A lot of the things we do on a daily or weekly basis have ways of doing them that can either be private or communal, some of these which we do not think to consider as having that characteristic.

For example, bathing in the Roman Empire used to be communal, but then Rome fell and citizens in the splinter countries began taking baths privately.

Receiving mail is another example. There are countries which don’t have mailboxes and everyone gets their mail at the post office in the PO boxes. It was the United States which pioneered the idea of the modern mail system, which is why we associate it as a private act.

There are activities as well which don’t have any history as jumping between one or the other that might benefit from it, for example I think towns might benefit if internet was free and freely accessible but only at the local library.

What’s a non-communal aspect of life you think should be communal?

    • CraigOhMyEggoOP
      21·
      1 month ago

      So my reasoning is for a few reasons. The internet is the largest source of knowledge. People use it for things such as research, homework, chatting, entertainment, expression, art, debate, and uploading content. We currently exist in a world where there are as many personal devices with internet as there are devices with clocks. For many, the internet is a form of escapism, and there’s a lot of escaping going on. That I think would be a good idea to channel so, one, its usage isn’t willy-nilly, two, misinformation and conflict doesn’t run amuck in the digital sphere, three, it would give social incentive, and four, it would give value to knowing things (as in, before the internet, you were considered learned if you knew something, but nowadays, it’s impossible for someone to know something everyone else already has the potential to know, since the knowledge is at everyone’s fingertips, which isn’t a bad thing on its own but takes away from any individual advantage of knowing things not easily learnable). There are places out there that want to ban the internet entirely, mostly authoritarian countries as well as some cults, and this I absolutely disagree with, especially as a librarian, and I also figure it might be a good middle ground to pacify urges to outright ban the internet, especially as society is getting numb, knowledge is taken for granted, and people are getting too carried away. It’s no different from proposing something such as us all living in communal housing.