Community is Just a Highbrow Fantasy

[oddoneout]

Community takes participation and effort on the part of those who want it. One of the things that irritates me about people moving abroad is how often friendliness and community spirit are cited as a reason for doing so(after 'better weather'), but almost never is any indication given of joining in and being part of that process - it's simply there for them to use. I wonder what effort, if any, they made in the UK to engage with those around them, contribute their time to the activities they consider desirable, make the first move in getting to know people?

[vinteuil]

I'm sorry but I just don't get it. I'm no longer susceptible to the urge to view most people as ok. Yeah, they are ok and so what?

... here's a song for you -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDy07YaVLwQ

"... I care for nobody, no, not I,
If nobody cares for me... "



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[Lat-Literal]

... here's a song for you -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDy07YaVLwQ

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Thank you.

It sounds like Christmas.

[Lat-Literal]

Quite tired - but overall I had a much more positive experience today. I was supposed to have gone food shopping and did so but here there is also "Tales From a a Micropub" (the first I've ever visited) and tattoo talk that does not quite fit in with the assumptions - normal-ish but artier than the expectations - in a place that was so bleak the last time around I swore I wouldn't do it again. Anyhow, I was back there because that's me. Two places. Two new sets of observations on the nature of community. A little more on this, possibly, in due course.

https://en-gb.facebook.com/The-Radius-Arms-Micropub-329531410483678/

It's another milestone of life when for the first time the hairdresser asks: "Would you like me to trim the eyebrows sir?"

Lats, community is alive and kicking. It's a simple "good morning" and a smile, it's borrowing a neighbour's hedge trimmer, it's giving a hand, doing a favour, chatting, picking up that crisp packet in the street. It is giving and receiving, and being. It takes effort. From this community emerges. If you cannot find community then you are looking in the wrong places.

There are plenty of examples of community - good and bad - in the world today.

Please lighten up (and consider the art of précis )

I do accept the main points in your post - however, it tends to be me who says good morning, removes the stuff that is chucked behind the salt bin, fights to have yellow lines placed on the road so that neighbours don't have accidents in their cars when exiting the road etc. etc. This, actually, is in an unusually neighbourly road in comparison with many places in 2017. I think, though, that my concept here goes rather wider than immediate neighbourhoods - it is in the area between local streets and national media, part actual location, part attitude.

[Lat-Literal]

VI

I have revised the OP on several occasions and also some of my subsequent comments. The extensive quote in the second post would ideally be removed as it is not how the OP now stands but not, of course, the comment that cloughie kindly made. It seemed to me when I started the thread that I was onto something specific. Now it doesn't quite feel that way in that much of the thought is nebulous. To the extent that there is any specific point, I am minded to think now it is less about concepts of community and more about congregation. That, I reckon, is something more than where people congregate while locations in which people congregate as in the sense of being mutually alongside with minimal interaction does not even of itself represent community. On reflection, the spaces between neighbourhood and national media are ostensibly institutional. This is not to suggest that the former two are not so but arguably the institutional nature of those provides fewer barriers to inclusion. A cheery wave from a passer by in the former case. The one-way communication of the latter to be switched on or to be switched off. Each has a fleeting quality every bit as much as it is always there and accessible. Between those points are combinations of people who when one digs down are in pre-determined arrangements. The arrangements of institutions, be they schools or workplaces or relationships, friendships, routine interests and pensions. Few there are encouraged into observations, although there will be plenty of strong opinions and broader interaction doesn't often come naturally when few if any are themselves free-moving vehicles.

VII

What, I think, one increasingly notices is the inclination or lack of inclination in individuals towards reach. As previously highlighted, it is unrealistic to anticipate that those who are interested in food or car mechanics will suddenly reach out to someone they don't know and discuss opera. But reach - I am using the word entirely in the non physical sense - need not be as considerable to be involving. Yesterday, when one person approached me in the space of several hours and in one way or another I spoke first with getting on for twenty, there were a few moments when others' reach was evident and it made a difference. Of course, it does help to know what it is exactly you hope to have from other people in order that they can deliver. I respect the modern service types - often lowly paid British men in their twenties and thirties - who have an ultra-professional way in their shops and their restaurants and bars. Few in the seventies would automatically have called the customer "sir" as I find occurs to or with me frequently wherever I go. On the plus side, it isn't unwelcoming but I doubt if it is what I want personally. The formality of it - even the false inequity of it given that many of us feel uncomfortable with and even unworthy of that title - doesn't especially appeal.

VIII

In contrast, the Chinese man with no English - a chef taking a brief break in a so-called garden - was all smiles and, on seeing that the chairs were wet, raced to get a dry cloth for me to use. That did make an impact because he had reached beyond the norm. A British woman who was also a member of the staff sounded so indifferent to a bloke who was trying to talk with her that I was not in the slightest bit surprised that she was studying accountancy and management. And yet when he disappeared, I ventured towards the brusqueness so as to have all of my prejudices confirmed only to find someone who was highly receptive, very knowledgeable of the area across several miles and even able to give names to people who I have only very temporarily encountered. On the bus towards the micropub, an elderly couple who knew the area went out of their way to advise me on the bus stop that I needed while being quite unable to find their own bearings sufficiently to provide the information. A teenage girl who could easily have just sat there and kept quiet instead risked three or four words of intervention that clarified the position. Where I was heading is of itself concrete but in terms of my motives it was essentially an exploring of a new sort of establishment with an ideological insistence that community is represented within its walls. I spent the journey time counting the number of buildings of all kinds within a three mile radius I had entered during my seven "reclusive" years and was surprised to discover it was as many as 84, albeit less surprised that in all but two any dialogue resulted from me giving other people money.

[vinteuil]

.much of the thought is nebulous

Lat-Lit : I think you should take heed of the wise words of Flay -

Please lighten up (and consider the art of précis )

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[Lat-Literal]

IX

The micropub, it transpires, is a place where a few people congregate. A small space not without character in which one individual will sit alone silently with his crossword puzzle, a young couple will talk very quietly with each other as they might do at home and a group of four middle aged men talk just as quietly at another table about matters unknown. This is all to be encouraged and preferable to many other places but it isn't what I would call a community. A community would require the folk at one table reaching out to talk with the folk at another table. Nor given that the customers believe that they are all on each others' levels is it in any sort of congregation. A congregation requires a sharing among people of a looking up which inevitably involves coming from a mutual sense of being lowly even if the feelings accompanying it do not especially involve depression, oppression or inferiority. Religion is the obvious reference point historically or if not it is church. In contrast, the micropub has quite a low ceiling. It also opposes music which has been the surrogate god in the personal histories of many of us. The stage has always been a pretense so far as any broad-brush focus is concerned, especially outdoors when any voice or instrument coming at us from performers is essentially a conduit to the skies. The conversations I had in the micropub were mainly rewarding. That is to say I learnt a fair amount and not as I had been expecting.

X

First, it seems easier to engage with people who own or are employed in the "outside world" than it is with other people who are simply customers. I have, of course, known this for a long time but it is so counter-intuitive I always forget that lesson until I'm given it again. Secondly, here, and I fully accept that to have just one brief conversation with just one other customer is about as micro as is feasible to produce any sort of understanding, people sitting in the same distinctive place do not actually share its - or even a - philosophy. I was told that had the micropub not been there as had been true two years ago, the alternatives would have been going to the awful place along the road or indeed not going out at all. This, then, for customers is not any sort of group playing its part in some big vision as I had assumed. It is simply a nice place to sit and chat as a fella produces something drinkable while wearing a Crocodile Dundee sort of hat. Thirdly, that fella is civil, charming, welcoming, tolerant and receptive. He will talk about real ale knowledgeably and educationally, reinforcing one's sense that the stuff is closely aligned with British map reading in his ability to specifically locate the obscurest of breweries. The manner is not at all effusive but his enthusiasm is undoubtable. All one has to do is follow the signal to look at all of the beer mats above our heads to appreciate the sheer range of what he has in a few months imported by lorry.

XI

But there is also a slight reticence that may be mainly an indication of both character and role. I cannot call it playing one's cards close to one's chest for if I ran such an establishment I would be defensive and even wary. But what one gets is an air of mystery that is probably designed and certainly a feeling of a good story untold. "Why do something so unusual here?" and "How does it fit in with what is a fast growing movement nationally?" are not questions wholly answered by the modest statement that it was something that seemed right to do and what others do is not especially linked. The true moments of connection occurred from things I said which prompted no words but rather a comprehending smile. Geography, I said. People who wouldn't ever think of coming to this area will do so now purely on the basis of what you have here. And especially history. You have a library in the corner. Books that people can read here or even take away and read as long as they bring them back. It strikes me that this sits almost on the cusp of Chartism and its various strands. Beer on one side and books as an antidote on the other yet here you are combining these two things. That was when the best smile came. He knew precisely what I meant but verbally wasn't letting on.

For places so lovingly managed - even cosy - there is a strangely illicit air about them. As the kids passed by on their way home from school it is almost as if the windows have an invisible cover. Not the old betting shop, the sex shop or the continental "coffee shops" for there is no hint of the sordid. Nevertheless, top down, it is nothing less than a quiet and dogmatic rebellion. Anti-lager, anti-thug, anti-gastro, anti-big business, anti-advert, not pro-family. Not intended to be noticed except by those in the know. My suggestion that the 200 could be 2000 in three years was barely acknowledged - deliberately - for I was spot on. No customers involved themselves in our discussion although one or two may just have been listening to what was hovering around some notion of undefined social revolution. Reach us. We won't reach you. That part does ironically synchronize with the grass roots at this time.

[Lat-Literal]

Lat-Lit : I think you should take heed of the wise words of Flay -






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Are you advocating Radio 1 or Radio 2?

[vinteuil]

Are you advocating Radio 1 or Radio 2?

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... no, the Third Programme.


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[Lat-Literal]

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... no, the Third Programme.


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Listen to the Third Programme then.

It doesn't exist, of course....you are advocating what doesn't exist, v.

That sounds somewhat remote.

[oddoneout]

I have possibly misunderstood what you are getting at but your 1X seems to suggest a level of forced participation which would have many of us running for the hills. It is possible that the people you observed have made the deliberate decision to be in that place precisely because they won't have a 'hand reaching out' but will be left in peace to converse or read as they wish. What if they are part of the local community, know each other, interact with each other elsewhere, but don't feel the need to do it all the time nor, more importantly, force themselves on others regardless of whether that attention is sought or desired?
Community is having that connection, network, support, which best serves the people who are part of it, and may not be obvious to those looking in from outside, especially if they are not from that locality.

[Lat-Literal]

I have possibly misunderstood what you are getting at but your 1X seems to suggest a level of forced participation which would have many of us running for the hills. It is possible that the people you observed have made the deliberate decision to be in that place precisely because they won't have a 'hand reaching out' but will be left in peace to converse or read as they wish. What if they are part of the local community, know each other, interact with each other elsewhere, but don't feel the need to do it all the time nor, more importantly, force themselves on others regardless of whether that attention is sought or desired?
Community is having that connection, network, support, which best serves the people who are part of it, and may not be obvious to those looking in from outside, especially if they are not from that locality.

No. I am not advocating forced participation as in any sort of requirement on entering that everyone should converse with everyone else. My feeling is any worry that such a thing as force might occur or even a sense of being forced when being approached is a fundamental part of a sickening society. Even in the eighties, it was noticeable to me that in Spain and Italy anyone who got on a bus immediately chatted. Here we can have places as the one I have described which have one main sign on the window. The word "discussion" is on it and yet the social silos are taken inside. Personally, I would have thought that the books were there for both reading and debating, otherwise what would be required is an actual library. I think I'd also suggest that as the movement grows there is the potential for that precisely to develop. The scope is there for political, philosophical and even poetry groups to emerge.

[vinteuil]

... I think I'd also suggest that as the movement grows there is the potential for that precisely to develop. The scope is there for political, philosophical and even poetry groups to emerge.

... o good lord I hope not. I would run (well, walk... ) many a mile away from such. 'Poetry groups' -


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[Lat-Literal]

... o good lord I hope not. I would run (well, walk... ) many a mile away from such. 'Poetry groups' -


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Fine but all that means is such places would not be for you. Just as Wetherspoons is not the place for many people, albeit probably the minority. One could consider that any new micro network would run in parallel to the extraordinary number of Islamic Centres now in South London etc. It is not needed in that sense currently, nor would that ever be its overt raison d'etre, but it would indicate that there can be other tides too. One sees the vulnerabilities in the gaps that are on sofas, in closed wallets and in extreme privacy. Incidentally, no one wanted to call it modern - and they are right but it could be the future. That is, if the future isn't scoffing pizza with Big Brother, it may well be a return to the more refined sort of salon.

[Lat-Literal]

And the final one:

XII

So it was to the third and final place of the day after a very brief in and out at Tescos. This is the one which those in this area who went to "the pub" when under the age of eighteen in the 1970s/1980s attended for its live music and a spit and sawdust hullabaloo. A town centre thing. Until that happened, they were friends of mine and all those years ago it very much represented a parting of our ways. In the decades that ensued, I saw most things, all kinds of pub, many different types of buildings. There is the full knowledge that I had never in that regard missed out on anything of note. It looks much the same as it always did and it would be of absolutely no interest to me except for one reason. The people in this neighbourhood who I know and are of the age that I am now tell me that they go there on occasions rather than anywhere else and while they are not the people I knew when I was sixteen they might as well be with what appears to be such little change. My first venture into it last week pretty much confirmed everything I had anticipated. Lively, rough and ready, borderline gangster at worst, I would not want to be there very late at night. Consequently, the much advertised live music remains a mystery of not huge allure. But it is safe enough in the afternoons, varied in customer and in the front "garden" it is packed. I was advised on enquiry that there is a yard at the back of the premises too but "you go to the front if you want to be seen".

XIII

On that day, I headed for the back yard. A middle aged white woman in dark glasses, very thin and not too steady on her feet, was chatting to a black woman who listened to what she was saying while seeming so self-contained she was barely anywhere at all. Given the choice between these two people and the two post-work males in suits half-discussing dubious sounding business deals, I opted for the former. Not a lot there except the one who talked enjoyed turning up uninvited to melas and dancing and was sufficiently well versed in that area to correct me on my pronunciation. This time, I did go to the front and wondered frankly how anyone could think that it was a place to be seen if that is what is wanted. The traffic thunders by constantly - it's on the A23 - and legions of folk walk by from the office workers and builders to long trains of French school children. To the extent that it can be endured, it is better than television. Meanwhile, a combination of Shalamar's "Friends" and the very young couples heading out to gastro pub just around the corner for a meal and then marriage reminded me of everything that occurred when I left Shereen for a totally different world and character in York in 1982. It was uncannily like being plonked into the craziest time warp.

XIV

This, I think as I sit there, is not a community either. It is at the jungle end of life's natural patterns. Frightening? No. Not any longer, nor is it as bleak or depressing. It is what it is when everything is active, thoughtless, not hidden and lacking in any ideological scrutiny. Can I see the appeal of it way back then or in the context of today? Yes for those who never wanted or knew anything very different and no in terms of my own personal perspective. But then as these thoughts are placed upon the scenes which I feel I am less within than philosophically witnessing, wouldn't you know it. Someone approaches me and he wants to converse at length which is fine and even welcome. 30, ordinary looking, genuinely friendly and without edge, fathered children when very young, a sound engineer of sorts and latterly a tattooist. See? Yes, I see. You do have very bright colours on your hands, my friend. We talk about the micropub. Oh yes he's seen it in passing. His friend, 23, who appears out of nowhere and is about as forlorn as it is possible to appear, has seen it too. Neither has been in it because in their experience there is "nowhere decent around here". The latter goes further saying it is all so dire he mainly prefers never to go out. What about the music? They missed all the good times. The 1960s to the 1990s. They wish they had been there. Given their ages, it really makes me wonder exactly for whom so-called modern music is designed.

XV

The first, though, wants to talk tattoos. Had I ever considered one? I explained that I had never understood the recent trends. Originally, they were small, mainly blue and only for men in the armed forces. At the back of my mind, I am thinking that they all seem very showy to me. Worn by people who prefer to be at the front of pubs perhaps. What I say is "why the appeal?" and I am told that it is about, quote, "a love of art". "Really?" He goes here and there to find which art work he likes so much that he wants to wear it, inevitably often finding himself in the States - and yes, there is a personal identification with it but only as it's the art that stands out. "What would you have?" "I've no idea", I reply, "is there anything with a stone circle?" and it is the only moment when the conversation doesn't flow. "There is another reason" I am told. "Oh?" "I feel that this colour is needed being" - (long pause) - "white".

At this point, another friend arrives who is black to whom I am introduced and he shakes my hand. They are about to head off to somewhere local for some sound work and only I decide that it is the time for me to leave. An invitation was almost certainly forthcoming. But I've got the gist of that place now to my total satisfaction. It is a pub to which large numbers instinctively travel when wanting to be somewhere - and preferably someone - else. That, I think, is precisely why I was approached there when I wasn't in the micropub. The clientele for want of a better word are not reaching into it but rather orientating there with other people to reach out. Being alone, I was identified as an outsider in a positive sense. Elsewhere there may be a greater instinct for assimilation and even a very loose knit sense of community but by nature that is almost bound to perceive itself in terms of insularity.