jprussell: (Default)
Jeff Russell ([personal profile] jprussell) wrote 2024-03-06 05:39 pm (UTC)

Don't mind about multiple posts at all, thank you for responding!

Yeah, I haven't read Plummer's book on the ISM yet, but it's required reading for my UGC seminary, so it's on the list. That doesn't surprise me at all, really, but it does suggest that in a cosmopolitan world, having some hierarchy, organization, and dare I say it, orthodoxy, might actually be necessary to compete with the other options on offer, especially in a culture where some of the options do offer all of those things, or the kinds of things that having those enables.

I agree that Raven's article seems pretty spot on, thank you for sharing that. My own hunch is that the best way around it for us weirdos is, as you say, something like a lodge or a guild structure, where certain rules and activities are firmly written in to "this is what we're about here" - totally voluntary to join, lots of leeway on most things, but a few hard and fast things like "we collect money for this kind of service and go volunteer monthly" or what have you. Don't keep up with the guild rules, you get kicked out. Here, though, there's still the problem of getting together a critical mass to be self-reinforcing.

I look forward to the follow-up responses!

Jeff

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