I'm not talking about those of us in the industrialized world but those in these abused and often forgetten lands that are feeling the impact the most. They are the closest to a pre-industrial state in terms of where there cultures are and how they physically live. I doubt that us having to pay $3.99 for gasoline or $4 for a gallon of milk is going to change the dynamic of the average citizen of the first world into such a state that they just "walk away." Even if such a mindset shift occured I doubt we would even know where to start. We are far too removed from living in such a manner for a large scale movement.

However those that are living in these not-yet-up-and-coming countries do have that luxury. We put them at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder because they subsist on so little, by our monetary metrics anyway. Their reliance on our food, goods, energy and communication networks are new if they've taken root at all. Would these people whose parents or grandparents lived another way not too long ago choose to just take the different path? That is the question. Whether those that are in power would let them by letting them "fan out into other land" and setup another (or reclaim remnants of their former) culture is another question, which addresses the reality of them being able to do so. The question is if they have the will for it.

Something that really reasonated for me was retold by a volunteer I was working with at the V-Day celebration here in New Orleans that when a new paradigm arrives, the old one withers away, like a shed skin, or an old leaf, so that the new growth can take it's place. The plant, or the animal, in metamorphis, is at it's most vulnerable, and is it's ugliest, but never not 'itself'.

I'll have to, somewhat, agree with Tony on this one: culture is like a river, and when you are in it, that is all there is, it seffuses your entire way of looking at the world. To 'leave' a culture would require something so disruptive that it made people question the nature of the cultural river.

Though there is another option, which I think you are getting at. Some societies that were colonialized still retain some of their pre-colonial (and sometimes pre-civ) character in the form of elders or old stories. Would they go back if they had a choice? I'm personally not sure, but I know a lot of places there are people with guns determined to keep the world the way it is, maybe that isn't the case everywhere though?

Here is some food for thought on the issue, this guy is an economist so he has a somewhat interesting spin on the issues.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/151

 I think because the "what is wrong with me" from civ would turn into "please don't leave me" of a tribe that could crumble. 

i mean, really, which seems worse to you? are you brave enough? i'm not. i've been through that shit before (religious group split up), and i don't even wanna touch it with a twenty foot pole again.  i'd rather blindly live a taker life, than go through that. i'm sick of getting bailed on. 

--

Look, Ishmael... are you sore at me or something?

I agree.  I am very much too chicken to try to live a different way.

I think this is the lifeboat problem Quinn talks about.  I've seen people on this forum suggest that we just need to start living tribally, but i'm pretty certain that very few people here have the experiance or background needed to make it successful.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think we need PhDs in tribalism, but we haven't been raised tribal or grown up in a tribal society so we don't have those responses.  We have the responses of heirarchical society

I think people need to start identifying intermediary steps to get to tribalism so people can ease their way into it.

If you jump off the civ oceanliner in a lunge for tribal shores, you will just land in the ocean. Its best to take the lifeboats and get their slowly.

can you expand on the idea of intermediary steps?

I certainly can, though this example is illistrative, not definitive.

Keep in mind that the society we have lived with is heirarchical. It has disinct levels of decision making and authority within its system. This has habituated us to only really do what is needed or nessicary to accomplish -our- task. This heirarchy also allows for -huge- operations to be run that include thousands of people. Another element is individuation, where you need to do your work by yourself, and you take the blame or the credit for the results. There is also specilization where certain people are more highly trained to do things that random people off the street generally cannot do, like weld things or run lab equipment.

Hunter and Gatherer tribes are almost exactly the oppisite. They are egalitarian, in which they abhore people having higher status or getting arrogant over others. This can be taken to the extremes as Richard Lee observed with the !kung when they belittled a cow he bought them for christmas, and called it a skinny bag of bones even as their mouths were dripping with cooked fat. Tribal groups are generally also collectively based, people do things in groups and do it for the group. There is also little specialization among these groups because their technology is fairly simple, but men know mens work and women know womens work, and everybody knows how to take care of their tools. Tribal groups are generally also small, in the range of 50 to 150ish people, the largest known was about 500, if I recall correctly. This low population correlates with Dunbar's number, a theoretical measurement of how many relationships that one human can cognitively maintain in a reasonable fashion.

In the level of complexity in our society, we cannot especially eliminate speciaization because specialized skills are often required for certain jobs. We -can- compress heirarchy, lower populations, get collective, amd start to generalize.

Here are some ideas for 'lifeboating' a buisness to a more tribal model.

- In terms of collectivism, keeping a buisness small helps people know each other face to face and understand what other people in the buisness are doing. While fostering that feel good sense of 'community' requires more effort, just being able to consistent recognize faces, names, and positions helps people feel less faceless.

- Be employee owned, but make participation optional. Keeping an open dialogue at all times on how things should be done within the buisness can help to make people see that their voice matters and their participation is needed on a level more than just a simple labor drone. Sometimes people do not want to join in these discussions though, so don't force people to; if they see an open forum available and they feel the atmosphere is receptive to their voice, they will choose their own time to chime in. A constant stream of discussion can also help keep faceless and blind decisions at the top from happening, as the 'managers' understand the pulse of the company a head of time.

- Require people to make their own value. Small buisnesses often times do not have random funds or resources to go around, so ask potential employees: how will you create the value you want to recieve from this buisness. Otherways of saying it are: "how will you make a place for youself?" or "How will your participation expand our operation?" This challenges people to not only engage themselves in the structure of the buiness as a whole but also encourages them to examine and frame themselves as important within the buisness.

- Strive to create true value between the participants of the buisness. This is slightly abstract, but lies on the understanding that money is not real, and only bears value because people believe it does. Additionally, money is impersonal and built on a very weak bond of trust. Create value that people need by holding company sponsored dinners, help people clean their houses or yards, do their taxes ( a very interesting concept if people are not paid in money all the time), watch their kids, etc.

- Encourage cross training/mentoring so that people learn new skills and give new spins on old ones. Many people do their most innovative and creative work when they are grappling with new concepts and material, so by encouraging learning and teaching in a buisness allows people to come up with bright ideas. The redundency that develops also allows you to temporarily cover people cannot make it to work one day, but since the labor itself is valuable, it doesn't make anybody expendable. This synergizes with being involved with the company since it shows people the bigger picture of what the company is doing.

Now consider these ideas. Implimenting all of them at the start would make a buisness too radical, and drive away a lot of potential employees. People are just not used to these ideas, nor do they think of them in terms of a good buisness model, even though many of them have been shown to be sound social principles. On the other hand, if you use one or two to start, it makes your buisness a little different and possibly run a little bit better. When you have a good 'crew' of people and your have built something of a reputation you can start adding more of the options to make the buisness more tribal, and easing people into a tribal way of doing things. It might take years or even decades, but going too fast will irritate people's cultural principles, while going slow will habituate them to it.

 In example, while I do not remember the name, a construction company that a guy I knew worked for once figured out that while each of them hated cleaning their own houses, they excelled at cleaning each others.  This ended up turning into a system of people rotating cleaning each other's houses habitually, and often times staying for lunch and/or dinner.

thanks for the overview

I think you have touched on the metaphor within the metaphor, Aaron.

If I recall correctly, Quinn talked about leaving a culture in Ishmael when Ishmael and Alan were doing the 'trip of your culture' idea.

I personally think the metaphor is somewhat empowering. Suggesting that you have to fight yourself and everything that you know smacks of weird psychobabble and seems like an impossible task at that. If you compare culture to a geographical place that you can move into and out of, making a change seems a little bit easier.

Of course, the metaphor is -just- a metaphor, I'm pretty sure most people here see that.

Right?

When we talk about what's easy (or even sounds easy) then we talk about things that often involve us not changing... at least in ways that will move us closer to true sustainability or even our own true selves.

I don't see the "weird psychobabble" of challenging everything I know as an impossible task. I've been doing it for years now and when "the shift" happens, I feel more alive and more free and more inspired than when I left any geographical area... because "I" hadn't changed, only my location did.

The important part to looking at myself and challenging the pieces of me that needed changing in order to live the lifestyle that I live and to move in the direction I'm moving was: to let go, to have patience, care, and compassion for myself, to be surrounded by other people who were willing to support me and willing to change themselves, among other things.

It has been hard. It still is sometimes. I don't give any pretense about that. But damn I feel good - consistently. I feel fulfilled - consistently. My wildest satisfactions are met with ease. And I feel ready for the next step, as always.

Here's to leaving yourself and thus leaving culture behind, gaping at you, wide-eyed and envious. *clinks glasses*

Care,
Aaron