say where networking ends and real friendship begins.
Here is another world I’ve been seeing the possibility of increasingly clearly lately. The most important feature of this world is that you have a tribe to whom you’re securely attached. You love and support each other. You touch each other. You sing and dance together. And sometimes, some of you explore romantic / sexual connection with each other. And if that gets rocky – when someone gets anxious or avoidant or some other kind of triggered – the attachment that the people involved have with everyone else in the tribe acts as a stabilizing and calming force. If your attachment to your tribe is secure enough, the prospect of a partner leaving you maybe feels less like the end of the world.
(And sometimes, some of you have children, and those children are raised by a tribe of people who are lovingly stabilizing and calming each other, instead of being at the mercy of a fragile little tribe of two…)
It hurts to think about this world, and how far away from it most people are. There are so many forces pushing against it: high school friends going to different colleges, college friends taking jobs in different cities, friends moving into their own apartments, couples living by themselves, the crushing burdens of late-stage capitalism… and, among so many other things, some sense that it’s a little weird to allow your friends to matter to you as much as or more than your partners.
A basic income wouldn’t fix all of this, but if it would at least allow people to refuse taking on the kinds of meaningless bullshit jobs that suck your energy dry, then that would help a little. Not being forced to prioritize a job over community would be a great start.
Yeah, fair enough. I’m just thinking that individualism has already done quite a lot in that direction. We’re much more isolated than people in past societies: many of us barely know our neighbors, can go months without talking to parents, and have few friends outside of work. So if we’re discussing further individualist proposals, like basic income, maybe it’s worth spending some time thinking about the consequences to the social fabric (never thought I’d use that phrase...)
IME, the need to make a sustainable living is a big reason for why people can’t fix those individualist problems. At least in my social circles, there are plenty of people who have all kinds of communal projects and would want to spend time doing meaningful things with people who are important to them… but none of those things bring a living, so instead they have to burn most of their time and energy earning money and have much less left that they could use to build a more communal society.
It’s no wonder that people have few friends outside work when work and family combined leave little time for anything else. NYT on why it’s hard to make friends after 30:
Also Qiaochu Yuan:
A basic income wouldn’t fix all of this, but if it would at least allow people to refuse taking on the kinds of meaningless bullshit jobs that suck your energy dry, then that would help a little. Not being forced to prioritize a job over community would be a great start.