Community

There’s one other thing related to the questions of civic life and democracy that we have been talking about. If democracy is this challenge of people coming together to figure out the kind of shared lives they want to forge, then the behaviors that they use to negotiate difference are going to flow from the commitments they have to each other. So... See more

It seems to me that Don believed deep down that our worlds were worth decorating, and that doing so was a joyful act. “The people who use lawn ornaments are typically friendly because they’re decorating the outside of their house for someone else,” he once told an interviewer.

Platforms like GoFundMe, reddit grief communities, mutual aid networks, real-time disaster storytelling, and global uprisings in reaction to systemic inequality are demonstrative, real world examples that connectivity breeds empathy and unity. The work of Taiwan’s digital minister Audrey Tang during the COVID-19 pandemic — quickly using the... See more

When you have a densely connected network like that, not only are the friendships more rewarding, but everyone else also becomes more important to each other for mutual support, like Metcalfe’s Law. A densely layered quilt is much stronger than a seam sewn by a single string.

Not everyone who joined a bowling league (when people did such things) loved bowling. Many loved being with other people first and bowling came second or not at all. Being together is what mattered. The venue did not.

The hard truth is that no one gets to be in community without effort.

There are many sources of inspiration. New anthropological and archaeological research in books like The Dawn of Everything shows that the history of our species is full of diverse political and social structures and that humans 10,000 years ago were likely more engaged in the politics that ruled their lives compared to today’s average person. They... See more

But we’re human beings, we do not want to be replaceable. We desperately want to be valued for who we are. Becoming disentangled from your web of mutual commitments, shared history, and collective responsibility is to be rendered into a transaction, a slave.2

We want to be loved, to be secure in the knowledge that no matter how much we’ve torn apart... See more