There homes with porches in small towns and in suburbs, but the people never come out of their homes to sit on these porches to say hello to people passing by,they are inside watching television or on the computer so the front porch is useless.No one says hello to people who walk past the front porch.In the suburb, no one talks to each other. In town homes, the people just pull into their garage and go in their homes and you never know who lives next to you. It's a sad, closed off world.
OK, here's a topical comment. I recently listened to this Mike Rowe interview with Todd Rose, about his research on the political spectrum of American citizens. And guess what? Most of us are far more alike than we are different. Ain't that a breath of minty-fresh air?
One caveat that shall remain unspoken: What's the over/under on broaching controversial subjects with your neighbors, just to find out if Todd Rose is telling it like it is? In fact, what's the over/under on even talking to the neighbors, rather than just a friendly wave in passing when you both happen to be outside at the same time? This is the conundrum. Todd Rose may have surprising data to suggest that our differences are relatively minor across demographics; but what if that turns out not to be the case with you and your neighbors? Conversation is a one-way ratchet, and any offhand remark can be construed as an electric fence. For many people, the risks are not worth potential benefits.
I emailed Todd Rose about this awhile ago, since his life's work is dedicated to this mission. I did not receive a reply, nor do I expect to. As with so much of what ails us in civilization, it is far easier to observe where things went wrong than how to make them right. On a related note, I still hear many people who should know better [geopolitical analysts, institutional investors] say things like "The Iran war was a grave mistake; we should end it now!" As anyone who has ever been to war [or been involved in a bar fight over a stupid faux pas] should know, it requires no exceptional skill to point out that a fight should have been avoided after it starts. It is far more difficult to "end it now" unless you merely want to roll over and allow your opponent to retaliate as they see fit.
Similarly, it's not hard to imagine that most of our fellow citizens share most of our moral values, because we are still a high-trust society, more or less. But that doesn't change the negative bias intrinsic in befriending our neighbors, because politics have become a form of secular religion for many of us. And unlike religions, which offer both pro-social and anti-social features, the politics of democracy are mostly anti-social: Competing for control of entitlements that our opponents are also forced to pay for, and for the power to arbitrarily punish our opponents for ideological crimes and misdemeanors.
I'm not afraid of most people, so I have to trouble talking to strangers in public about any sort of subject. But when it comes to my neighbors, I am far more reticent to roll the dice. I'm not really worried about confrontation; I'm much more worried about passive-aggressive shenanigans from the "tolerant" liberals that dominate my neighborhood. I wish I had better social skills, because I might be able to supersede our petty differences. But I have trouble listening to people insult my phenotype without at least politely correcting their assumptions.
This is why I say that heaven is high and the emperor is far away. We do have a lot in common and a tolerance that we share face to face. When it comes to topics I just feel them out. It's not social media IRL and being a troll in person is just asshattery.
I totally agree, if the neighborhood is relatively balanced. Mine is heavily skewed left, so there is a subconscious Us vs Them mentality, because a certain amount of left-leaning asshattery will not cost anyone significant social capital around here. I do believe that Todd Rose is right, that when you can get people to anonymously describe their moral preferences, we are far more alike than different. Except that people act clannish when they see their group is a dominant majority—because they are rewarded for doing so, and it’s a cheap thrill compared to volunteering in a soup kitchen.
Several unplanned events helped me get to know my neighbors. 1) COVID facilitating side by side porch happy hours 2) Treacherous ice last winter; everyone could only walk up and down the middle of the shared parking lot. 3) An outdoor cat needing care over the winter and 6 households joining forces to provide for him.
Now the trick is to maintain those relationships and meet new neighbors without an intervening Act of God.
That's awesome. The COVID stories are interesting how they pulled folks together. That happened to me and neighbors who became great friends and workout partners.
I would love to share my thoughts on building community, but I got an email from you awhile ago gently reminding me that participating in discussions on your forum is a privilege appropriately afforded to paid subscribers, so I will refrain from commenting further. As Andy Warhol famously predicted, in the future everyone will be paying everyone else $15 subscription fees just to talk to them. Unfortunately, I do not offer enough personal value to charge anyone for interacting with me, so I must remain a recluse living in a van, down by the river. I bid you good day, sir.
I’m not sure I’m understanding as my comments are always open, and have always been, and becoming a paid subscriber helps keep it that way. The goal of supporting is so that it’s never a privilege afforded to only paid subs as many do. I run a wikipedia model where you support if you want.
TBF, I’m confused as well since our engagements have been very good and I’ve enjoyed them. A few months ago, I did send an e-mail call for paid subscribers but the langage I always use is the langauage I just did use: that this is a wiki model of support, but that doesn’t mean paid subs don’t help since these essays do take quite a bit of effort.
Don’t feel shy to share in the comments though! That’s the whole point!
Thank you. I misread your email as a nudge, because of the timing. I didn’t realize it was a scheduled broadcast to all readers, because it happened to arrive shortly after a discussion we had in a comment thread.
I love this. It is also interesting many new construction homes do not even have front porches that can be sat on at all. The cultural movement towards the backyard, and the internet, are deep.
My house in a subdivision had zero porch. My current house does have a porch up front that we can sit at, but I live away from people so no-one walks by and rarely drive up.
I lived in an area where people did sit on their front porches, and I can confirm that about the community. It was weird moving away and being surrounded by isolation.
Ever seen somebody stopping his car on a busy road when seeing some other person having his motor-hood wide open, white steam (or worse) billowing from the engine compartment ??? ...
Me neither.
Drive on a black-top road deep in the Sahara and it's sure as the next sunset that the 1st. vehicle will stop to offer assistance, or at least a hot tea in lack of mechanical experience or adequate tooling/spares.
Quality beats quantity, every. single. time. ...
Intrinsic flaw of modern mass-societies: NO quality, just unsatisfying mass-mediocrity.
I’m the one who regularly stops to aid. And to be fair, when I’ve been stopped I’ve had quite a few people offer to help (just not the last time I had a flat on the side of a three lane freeway)
Which way do you think that goes? Because, when we lived in Florida, our kids roamed the cul de sac and everyone loved it though the backyards were the social settings. Gave the kids a huge amount of hide-and-seek locations in front yards though.
That was true when it came to the neighborhood park in our first neighborhood. Fun fact, we have friends now who were kids back then, even before we had kids, because I’d take my dog across the street to run her.
I think people like to blame technology way too much. There are economic reasons why this becomes the case. When you're having to work two or three jobs in order to make ends meet, you're not going to spend as much time building relationships with neighbours. You're too busy working to keep your home.
There homes with porches in small towns and in suburbs, but the people never come out of their homes to sit on these porches to say hello to people passing by,they are inside watching television or on the computer so the front porch is useless.No one says hello to people who walk past the front porch.In the suburb, no one talks to each other. In town homes, the people just pull into their garage and go in their homes and you never know who lives next to you. It's a sad, closed off world.
Sounds like Toy Story 5
OK, here's a topical comment. I recently listened to this Mike Rowe interview with Todd Rose, about his research on the political spectrum of American citizens. And guess what? Most of us are far more alike than we are different. Ain't that a breath of minty-fresh air?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s9trq0dDV8
One caveat that shall remain unspoken: What's the over/under on broaching controversial subjects with your neighbors, just to find out if Todd Rose is telling it like it is? In fact, what's the over/under on even talking to the neighbors, rather than just a friendly wave in passing when you both happen to be outside at the same time? This is the conundrum. Todd Rose may have surprising data to suggest that our differences are relatively minor across demographics; but what if that turns out not to be the case with you and your neighbors? Conversation is a one-way ratchet, and any offhand remark can be construed as an electric fence. For many people, the risks are not worth potential benefits.
I emailed Todd Rose about this awhile ago, since his life's work is dedicated to this mission. I did not receive a reply, nor do I expect to. As with so much of what ails us in civilization, it is far easier to observe where things went wrong than how to make them right. On a related note, I still hear many people who should know better [geopolitical analysts, institutional investors] say things like "The Iran war was a grave mistake; we should end it now!" As anyone who has ever been to war [or been involved in a bar fight over a stupid faux pas] should know, it requires no exceptional skill to point out that a fight should have been avoided after it starts. It is far more difficult to "end it now" unless you merely want to roll over and allow your opponent to retaliate as they see fit.
Similarly, it's not hard to imagine that most of our fellow citizens share most of our moral values, because we are still a high-trust society, more or less. But that doesn't change the negative bias intrinsic in befriending our neighbors, because politics have become a form of secular religion for many of us. And unlike religions, which offer both pro-social and anti-social features, the politics of democracy are mostly anti-social: Competing for control of entitlements that our opponents are also forced to pay for, and for the power to arbitrarily punish our opponents for ideological crimes and misdemeanors.
I'm not afraid of most people, so I have to trouble talking to strangers in public about any sort of subject. But when it comes to my neighbors, I am far more reticent to roll the dice. I'm not really worried about confrontation; I'm much more worried about passive-aggressive shenanigans from the "tolerant" liberals that dominate my neighborhood. I wish I had better social skills, because I might be able to supersede our petty differences. But I have trouble listening to people insult my phenotype without at least politely correcting their assumptions.
This is why I say that heaven is high and the emperor is far away. We do have a lot in common and a tolerance that we share face to face. When it comes to topics I just feel them out. It's not social media IRL and being a troll in person is just asshattery.
I totally agree, if the neighborhood is relatively balanced. Mine is heavily skewed left, so there is a subconscious Us vs Them mentality, because a certain amount of left-leaning asshattery will not cost anyone significant social capital around here. I do believe that Todd Rose is right, that when you can get people to anonymously describe their moral preferences, we are far more alike than different. Except that people act clannish when they see their group is a dominant majority—because they are rewarded for doing so, and it’s a cheap thrill compared to volunteering in a soup kitchen.
Several unplanned events helped me get to know my neighbors. 1) COVID facilitating side by side porch happy hours 2) Treacherous ice last winter; everyone could only walk up and down the middle of the shared parking lot. 3) An outdoor cat needing care over the winter and 6 households joining forces to provide for him.
Now the trick is to maintain those relationships and meet new neighbors without an intervening Act of God.
That's awesome. The COVID stories are interesting how they pulled folks together. That happened to me and neighbors who became great friends and workout partners.
- TV killed the radio star !!!
- Automobile corporations (and Rockefeller's oil) killed public transport and vicinity,
- Resulting total social mobility extinguished any community with long-term, trusted acquaintances,
- Among masses of estranged people, the www let everybody hunker down at home and
- the elites got what they wanted:
DIVIDE ET IMPERA
Soon with total control of every heartbeat, financial transaction and occasional flicker of synapses stripped of their myelin-sheath ...
Welcome to Dystopia, it is soooo convenient ...
Yee-Haw !!! 👊👊👊
Lol. Not wrong! That’s why I think it’s so important to name it and see what we lost.
I would love to share my thoughts on building community, but I got an email from you awhile ago gently reminding me that participating in discussions on your forum is a privilege appropriately afforded to paid subscribers, so I will refrain from commenting further. As Andy Warhol famously predicted, in the future everyone will be paying everyone else $15 subscription fees just to talk to them. Unfortunately, I do not offer enough personal value to charge anyone for interacting with me, so I must remain a recluse living in a van, down by the river. I bid you good day, sir.
I’m not sure I’m understanding as my comments are always open, and have always been, and becoming a paid subscriber helps keep it that way. The goal of supporting is so that it’s never a privilege afforded to only paid subs as many do. I run a wikipedia model where you support if you want.
Sorry, I misconstrued what you were implying in the email I was referring to, I guess.
TBF, I’m confused as well since our engagements have been very good and I’ve enjoyed them. A few months ago, I did send an e-mail call for paid subscribers but the langage I always use is the langauage I just did use: that this is a wiki model of support, but that doesn’t mean paid subs don’t help since these essays do take quite a bit of effort.
Don’t feel shy to share in the comments though! That’s the whole point!
Thank you. I misread your email as a nudge, because of the timing. I didn’t realize it was a scheduled broadcast to all readers, because it happened to arrive shortly after a discussion we had in a comment thread.
I love this. It is also interesting many new construction homes do not even have front porches that can be sat on at all. The cultural movement towards the backyard, and the internet, are deep.
My house in a subdivision had zero porch. My current house does have a porch up front that we can sit at, but I live away from people so no-one walks by and rarely drive up.
I lived in an area where people did sit on their front porches, and I can confirm that about the community. It was weird moving away and being surrounded by isolation.
Yeah, I’ve always lived more rural so it was a little different, but we still waved to everyone on the roads.
{...we still waved to everyone on the roads...}
Ever seen somebody stopping his car on a busy road when seeing some other person having his motor-hood wide open, white steam (or worse) billowing from the engine compartment ??? ...
Me neither.
Drive on a black-top road deep in the Sahara and it's sure as the next sunset that the 1st. vehicle will stop to offer assistance, or at least a hot tea in lack of mechanical experience or adequate tooling/spares.
Quality beats quantity, every. single. time. ...
Intrinsic flaw of modern mass-societies: NO quality, just unsatisfying mass-mediocrity.
Very lucrative for the vacation-industry ...
I’m the one who regularly stops to aid. And to be fair, when I’ve been stopped I’ve had quite a few people offer to help (just not the last time I had a flat on the side of a three lane freeway)
Exceptions prove the rule ...
Wish we were neighbors 👊🏻
Tucson is a great place! 😜👊🏼
Hahah
I suspect there is a statistically significant relationship related to # and age of children in neighborhood.
Which way do you think that goes? Because, when we lived in Florida, our kids roamed the cul de sac and everyone loved it though the backyards were the social settings. Gave the kids a huge amount of hide-and-seek locations in front yards though.
I think in general more kids = more social engagement in a neighborhood.
That was true when it came to the neighborhood park in our first neighborhood. Fun fact, we have friends now who were kids back then, even before we had kids, because I’d take my dog across the street to run her.
I think people like to blame technology way too much. There are economic reasons why this becomes the case. When you're having to work two or three jobs in order to make ends meet, you're not going to spend as much time building relationships with neighbours. You're too busy working to keep your home.
Valid