I'll try to capture some of what happened Sunday night by articulating as best I can some of the questions that arose in the course of the discussion:
1. Are we--or should we be--a support group for people who are trying to escape from the psychological allure of our popular "culture of distraction," and from the spiritual tyranny of "Mother Culture" (Daniel Quinn's term), in our lives?
2. To what degree does each member of a social capital-intensive community (of the kind we would be interested in) need to buy into the interests of each of the other members? How much overlap in our individual desires and visions is necessary for community coherence and effectiveness as a community?
3. How much does the coherence of the community depend on common interests at all, on the one hand (such as the common interests in Henry's examples, of the Beat generation, or the members of the Royal Society), and how much does it depend on spending "face time" together with each other, sharing holidays, meals, projects, other affiliations (e.g. church membership)?
4. In what way is the desire to make an immediately better world for ourselves related to the desire to improve the lot of mankind in general? If we have any desire for our project to have a positive impact on the condition of humanity, is it necessary to build this intention into what we do from the very beginning? (Henry says yes, Peter says no.)
Pierce, Mark, Stephanie, Billy, Diane & Henry, please feel free to emend and elaborate.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
What Kind of Wealth?
When I first started thinking about this group, I said to myself, "OK, social capital is some kind of capital, and capital is a resource for creating wealth. So, what kinds of wealth are we talking about here?" Here are some possibilities, along examples of social capital that create them.
1. Spiritual wealth. Grace in the Christian world. Good karma, perhaps in the Buddhist and Hindu worlds. Don't know the words in other religions.
From the social capital in religious organizations: churches, monasteries, the Amish ....
2. Psychological wealth. Happiness in the sense of a feeling of satisfaction (admitting that there may be more than one such kind of feeling).
Good friends. Hobbyist clubs. MMRPGs.
3. Ethical wealth. Virtue. Living as one ought. Related to grace, but not the same.
From organizations that support ethical behavior and attitudes. Organized religion. Charitable organizations. Educational institutions. Families.
4. Material wealth. Money in the bank. Big houses. Many cars. Cuban cigars.
From networks of trust that grease the wheels of business. New York diamond dealers.
5. Power. Having influence over others, through persuasion or through sanctions.
From political systems that support the accumulation of power. Democracy for some, tyranny for others.
6. Physiological wealth. Being healthy and in good shape.
From social supports for maintaining health. Single-payer health care systems, health clubs.
7. Aristotelian wealth (thanks to Peter). Living up to one's potential, whatever that is. Fulfilling one's destiny.
From being part of any network that supports one in one's goals. Employers, professional organizations, etc.
8. Love.
From social networks that promote the bonds of affection. Families and sororities, to name two.
1. Spiritual wealth. Grace in the Christian world. Good karma, perhaps in the Buddhist and Hindu worlds. Don't know the words in other religions.
From the social capital in religious organizations: churches, monasteries, the Amish ....
2. Psychological wealth. Happiness in the sense of a feeling of satisfaction (admitting that there may be more than one such kind of feeling).
Good friends. Hobbyist clubs. MMRPGs.
3. Ethical wealth. Virtue. Living as one ought. Related to grace, but not the same.
From organizations that support ethical behavior and attitudes. Organized religion. Charitable organizations. Educational institutions. Families.
4. Material wealth. Money in the bank. Big houses. Many cars. Cuban cigars.
From networks of trust that grease the wheels of business. New York diamond dealers.
5. Power. Having influence over others, through persuasion or through sanctions.
From political systems that support the accumulation of power. Democracy for some, tyranny for others.
6. Physiological wealth. Being healthy and in good shape.
From social supports for maintaining health. Single-payer health care systems, health clubs.
7. Aristotelian wealth (thanks to Peter). Living up to one's potential, whatever that is. Fulfilling one's destiny.
From being part of any network that supports one in one's goals. Employers, professional organizations, etc.
8. Love.
From social networks that promote the bonds of affection. Families and sororities, to name two.
This post started out as a comment on Peter's earlier post "What Kind of Social Capital." I converted it to a post in its own right because I thought it could stand on its own.
Still, Peter's question, "What kind of capital?" (social or otherwise) has everything to do with what kind of wealth that capital is meant to create. Peter suggests that we are interested in capital with a certain fungibility, capital whose possessor "feels fully empowered to 'be themselves,' [sic]," in other words, capital that could be used to create whatever form of wealth we choose, and, indeed, to help us discover the kinds of wealth that suit us. Some forms of capital, social and otherwise, may come close to this sort of fungibility. Financial capital, for example, can be used to create all sorts of wealth. Nonetheless, we need to consider the limits on each form of social capital. The Buddha, for example, discovered early on that his family was not a source of capital for the kind of ethical and spiritual wealth that he sought. The Beatle's admonition that "Money can't buy you love," warns us against trying to use financial capital to create love. And, I am not the first to point out that bonding capital is not well suited to creating virtue. As much as I appreciate Peter's ambitions, when we think about communities that empower us to be ourselves, we need to give careful consideration to what those selves might or might not be.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
What KIND of Social Capital?
I'm coming to think that whatever we are beginning here, it will mean breaking "new ground." In the past, social capital was earned and spent in order to help us survive in the physical world. It was the kind of social capital that helped provide necessary goods and services for ourselves, our families and our communities: It provided economic goods in the traditional sense of that term. Post-modern social capital, on the other hand--though it will certainly also traffic in traditional economic goods--will have to include a relatively new, "psychical" form of economic good, as well. Our physical needs are no longer our primary concern. What we "want" is an intentional community in which the higher needs of being human (on the higher rungs of Maslow's hierarchy, if you like) are the primary concern. The kind of economic goods we will want to produce and trade in are those that are conducive to the actualization of our higher human potentialities. These kinds of economic goods are less tangible, of course.
From this point of view, it may not be necessary to speak of "social capital," per se, at all. We're talking about a community in which each member feels fully empowered to "be themselves," a community sophisticated enough to provide the psychological security in which each member will feel free to discover what "being themselves" might actually mean, in ways that may not have been previously possible in their lives, in the absence of community, or in the absence of community in this full sense--community that embraces all of each of us. That may sound a bit vague and airy-fairy, but I'm still working on it...
From this point of view, it may not be necessary to speak of "social capital," per se, at all. We're talking about a community in which each member feels fully empowered to "be themselves," a community sophisticated enough to provide the psychological security in which each member will feel free to discover what "being themselves" might actually mean, in ways that may not have been previously possible in their lives, in the absence of community, or in the absence of community in this full sense--community that embraces all of each of us. That may sound a bit vague and airy-fairy, but I'm still working on it...
Monday, September 28, 2009
On Inventing
I'm hoping that I have this straight. This group is out to invent a culture, or a community, intentionally based on social capital. I know very little about inventing, but I know more about it than I do about culture, communities, and social capital. Here is what I know about inventions.
Inventing is not the same as problem solving. Nor is it the same as adapting existing ideas and techniques to suit a purpose. Inventing is about creating something brand new.
About his own inventions, Edison said "What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration." What I have to say here is about the one per cent. That one per cent has three components.
- Every invention has a purpose. It does something useful: lobbing a projection over a wall, providing a source of artificial light, performing mechanical calculations with remarkable speed and accuracy.
- Every invention has an approach, an idea, a specific notion about how to do what it purports to do: pack gunpowder behind the projectile in a tube and set the gunpowder afire, pass a current through a thin conductor, connect non-linear electronic components in a way that embodies some calculation or another.
- Behind almost every invention is a rationale as to why it should work. Bad rationales lead to non-inventions: Ouija boards, flying machines based on flapping wings, and so on. Good inventions are based on good rationales: electrical current passing through a thin conductor emits light in the visible spectrum. Machine theory teaches us that any computation can be implemented in a finite-state machine.
Better yet, work out how these three elements map to our little project.
- What is the intention behind an intentional community based on social capital? Is the creation of this community an end in itself or is the aim something else, say, rescuing society, or at least ourselves from all the evils of civilization pointed out by Quinn and others?
- What is the invention here? Is it some technique for creating and maintaining social capital? If so, what, specifically, is that technique? If not, what is the invention?
- If we can figure out what the invention is, what reason do we have to think that it will work? Will embody the secret to the Amish's success, whatever that may be, or something else?
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
We Got Started!
Sunday evening, 9/20, we had our first meeting, with 6 attending. We spent most of our time becoming acquainted with aspects of our backgrounds that brought us each to be here. Billy Trip painted a picture of a settlement of 15-20 homes built using "green" principles and able to support its members re: energy (maybe even food) in a sustainable way. Peter sees this as the ultimate desideratum--the desired end-point ("having all of one's best friends living in the same neighborhood")--but also sees the financial investment necessary for this as the major stumbling block, and wants to explore more feasible interim steps. Pierce Presley would love to live "28 miles from nowhere" (like the Washington Post journalist who is blogging his back-to-the-land experiment), but this isn't practical with jobs to hold down and schools to keep children in. This is another aspect of the financial problem--we all need to make a living, and our places of employment are pretty much here in the city. (Stephanie and Mark Walls, however, have deliberately chosen to home-school Stephanie's son Michael, which offers an alternative to the "school problem.")
Peter suggests that creating alternative culture is part of the "project," not simply creating an ideal intentional community. So, prompted by Dorothy Haecker's questions, we described the various ways that we each remain connected to the umbilical cord of Mother Culture--addictions to TV shows, surfing the internet, etc.
Stephanie asked if I would post the titles of the books that I had brought with me to share with those who might be interested. I won't list all of them, just the ones I think are most immediately relevant to us--and interesting:
All of Daniel Quinn's Ishmael books, and Beyond Civilization.
Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman, 1985 (20th anniversary edition recently re-issued).
Better Together: Restoring the American Community, Robert Putnam, 2003.
The Riddle of Amish Culture, Donald Kraybill, revised edition, 2001.
Making Mondragon: The Growth and Dynamics of the Worker Cooperative Complex, W.F. Whyte and K. K. Whyte, 1991 (the story of the worker coops in the Basque region of Spain).
I have several other, more academic books on social capital and worker cooperatives, as well. (I think the history of Mondragon is relevant because of the degree to which its alternative model of capitalist organization depends on social connections.)
Peter suggests that creating alternative culture is part of the "project," not simply creating an ideal intentional community. So, prompted by Dorothy Haecker's questions, we described the various ways that we each remain connected to the umbilical cord of Mother Culture--addictions to TV shows, surfing the internet, etc.
Stephanie asked if I would post the titles of the books that I had brought with me to share with those who might be interested. I won't list all of them, just the ones I think are most immediately relevant to us--and interesting:
All of Daniel Quinn's Ishmael books, and Beyond Civilization.
Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman, 1985 (20th anniversary edition recently re-issued).
Better Together: Restoring the American Community, Robert Putnam, 2003.
The Riddle of Amish Culture, Donald Kraybill, revised edition, 2001.
Making Mondragon: The Growth and Dynamics of the Worker Cooperative Complex, W.F. Whyte and K. K. Whyte, 1991 (the story of the worker coops in the Basque region of Spain).
I have several other, more academic books on social capital and worker cooperatives, as well. (I think the history of Mondragon is relevant because of the degree to which its alternative model of capitalist organization depends on social connections.)
Monday, September 7, 2009
Getting Started--
The first meeting of the Social Capital Study Group of San Antonio (sounds a little pretentious, but--oh, well!) will be at Community Unitarian Universalist Church (CUUC) on Sunday, 9/20 at 6:30 pm. This blog will summarize meetings and the QuickTopic discussion board for those not attending the CUUC meetings. I'll start off stating (1) what kind of "social capital" I'm talking about, and (2) what my objective is in starting this study group.
(1) Social capital is any economic benefit that results--for those receiving the benefit--primarily from their mutual participation in social relationships and communities.
(2) I would like to start, find, belong to, or participate in a community that intentionally creates social capital. In the past, many communities have created social capital abundantly, but did so unintentionally--or perhaps unconsciously. In modern society, it no longer appears that social capital can be grown unintentionally or unconsciously; it seems to require the intention to do so by a group of people for whom this is one of the explicit purposes of their association with each other.
Belonging to a social capital study group has a specific purpose for me: I would like to identify, exhaustively and precisely, the conditions under which a social capital-intensive community could create itself and function in the midst of a modern society that otherwise tends to discourage and dissipate the conditions under which social capital has been formed in the past.
Co-housing communities stimulate social capital formation by designing physically proximate neighborhoods. The elders in Shyamalan's film "The Village" do it by severing contact with the modern world and forming a self-sustaining community in a remote woods. The Amish of Lancaster County, PA accomplish this through an elaborate cultural and religious separation from the society around them. Is the proximate housing necessary? Is physical isolation necessary? Is cultural separation necessary? My starting question is this: Can a coherent, cohesive, social capital-forming community be grown and sustained right in the midst of modern urban society?
If so, what are the conditions for it? Must it have a purpose and "vision" over and above the formation of social capital itself? How many members would it initially require? How closely would they need to share a common vision or set of values? How would they compensate for physical proximity, if they do not live in the same neighborhood? (I see this study group as a "think tank" for pursuing those questions, and not yet as the core group of such a community. It could become this, but that is not my intention for it.)
Please add your own questions to the list!
(1) Social capital is any economic benefit that results--for those receiving the benefit--primarily from their mutual participation in social relationships and communities.
(2) I would like to start, find, belong to, or participate in a community that intentionally creates social capital. In the past, many communities have created social capital abundantly, but did so unintentionally--or perhaps unconsciously. In modern society, it no longer appears that social capital can be grown unintentionally or unconsciously; it seems to require the intention to do so by a group of people for whom this is one of the explicit purposes of their association with each other.
Belonging to a social capital study group has a specific purpose for me: I would like to identify, exhaustively and precisely, the conditions under which a social capital-intensive community could create itself and function in the midst of a modern society that otherwise tends to discourage and dissipate the conditions under which social capital has been formed in the past.
Co-housing communities stimulate social capital formation by designing physically proximate neighborhoods. The elders in Shyamalan's film "The Village" do it by severing contact with the modern world and forming a self-sustaining community in a remote woods. The Amish of Lancaster County, PA accomplish this through an elaborate cultural and religious separation from the society around them. Is the proximate housing necessary? Is physical isolation necessary? Is cultural separation necessary? My starting question is this: Can a coherent, cohesive, social capital-forming community be grown and sustained right in the midst of modern urban society?
If so, what are the conditions for it? Must it have a purpose and "vision" over and above the formation of social capital itself? How many members would it initially require? How closely would they need to share a common vision or set of values? How would they compensate for physical proximity, if they do not live in the same neighborhood? (I see this study group as a "think tank" for pursuing those questions, and not yet as the core group of such a community. It could become this, but that is not my intention for it.)
Please add your own questions to the list!
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