by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
We need a new kind of society; a society where people matter and also Mother Earth.
But, this new kind of society must be a society that is based on voluntarity and not on government degree. Government decree and enforcement will not and cannot achieve anything on that level. It has been tried and failed miserably. Other means might, however, work.
With the economic system of the world nigh in tatters we should reevaluate our way of life, especially those of us in the developed world, and look at establishing a new society to be copied around the globe and a new economic system where people and the environment count first and foremost and come before profits. For both the sake of the Planet and of the people we need a new society, one that is less exploitative, one where people and Mother Nature are being considered first and foremost.
Often it is said that we need to have a revolution to get a new society and that we should and must abandon mass production for this and many other points of modern life. I really do not, entirely, see why this has to be thus.
Often those that live in squatter communities and such like think that the entire society can be reorganized like that but can it?
Squatter- and similar -communities and the modern day monastic societies, whether religious or not, are a more or less close-knit operation that does, sadly, no longer exist in the greater society.
However, I do think that a new society can be built, one that respects all.
The generosity and mutual aid that can be found, in most cases, i n squatter communities and other such, once did, in fact, to a great extent, exist in the greater society too and that not just in the extended family and clan.
In the days gone by everyone knew their neighbors, whether in the countryside or in town, and they all, in general, looked out for one another.
In villages it would have been rare, for instance, to find that a family would be allowed to starve and children to go hungry while the neighbors ate. But today we have become so insular, all of us, in the main that this no longer happens. Then again, you no longer dare to care for your neighbor's children just so as not to be branded something.
However, in order, to once again extend such a system to the greater society will mean that real personal bonds must be formed between members, especially if we would hope to have decent behavior without the use of police and laws.
It must be said that today, sadly, relationships based on trust and generosity rarely ever extend beyond the small circle of our close friends and family, and maybe some mutual aid associations that we may belong to.
The sense on community that exists in alternative communities is largely absent in general society.
Even amongst the Romani People, the Gypsy People, the People to which I ethnically belong, where people, clan and family was once everything and no one wanted today things are much the same as in the outside world and the same attitudes of “I am alright Jack, so f*** you” prevail and that, sadly, even amongst clans. This is a great shame really but has much to do that clans have been forcibly split up and such.
However, it could be brought back if all but wanted but it definitely can be recreated in small groups for starters.
The question is as to whether mutual aid and free exchange of skills and goods could be expanded from a small scale, as presently, to actually replace capitalism and the state and that is where I have my doubts, at least for the moment.
It can be done, I should think, in so-called Transition Towns and -Communities. Whether it can be done on a larger scale is what remains the question.
First “prosperity” squeezed out the need to rely on neighbors and the small shopkeeper who recognizes you – and that was a nice time – and have been replaced by anonymous, even though they do wear name tags – supermarket- and other sales assistants who do not know you, in most cases, and who also don't really care. Now we have self-service checkouts and we live automates lives and fear those around us.
Banks prefer you to use their ATMs for everything and charge you now even in many cases if you use their counter service, even if you happen to bank at that branch.
We do no longer, at least not in the apartment complexes and streets in towns and cities, and even in the suburbs, know the names of our neighbors and hardly even exchange the time of day with them.
We have no idea what they are good at or what skills I have that they might find useful.
Can we change this? We certainly must try and hopefully succeed for we will never have any such change if we do not try and we must begin now.
We may have to rediscover not just the old ways and implement them. We must, if it is regards to governing, use ways of people who have, or at least once had, a functioning internal system of mutual aid and a system of policing their own. A good example would be the old way that the Gypsy lived, in extended families and clans and governed themselves, and if we all lived in small societies of that kind, then larger society too could work.
What I am trying to say with the above is that if we returned to live in small self-governed groups, such as the extended families and clans of the Romani People are, or, better, were, and those groups then linked together, this could create a larger society of a new kind that could work.
While I am saying a “society of a new kind” it really is a return to something old, very old indeed, and we can find such societies back in the very old days everywhere and, yes, they did work.
Many of the often called “primitive” societies could, in fact, be the model of a new society of ours on a worldwide level. Starting in our own localities might be a beginning though or by starting communities where such can be done.
From there it then, hopefully, would spread around the country and then further.
While this all may sound extremely Utopian it is my belief, and that, I gather, of many others, that unless we do find a new approach to doing things we may not be able to survive as free beings.
Just some food for thought and maybe something we could all think about and come up with some ideas.
© 2010
