What I'm learning from social networking

I signed up for facebook a couple years ago after an 18 year old started a group there called the Anti Communitarian League. He designed the group page himself. He filled it with quotes from people like Margaret Meade and Ayn Rand, both of whom I think were players in the dialectical games, and their purpose was to lead us into the ultimate communitarian solution.

Even though I could see young Nick C. didn't quite understand all of the pieces and players who make up the communitarian scam, I didn't challenge him for quoting questionable sources to define his anti communitarian stand. I figured everyone grasps this new concept within the confines of their own understanding. His was clouded with a modern American Marxist education (the same one Nordica received). My perception is clouded with my American Zionist military patriot upbringing. Others use their religious beliefs to define it, and just as many others use their anti religious beliefs to condemn it. I've found there are as many different reactions to the communitarian theory as there are different variations on the theory. And up to this time, I've held to the assumption that it's best to allow people to figure it out on their own.

It didn't seem right for me to push my anti communitarian stand on anyone else, and while I often cajoled the American "patriot right" into looking at the law, I didn't hammer away at what I think we ALL need to think about communitarianism. I thought it was much more meaningful and important for everyone to determine for themselves where they stand on the most powerful social and political platform in the world. (And I didn't fully realize all this hammering at the Right made many people assume I am a rightwingnut too!)

What I had to finally face and admit is that it is impossible to grasp the pure evil of the communitarian ideology without letting go of every attachment we have to the bankers' economic and social theories. We cannot let go of the theories while clinging to the favored authors who taught us to join in the conflicts between all these theories.

As long as we adhere to a portion of the thesis or antithesis, we cannot see the final synthesis as the culmination of a whole process. I've spent 2 years on fb posting things that I thought would help people to explore the unnatural nature of communitarian thinking, and I've had some amazing conversations with insightful and thoughtful people.

I began calling the Occupy Wall Street movement communitarian months ago. Since then there have been members who self-describe the protests as "communitarian" and a few other mainstream writers have picked up the term. Still, I'd guess close to half my fb friends support the "Occupy" protests because they cannot see how they lead to a communitarian "solution."

"Is there a solution? Well, that depends on us. Can we live with less? Can we learn to use available resources — neighbors, vacant public spaces, social networks, community organizations — to maintain or enhance our health? Can we accept that overconsumption never really was the route to happiness anyway?"
http://rachelsigner.com/2011/10/13/how-it-all-went-down-why-we-have-the-99-percent/

It should have come as no surprise last month when the same kid who started the fb ACL page told me he doesn't see eye to eye with me politically and unfriended me.

The advantage of having a vague theory that combines all others is there's something in it for everyone. Something to hate and something to love.

2020/TACM update: We've got the pages laid out and are filling them in, shouldn't be too much longer now. While it's been a terribly embarassing long time trying to get it finished, it's been necessary time as well. There are a lot of new communitarian developments that will be part of this revised edition, and hopefully it's written with a better understanding of our readers. Again, thank you all for your continued paitence.