A Preliminary Sketch

I've lately been thinking alot about modern society and the nature of its institutions. It's clear that most jobs out there are unfulfilling and most schools severely bore and frustrate students. Clearly we need to transform our society.

I've been reading about worker's self directed enterprises (Richard Wolff), self-production, community workshops (where community members can build their own products), and guaranteed basic income (Andre Gorz). I've also been reading about the office or personhood and the inherent moral and rational nature of human beings (E.M. Adams).

My ultimate concern is with the fulfillment of human beings, not with ownership or the distribution of wealth. However, the latter are huge factors in the prior, so they cannot be ignored.

What I'm especially focused on is the organizational structure of our society's institutions. Who makes what decisions? How do people interact? Who commands whom? How is authority distributed? Who is responsible for what tasks? What are the dominant values practiced?

We live in a very complex society, so I don't envision a particular organizational model being the best choice in every instance. However, I do see certain values being universally important, such as treating others with the same respect you would want for yourself.

I'd like to see all kinds of experiments in humanistic institutions sprouting up. I want to see democratic worker-owned cooperatives, I want to see humanistically managed corporations, I want to see different models of workplace democracy.

On the municipal level, I'd like to see projects to strengthen community and more effectively share the wealth of community resources. Community potlucks, urban produce swaps, skills-sharing, community seminars . . . . Nowadays, most homes are just islands where you come to rest and sleep after work. This arrangement leaves many people lonely, bored, and dependent on popular culture and market transactions to be entertained.

Ultimately we need to work less, on tasks that are more meaningful to us; we need to be less obsessed with buying things and more focused on developing our communities, friendships, and ourselves; we need to truly apply the Golden Rule in our personal interactions as well as on a global context. It is possible to move beyond the current social paradigm. If we want to live in a world of happy, fulfilled human beings, we have no other choice.

Plans for a Better Life

I'm not all that happy in life and am attempting to devise a way to ameliorate this.

 I think life is much simpler than we make it out to be. People want good company, intimacy, and the necessities of life (food, shelter, etc). Take a minute to wrap your mind around that.

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 So if I want to be happy then this is where I should start. This is why I want to bring together the people I most resonate with to live and work together. We can come up with some way to produce goods or services of economic value.

There are also things that people need to avoid in order to be happy. We have so much shit going on in the modern world. So many devices and businesses and accounts. So many things to worry about. We need to minimize this to a comfortably manageable number. We need to strip away all of that clutter that takes up space but contributes nothing. Really, it's just like cleaning the garage. Isn't it a wonderful feeling once half the stuff has been thrown out?

Minimizing dependence is another key. We ought to try to replace all of the goods and services we consume that we can efficiently replace with our own labor. We all know it's much better to labor on our own terms than on others'. So why not grow our own food and concoct our own meals? Why not fix our own toilets and rooves?

 So am I trying to say that I want to build a commune? Maybe halfway. I don't want to be too disconnected from mainstream society, just enough for comfort. It's about the right balance. I think the way to go is to strip away layers until the the tripping ceases to produce beneficial results. Let me know if you'd like to join me :)

Making It Happen

I feel very anxious right now. Being part of the Los Angeles StartingBloc Institute for Social Innovation (2/16 - 2/20) really amped me up, but I'm having trouble productively channeling that energy. I've had some great Skype chats with StartingBloc Fellows, but can't wait to do something concrete. I've had plenty of ideas for a long time, but have not done much with them.

Partly to blame is my problem choosing an identity. I want to be a serious scholar, but also active making changes in the world. Moreover, there are many types of scholarship I am interested in as well as many types of social changes I am interested in. I want to study economics, sociology, psychology, and philosophy of social science. I want to promote deep and critical thinking, educate about the European Enlightenment, promote non-polemical dialogue, promote student-centered education, promote humanistic organizational structures, create a framework to facilitate knowledge gathering about social issues and to help organizations and individuals collaborate on tackling those issues (If you're a talented information designer passionate about positive social change, please come work with me). I need my life to be rich in scholarship, conversation, collaboration, and production. When one of those elements is weak, it hinders the development of the rest. Okay, I have an idea; I'm gonna go try again now!

A Humanistic Social Structure

A successful social structure must be especially sensitive to the issue of status. Humans hate being subordinated to others. They will either strive to escape a position of subordination, repress the fact of subordination, or reluctantly accept a life of suffering if they know of no better realistic alternatives. We must therefore devise a social system that promotes status relations of equality.

However, equal status is only the first prerequisite to the happy society. There must also exist sufficient opportunities for engaging in enjoyable economic activity. A method of producing marketable goods and services through the producers’ pursuit of their passions is necessary. Additionally, this system must also be capable of harmoniously distributing the less enjoyable work.

So let’s say there is a firm that follows these principles. How would the consumer verify this? A sophisticated system of reviews is one option. An “Enlightened Economy Network” might also work, but would necessitate official verification, which adds unnecessary labor-needs, raises prices, and worst of all adds a layer of bureaucracy. Alternatively, workers might simply not want to work at a firm that does not follow these principles. However, there are always those desperate for income who will tolerate poor conditions and not speak out for the fear of losing their source of income. Still, we mustn’t let challenges of this sort get in the way of the creation of a system superior to the current one. The beginning is in the promotion of the new system.

What is necessary to start a humanistic firm are adequately skilled people and financial capital to purchase what cannot be produced internally (unless those other firms are willing to barter directly or through barter credits). This does not seem like an insurmountable challenge. One must begin by simply advertising the idea for the firm.

(Related Post: "My Economic Utopia")

On Boredom

After complaining about boredom, my friend asked: "In what way could you grow or adapt around the boredom?" At first it seemed like a silly question, but then after thinking about it a bit I figured that I might gain something from blogging about my boredom. You see, I've suffered from boredom for a long time. Reading books and blogs can only entertain me for so long. I would have music too make too, but my music computer broke. Even then, I don't think adding that activity to my repertoire would solve the problem. It would help, but not solve it.

What I've been missing all of these years is a sufficient dose of engaging social interaction. Perhaps if I lived in a house with all of my most engaging friends, I'd be set, but that's unrealistic. And then even if I did figure out how to make that happen, it might still not work. You see, what I seek is deep personal and intellectual conversation. I want conversation that develops the intellectual thought of those involved. I want conversation that opens up the cores of the participants. I want to get to the most basic essence of the other. I want to understand their most basic desires and fears. I want to reach the solidarity that develops when that core is reached--that solidarity based on the realization that deep down inside we are essentially the same.

I wonder if other people seek this level of intimacy. The idea probably freaks out a good number of people. But surely there are some up their that share my desire. I don't know what the roots of it are. Perhaps this desire of mine came into being through my psychological development. I really don't know.

Another thing that engages me is problem solving. I think it would be nice to work on solving important problems with others. I suppose this hits more at the world of work than the world of friendship, but it can exist in both worlds [though if within the world of friendship, the activity itself could still be technically defined as work (in this case we ought to ponder whether it would be a positive development to complete some proportion of economic production through friend-based teams)].

Well I don't know what else there is to say, so I'll end here. Perhaps I'll be back soon.

Enjoying Life

Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" is this blog's theme song. Go ahead and play it.

Two nights ago I had a conversation with a friend about the significance of life. We both recognized the infinite significance of an individual life. We agreed about the importance of people recognizing this so they may have the opportunity to live their limited lives to the fullest. Indeed it would be a tragedy to waste this wondrous opportunity.

However, enjoying life is not a straightforward task. Though my friend found it easy to be awed by our world's many features, my body does not react with nearly the same enthusiasm. Yes, the world is incredibly complex and there are always new things to see and understand, but so what? Moreover, recognizing the finitude of our unique lives could very much lead to fear and existential crisis rather than awe. I've been there, done that. Just look at this blog's opening posts.

Nevertheless, during that conversation I concluded that the point of life is to enjoy, while the ethic is to help others enjoy. I was instantly presented with a grand challenge: enjoying life as best as I can. I thought about how I might do that and made plans to carry out the task the following day. Surely in all of New York City I would find something enjoyable to me.

The next day things didn't quite go as planned. Plans to spend time with a good friend did not work out. Instead of enjoying the wonders of existence, I became frustrated as a result of my plans not working out. I had no good plan B. I ultimately decided to cool down my frustration with a walk through some areas I hadn't yet explored around the border of West Village and Tribeca.

I did my best to be awed by the little things around me. I touched the tree bark, noticed particularities of buildings, and thought about the life-giving air I was breathing in. I felt calm, almost serene . . . but not joyful. I headed toward the Hudson and found a nice spot under a couple of trees with low-lying branches. Once I identified the exact spot I wanted to sit in, I proceed to do so.

I sat there calmly, watching the people walk and run by. I then took the camera out of my backpack and took some pictures as the sun was setting. Again, I felt calm, almost serene . . . but not joyful. I took my cellphone out of my pocket, debated what I should do with it, and decided to send a text to my best friend: "I love you." I sat there awhile longer, got back up, and continued my walk down Hudson River Park.



I discovered all kinds of things during that part of the walk: an indoor sports field, tennis courts, basketball courts, metallic public tables and chairs. I thought to myself "I'm gonna have to come back here." The end of the metallic chairs and tables also marked the end of the park's nice grassy strip. I therefore decided to find the closest subway and head back to Brooklyn. I walked down Laight Street, crossed a pedestrian bridge going over the expressway, and soon after spotted the A-C-E. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Though yesterday's walk was a nice break from my normal routine, I certainly did not enjoy the day to the fullest. I know that I enjoy spending time with good friends, playing games (sports, boardgames, whatever), hiking, roadtripping, singing, producing music, and watching Detroit Lions football games, but there's really not that much else. Well I like doing my lifestyle architecture work, and I would probably enjoy teaching, but besides these and perhaps a few other work-related activities, I can't think of much else I enjoy. Photography can be good at times, as can watching a movie and a few other other activities, but these activities don't bring me the greatest level of enjoyment.

I suppose the answer is to restructure my life so as to do more of the things I really enjoy on a day to day basis. The challenge is that my happiest moments are social moments, so it's not just a matter of restructuring my own life, but also of restructuring the lives of others. And before I even try to begin that process I must find these special persons to restructure my life with. Now that seems daunting. I'm therefore not very hopeful right now. Perhaps I need my own lifestyle architect.

My Economic Utopia

I feel bad contemplating the idea of doing enjoyable work that does not contribute to the basic areas of American consumption: food, water, housing, energy, transportation, healthcare, household appliances, computers, cell phones, stereos, air conditioning, insurance, banking, public parks. Could I possibly work within these fields and be happy? It's nice to contribute to the improvement of products. It would be good to help design more energy efficient and lower-priced goods. But this task of improvement only makes up a small fraction of an enterprise. The bulk of the work is in producing and servicing the current products. But how exciting can it be to build and sell washing machines? Whose first choice would this be? This type of work is essentially a chore. Thus, it seems that all we can do is 1) minimize the amount of time we spend on chore work, and 2) create conditions of chore work that facilitate socialization with co-workers and (in some instances) customers.

If we all do our share of the chore work, that should leave plenty of creative work for us to do. Those with a talent for teaching can teach, engineers can engineer, designers can design, etc. Things aren't looking so bad anymore, right? It gets even better.

Lastly there's the artistic work. This is the type of work that a small percentage of especially talented individuals are able to earn a living on. Whereas the creative work is something almost all people can earn money from, artistic work is more limited. As is presently the case, only a small percentage will be able to earn money from this type of work. However, all will be able to do artistic work in their free time.

I imagine that in this improved society I'm describing, it would be acceptable for the artists (musicians, painters, athletes, etc) to be exempted from the regular shares of chore work and creative work. They would be totally excepted from the creative work and partially excepted from the chore work. Though they wouldn't do their fair share of chore work, they would spend about 10 percent of their work time on those tasks, which I believe is enough to establish solidarity with the rest of society. We all benefit from this organization because we benefit from excellent music, sports, visual art. A world of mediocre art world certainly be a world of a lower quality of life.

So this is the economic utopia I've come up with. I'd be happy to hear any alternatives or amendments.