Seize the Means of Community

In this series, we’ve explored Richard Rorty’s key concepts—contingency, solidarity, and final vocabularies—and how the Communitarium Project builds upon them. In this final post, we will synthesize these ideas into a Rortyan statement of the Communitarium Project.

Contingency as the Basis for Solidarity

Like Rorty, the Communitarium Project embraces contingency but turns it into a creative force. Instead of treating it as a philosophical challenge, the Communitarium harnesses contingency to foster adaptive, evolving communities capable of nurturing solidarity over time.

Contingency in the Communitarium | The Communitarium Wiki

Institutionalizing Solidarity

Rorty’s solidarity is contingent and fragile, based on empathy and shared vocabularies. The Communitarium, however, seeks to institutionalize solidarity, creating a medium in which it can be nurtured, maintained, and cultivated through structured interaction.

Rortyan Communitarium | The Communitarium Wiki

Conversation Stoppers and Deflectors

By recognizing both conversation stoppers and conversation deflectors, the Communitarium creates an environment where final vocabularies can be challenged and renegotiated in productive ways, ensuring that solidarity remains dynamic and responsive to the community’s evolving needs.

Conversation Stoppers and Conversation Deflectors | The Communitarium Wiki

The Communitarium Project represents an evolution of Rorty’s philosophy, taking his ideas on contingency and solidarity and using them as the foundation for a new kind of community—one that is flexible, inclusive, and capable of adapting to the changing world.

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In previous posts, we explored Richard Rorty’s concepts of final vocabularies and how they shape our beliefs and identities. In this post, we will delve into conversation stoppers and introduce conversation deflectors. We will also provide specific examples that Rorty offers for how certain terms can function as stoppers in public discourse, as well as examples of how conversation deflectors subtly redirect dialogue.

Final Vocabularies in Rorty’s Philosophy

A final vocabulary is the set of words and descriptions that an individual uses to make sense of the world. These words are “final” in the sense that they are the bedrock of that person’s worldview, and questioning them can lead to deep existential discomfort. Final vocabularies are contingent, meaning that they are shaped by historical and cultural circumstances, and can change, but they are often held deeply by individuals.

Rorty’s famous examples of final vocabulary terms include words like “justice,” “truth,” “freedom,” and “rationality”—terms that, for many people, carry a sense of ultimate meaning or authority.

Final Vocabularies in Rorty | The Communitarium Wiki

Conversation Stoppers: Specific Examples from Rorty

Conversation stoppers occur when certain terms from a final vocabulary are invoked to halt further discussion. These terms carry such weight for the speaker that they shut down further questioning or challenge. Rorty provides examples of these stoppers, including:

  • “Human rights”: In many contexts, invoking “human rights” can serve as a conversation stopper. Once this term is invoked, it often closes off further debate because questioning it can seem immoral or unreasonable.
  • “Objectivity”: When someone claims that their perspective is “objective,” it can act as a conversation stopper because it suggests that the viewpoint is impartial and beyond subjective critique.
  • “Freedom”: The word “freedom” can also function as a stopper, particularly in political discourse. Invoking freedom as a justification for a policy or action often ends the conversation, as opposing it seems to imply support for oppression or authoritarianism.

These terms are difficult to challenge without appearing to reject the fundamental principles they represent, which is why they effectively stop further debate.

Conversation Deflectors: Shifting the Tone

While conversation stoppers halt dialogue, conversation deflectors work more subtly by redirecting the tone or focus of the discussion. Deflectors may not shut down the conversation completely, but they reduce its seriousness or shift its trajectory in a way that prevents deeper engagement.

Examples of deflectors include:

  • Humor or mockery: When someone raises a controversial or challenging issue, others might respond with humor, subtly suggesting that the topic isn’t to be taken seriously. This deflects the conversation from serious discussion to something more trivial.
    • For example, in debates about climate change, skeptics might use humor to mock scientific models or predictions, which can lead to the issue being framed as speculative or overly dramatic.
  • Disgust or moral sensationalism: Topics deemed disgusting or taboo may enter conversation but are often met with sensationalized reactions that prevent sober discussion. For instance, discussions about certain medical procedures or human rights abuses might be deflected by expressions of disgust, making the topic harder to engage with rationally.

By employing deflectors, participants can divert the conversation from a potentially meaningful exchange to something less productive, without appearing to shut it down outright.

Conclusion

Both conversation stoppers and deflectors are important to understand when discussing final vocabularies. They show how deeply held terms and emotional reactions can limit meaningful discourse. In the Communitarium Project, understanding and managing these mechanisms can help foster more open and reflective dialogues, where final vocabularies are engaged rather than used to shut down or deflect conversations.

In the next post, we will synthesize these ideas into a Rortyan statement of the Communitarium Project.

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In Rorty’s framework, contingency is something to accept and work with—everything is contingent on history, culture, and circumstance. In the Communitarium Project, contingency is treated as a creative force, something that can be harnessed to build more adaptive, evolving communities.

Contingency as Flexibility

The Communitarium sees contingency not as a constraint but as an opportunity for creativity. The recognition of contingency allows the community to be flexible and open to change, enabling it to adapt to new circumstances without losing its core solidarity.

Contingency in the Communitarium | The Communitarium Wiki

Leveraging Contingency for Communal Flourishing

By harnessing contingency, the Communitarium Project fosters an environment where communities can co-create new vocabularies, practices, and norms. This adaptability ensures that the community remains responsive to its members’ evolving needs, creating a durable yet dynamic form of solidarity.

In the next post, we will look at how the Communitarium Project deals with Rorty’s final vocabularies and how it handles conversation stoppers and deflectors.

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In previous posts, we examined Richard Rorty’s contingent notion of solidarity. Now we turn to how the Communitarium Project expands upon Rorty’s idea, moving beyond individual empathy to a collective, embedded form of solidarity.

Beyond Individual Empathy

Rorty’s solidarity relies on empathy between individuals, but the Communitarium Project aims to create a collective solidarity that is more structured and embedded in community life. Solidarity in the Communitarium is not only about language but about shared practices, rituals, and social interactions.

Solidarity in the Communitarium | The Communitarium Wiki

The Role of Schmooze-Level Social Interaction

A key element of this expanded solidarity is the schmooze-level social interaction that helps maintain communal bonds. These informal, daily interactions generate a form of solidarity that is deeply embedded in community life, unlike the more fragile solidarity of Rorty’s ironist.

Schmooze-Level Social Reality | The Communitarium Wiki

Cultivating Solidarity through Community Structures

The Communitarium Project introduces structures that help cultivate and maintain solidarity over time. Through shared vocabularies and ritualized interactions, members of the communitarium can actively shape their collective identity, creating a form of solidarity that is adaptable yet stable.

In the next post, we will explore how contingency plays a creative role in the Communitarium Project.

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In the previous post, we explored Richard Rorty's key concepts—contingency, irony, solidarity, and final vocabularies—laying the groundwork for understanding how the Communitarium Project might build upon and extend them. Now, let’s take a closer look at Rorty’s concept of solidarity and examine both its potential and its limitations. Can we envision a form of solidarity that is less fragile, more collective, and embedded in a community that continuously sustains itself?

Contingent Solidarity

For Rorty, solidarity is contingent—it emerges from shared vocabularies and the empathetic connection that grows out of these shared ways of talking and understanding. Solidarity, in his view, is not something rooted in universal truths or some essential feature of human nature. Instead, it is built in the everyday, through the act of imagining ourselves in the place of others, using the language that binds us together for a time.

But this solidarity is always precarious, because the vocabularies that form its basis are themselves contingent, ever-changing. Solidarity, then, must be continuously reimagined and renewed as vocabularies evolve. This raises a challenging question: How do we create durable communities when the very foundation of our shared experience—our language—seems to be in constant flux?

Might the fragility of Rorty’s solidarity be a strength, forcing us to remain adaptable? Or does it point to a need for more structured mechanisms of communal maintenance, something the Communitarium Project seeks to address?

Contingency In Rorty | The Communitarium Wiki

The Fragility of Rortyan Solidarity

Rorty’s solidarity is powerful in its emphasis on empathy, but it is also fragile. If solidarity depends on shared vocabularies, what happens when those vocabularies shift or fracture? If we accept that language is contingent—always subject to historical and cultural change—then we must also accept that solidarity, in Rorty’s sense, can never be fully stable. It must be continuously negotiated, continuously worked at.

But here’s where the Communitarium Project steps in. While Rorty’s solidarity may seem to fade as vocabularies evolve, we might ask: What if we could structure solidarity in a way that it doesn’t dissolve as quickly in the face of contingency? Can we design communities where solidarity is maintained even as the frameworks we use to make sense of the world shift?

This is not about fixing vocabularies in place, but about creating practices and interactions that keep the community coherent, even as its language evolves.

Is it possible to develop rituals or forms of schmooze-level interaction that preserve communal bonds in the face of linguistic and cultural change? How would these practices look in a living, breathing community?

Toward a More Durable Solidarity

The Communitarium Project is, in many ways, a response to the limits of Rorty’s vision of solidarity. While Rorty’s approach emphasizes the beauty and necessity of empathetic connection through language, it leaves us with the problem of how to sustain these connections over time. How can solidarity persist when it is based on vocabularies that are always in motion?

The Communitarium seeks to create a structured medium in which solidarity is not just a byproduct of shared vocabularies but is actively cultivated and maintained through collective practices. In this sense, the Communitarium aims for a form of solidarity that is more embedded—one that doesn’t simply arise from empathy but is reinforced through ongoing rituals, shared work, and schmooze-level interactions.

Here, we are not just talking about solidarity as a feeling or a momentary connection. We are talking about the possibility of building solidarity into the fabric of communal life, through practices that reinforce the bonds between individuals even as their vocabularies evolve.

What would it take to embed solidarity in this way? What practices and mechanisms could help communities maintain their cohesion as they adapt to new circumstances?

Solidarity In The Communitarium | The Communitarium Wiki

The Role of Language in a Durable Solidarity

Language, for Rorty, is central to solidarity—but its contingency is what makes it so fragile. In the Communitarium, we are interested in whether language might still be flexible and adaptive, but anchored within a structure that allows solidarity to be maintained despite shifts in vocabulary. Could there be a way to institutionalize the flexibility of language, ensuring that communities remain adaptable without losing their sense of coherence?

This is where we begin to see the distinction between Rorty’s individualistic solidarity—rooted in the contingency of language—and the Communitarium’s vision of a collective, embedded solidarity. For Rorty, solidarity can never be fully secure, as it is contingent on the constant renegotiation of vocabularies. In contrast, the Communitarium aims to create a space where solidarity is practiced and maintained through collective effort, even as language continues to evolve.

Is there a way to create a community that values both the contingency of language and the durability of solidarity? Can we imagine a structure where the flexibility of language becomes a source of strength, rather than a source of fragility?

In the next post, we will explore how the Communitarium Project builds on these ideas, expanding solidarity from an individual, empathetic practice to a collective, structured form of community cohesion.

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When we consider Richard Rorty, especially through the lens of his work in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, we find ourselves engaging with a philosopher whose ideas seem to resist the very notion of foundational truths. This is not a rejection for the sake of nihilism but rather an invitation to view human knowledge, identity, and solidarity as contingent—shaped by circumstance, language, and historical context. But what does it mean to live in a world where nothing is truly foundational? And how might this fit into the Communitarium Project’s broader goals?

We can begin by exploring several key concepts from Rorty: contingency, irony, solidarity, and final vocabularies. Each of these offers us a way of understanding how human beings make sense of the world—and, more importantly, how we might reimagine our communities through the practice of shared, adaptable meaning-making.

Richard Rorty | The Communitarium Wiki

Contingency

Rorty urges us to embrace contingency, recognizing that our languages, beliefs, and identities are not eternal truths but products of particular histories and cultures. Everything we think and say is contingent on the circumstances we happen to find ourselves in. This is a powerful concept: it frees us from the need to search for absolute truths, but it also calls into question the very foundations upon which we build our lives.

How might we live if we take this seriously? What if we accept that our sense of reality is always subject to change, always open to reinterpretation? In the context of the Communitarium Project, this concept of contingency becomes central to understanding how communities might evolve—flexible, adaptive, and constantly re-creating shared meaning. The question is: How can we work with contingency in a way that enriches, rather than destabilizes, our collective efforts?

Contingency in Rorty |The Communitarium Wiki

Irony

For Rorty, irony is the attitude of recognizing that one's own most deeply held beliefs are contingent and, therefore, open to revision. The ironist is someone who understands that the words and frameworks they rely on are no more grounded in eternal truth than anyone else’s. This constant awareness of contingency creates a space for humility but also for creativity. The ironist is always ready to rethink and redescribe, open to new possibilities for understanding the world.

But here, we begin to see a difference between Rorty's ironist and the kind of community-based engagement envisioned by the Communitarium. The ironist, as Rorty conceives of them, often operates at an individual level—a kind of intellectual solitude. In contrast, the Communitarium seeks to embed this kind of reflective, ironic stance within the fabric of community life, moving from individual redescription to a collective reimagining of shared vocabularies.

Could we, as a community, become collective ironists? What would that look like in practice?

Irony In Rorty | The Communitarium Wiki

Solidarity

Rorty's vision of solidarity is something that emerges not from shared access to universal truths but from the shared experience of suffering and empathy. In his view, we build solidarity by imagining ourselves in the shoes of others and using language to create common ground. This is a fragile form of solidarity—contingent, like everything else, on the continued resonance of shared vocabularies and cultural empathy.

Yet here again, the Communitarium Project seeks to build on Rorty's foundation. If Rorty’s solidarity seems vulnerable to the shifting sands of language, how might we structure communities that can maintain solidarity even as vocabularies evolve? This is where the idea of embedded practices—rituals, schmooze-level interactions, and ongoing collective meaning-making—comes into play. Solidarity, in the Communitarium, is not just about feeling with others in moments of shared understanding; it is about co-creating and continually nurturing the very frameworks that make solidarity possible.

How might these practices take root in everyday community life? Could such a form of solidarity become durable even as everything else remains contingent?

Solidarity in Rorty | The Communitarium Wiki

Final Vocabularies

Rorty introduces the idea of final vocabularies—the terms and descriptions that anchor our understanding of the world, terms we are often unwilling or unable to question without losing a sense of who we are. The ironist, of course, is always aware that these final vocabularies are provisional, that they too are contingent. But for many, these vocabularies feel foundational, non-negotiable.

In the Communitarium, however, we might ask: How do we maintain a community that recognizes the contingent nature of final vocabularies while still preserving the coherence of shared meaning? How do we prevent these vocabularies from becoming static, while ensuring they are robust enough to hold the community together?

This tension—between the necessity of shared vocabularies and the recognition of their contingency—lies at the heart of the Communitarium’s vision for adaptive, creative community-building.

Final Vocabularies in Rorty | The Communitarium Wiki

In the next post, we will delve deeper into Rorty’s notion of solidarity and begin to explore how the Communitarium Project expands on it.

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Reclaiming Sociality: Rethinking Community in the Age of Corporate Control

[I buried an important statement of purpose in a forbidding and unreadable previous post. So here it is again, rewritten and updated, easier to find and to read.]

In the context of modern civilization, many of the intimate community structures that once shaped human life have been fragmented and reconfigured by larger institutional forces. This transformation has often resulted in a commodification of human connection, where once-meaningful interactions are extracted, altered, and repackaged in ways that benefit powerful entities, leaving many of us feeling increasingly disconnected and individualized.

But what if there was a way to reimagine and rebuild our communities to counteract this trend? The Communitarium Project offers a potential path forward.

The Shift in Community Dynamics

Historically, human interactions often occurred in direct, face-to-face settings where decisions were made transparently and collaboratively. However, over the past few centuries, the rise of centralized institutions and corporate algorithms has transformed these interactions into more transactional and profit-driven exchanges. The result has been a shift away from organic communal bonds towards more controlled, monetized forms of engagement.

For instance, social media platforms provide an illusion of connection while primarily serving as tools for data collection and commercial exploitation. Corporate wellness programs and engagement initiatives, while marketed as ways to enhance well-being and collaboration, frequently function as mechanisms for gathering data and reinforcing control.

In this landscape, our natural tendencies for cooperation and meaningful interaction are often co-opted for purposes that may not align with collective good. The rich textures of everyday social interaction have been flattened, standardized, and absorbed into systems that prioritize efficiency and profit.

Introducing the Communitarium Project

The Communitarium Project responds to this trend by aiming to offer an alternative that reconnects with the essence of intimate, small-scale sociality. Drawing from the insights of scholars like Erving Goffman and James Scott, the project seeks to establish platforms that support genuine interaction and collective decision-making.

Central to the Communitarium is its decentralized, open-source design. Unlike corporate platforms, which centralize power and control, the Communitarium operates on local servers, allowing communities to create their own environments for communication and collaboration. This approach seeks to provide tools for building relationships and making decisions in ways that are less susceptible to commercial exploitation and surveillance.

Inspired by the resilience of small-scale social systems, the Communitarium aims to create spaces where communities can thrive without the constraints imposed by large-scale institutions. By focusing on direct, accountable interactions, it strives to counteract the effects of standardization and hierarchical control.

Reclaiming Community

The Communitarium Project represents more than just a technological solution; it is a step towards reclaiming the forms of community that have been diminished in modern society. It acknowledges that the fragmentation and alienation many experience are not inevitable but are the result of deliberate processes of extraction and commodification.

Through fostering environments for open deliberation and shared action, the Communitarium seeks to restore trust, accountability, and transparency in community interactions. It offers a vision of a world where human connection is valued not as a commodity but as a shared resource for building a more equitable society.

Moving Forward

Addressing the challenges posed by current institutional dynamics requires concerted effort and innovation. The Communitarium Project provides a framework for leveraging technology in ways that support rather than undermine human connection. By creating spaces where communities can engage freely, it offers a path towards reimagining how we live and interact together.

This initiative marks the beginning of a journey towards reclaiming and revitalizing our social bonds. The path ahead is complex, but the Communitarium Project represents a meaningful step towards a future where community and connection can flourish on their own terms.

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On Integrating the Communitarium Wiki with Blog Posts

We have perhaps reached the point at which, besides talking about the world in various ways, we must attempt to change it.

The Basic Idea: The Wiki Expands On the Blog Post

As part of the ongoing effort to develop and refine the ideas behind the Communitarium Project, I’ve decided to incorporate a wiki into the process of writing and publishing blog posts. Bare blogging, while useful for outlining thoughts and communicating ideas, doesn’t always lend itself to the more structured and evolving nature of what we’re working on. By adding a wiki, I’m hoping to create a better fit between the nature of these explorations and how we document and elaborate on them.

This integration reflects the experimental nature of the Communitarium Project itself. The wiki is being introduced as an auxiliary platform to help organize, deepen, and interconnect the various ideas, terms, and discussions that have come up in posts, allowing us to build a more coherent and accessible resource over time. Whether or not this proves to be a workable solution remains to be seen, but it’s a step toward a more organized approach to the project.

Here’s what this means in practical terms:

1. The Communitarium Wiki as a Supplementary Resource

The wiki will serve as a central repository where key concepts, terms, and critical discussions are documented and gradually expanded. This includes terms like “information ensembles” and “interpretive frameworks,” which, rather than being repeatedly explained in blog posts, will now be defined and elaborated upon in their own dedicated pages.

This approach also allows us to refine definitions and perspectives over time as discussions progress. The wiki will be an evolving tool, structured to grow with the project rather than offering a static set of definitions and ideas.

2. Reducing Redundancy in Blog Posts

One of the main benefits of integrating the wiki is the ability to link directly to detailed discussions of specific terms or topics rather than having to re-explain them in every post. This should reduce redundancy in blog content while allowing readers to dive deeper into certain ideas if they wish to.

For example, instead of revisiting what an “information ensemble” is in each post, I’ll simply link to the wiki page where it’s already defined and discussed in full. This frees up the blog space to focus on new developments or applications of the concept without sacrificing clarity.

3. Wiki Maps for Transparency and Navigation

As the wiki grows, maintaining a clear structure will be important. To aid in this, I’ll be creating wiki maps that show how the different pages are related and where new content fits into the larger framework. These maps, which will be shared periodically, should help readers (and me) navigate the wiki as it becomes more complex.

4. Coordinating Blog Posts with the Wiki

Going forward, blog posts will be written with the wiki in mind. This means:

  • Links to Existing Wiki Pages: Blog posts will include links to existing wiki entries wherever relevant. These links will help readers explore background information, definitions, or in-depth discussions on key terms.

  • Placeholder Links for Future Pages: When a post introduces a new idea or topic that hasn’t yet been covered in the wiki, I’ll insert a placeholder link to a future wiki page. This indicates that the term will be further elaborated upon in due course.

  • Suggestions for New Wiki Pages: As new concepts arise in blog posts, I’ll suggest corresponding wiki entries. For instance, if a post touches on a new theoretical angle, I’ll propose that it be expanded in the wiki and draft an entry for it.

This approach allows for the blog and wiki to evolve together. Blog posts will inform wiki entries, and the wiki will provide the necessary background for more complex posts, creating a feedback loop between the two platforms.

5. A Forum for Deeper Discussion

I’ve also been experimenting with using NodeBB as a platform for more in-depth, structured discussions. The idea is to move away from the quick, often superficial commentary typically found in blog comment sections, which I’ve found doesn’t suit the kind of engagement these ideas require.

By linking blog posts to corresponding discussions in NodeBB, I hope to encourage a more thoughtful and sustained dialogue around the topics we’re exploring. WriteFreely, which I’ve been using for blogging, doesn’t offer any built-in commenting functionality, and this shift to NodeBB is part of an attempt to address that gap in a way that aligns with the broader goals of the project.

6. A Tentative Step Forward

All of these developments—integrating the wiki, creating wiki maps, coordinating posts with future entries, and experimenting with discussion platforms—are part of an ongoing process to see what works. There’s no guarantee that this approach will be the best fit, but it’s worth trying as we continue to develop the Communitarium Project.

This is very much an experiment in finding the right tools and structures to support the research, prototyping, documentation, and eventual packaging of these ideas for wider use. The goal, ultimately, is to create workable frameworks for building communitaria—initially through online platforms but always with an eye on real-world implications.

I look forward to seeing where this leads and will keep you updated on how these experiments unfold.

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Communitarium Project – IV

Cultivating Civic Engagement and Ecological Evaluation

In previous posts, we've discussed how the Communitarium Project offers an alternative to the capitalist lifestyle by fostering solidarity, mutual aid, and collective action. In this post, we’ll explore how communitaria can play a crucial role in re-educating people in the lost arts of civic engagement and democratic participation. At the same time, we’ll examine how these spaces can serve as laboratories for ecological evaluation, enabling a more holistic, context-sensitive approach to decision-making and problem-solving.

The erosion of civic engagement in modern society is not just a symptom of capitalism—it’s a deliberate feature of what Neal Curtis calls idiotism. This term refers to a state where people are isolated from the public realm, leading to the degradation of their capacity for collective action and shared governance. Under capitalism, we are conditioned to retreat into hyper-individualism, treating public issues as distant, irrelevant, or simply unsolvable. The Communitarium Project aims to reverse this process by creating environments where democratic participation and public life are not only encouraged but required for community well-being.

Rebuilding Civic Engagement

The capitalist system has stripped away much of the infrastructure that once supported vibrant civic life. Town halls, cooperatives, and local councils have given way to consumerist spaces and a politics of disengagement. Communitaria seek to restore these lost forms of social life by providing platforms where people can relearn the practices of cooperation, deliberation, and shared responsibility.

In communitaria, participation is not a choice—it’s a way of life. Members are expected to be active in decision-making, from the management of resources to conflict resolution and project planning. This participatory structure offers a space for training in civic virtues, such as accountability, transparency, and compromise. Unlike the transactional logic of capitalism, which encourages competition and individual gain, communitaria are spaces where collective well-being is prioritized. Here, people can practice solidarity as a learned behavior, not just a response to crisis but an ongoing, deeply ingrained practice.

Training for Cooperation and Deliberation

The Communitarium Project also offers a direct response to the cultural and political isolation fostered by idiotism. In capitalist societies, most people lack meaningful opportunities to engage in governance, often left feeling powerless or indifferent. Communitaria can break this cycle by offering hands-on experience in democratic processes. From electing representatives to organizing community projects, participants gain skills in cooperation, negotiation, and deliberation.

These micro-democracies will serve as real-life laboratories where people can practice self-governance, learning how to navigate the complexities of communal life. By engaging in these processes, participants build the confidence and skills necessary to engage in broader forms of public life beyond the walls of their community. This kind of education can ripple outward, rebuilding a culture of civic engagement that has been systematically dismantled by capitalist structures.

Ecological Evaluation as a Core Practice

But civic engagement is only part of the transformation that communitaria aim to bring about. They also provide an ideal setting for a more holistic, multi-dimensional approach to problem-solving: ecological evaluation. As we discussed in earlier posts, ecological evaluation moves beyond narrow, quantifiable metrics—favoring an approach that accounts for the social, ecological, and communal impacts of decisions. The capitalist evaluative model prioritizes efficiency, profit, and growth, often at the expense of the environment and community well-being. In contrast, ecological evaluation demands that we consider the full spectrum of consequences, recognizing that no decision occurs in a vacuum.

Communitaria, with their emphasis on participatory governance, are natural incubators for this kind of evaluative practice. Decision-making in these spaces isn’t confined to economic metrics; instead, it considers the broader effects on relationships, ecosystems, and community health. By embedding ecological evaluation into the fabric of communitaria, we can begin to normalize this broader, more thoughtful approach to decision-making.

Shifting the Evaluative Default

In the long run, communitaria could shift the default approach to evaluation away from capitalist models. Over time, members would come to see ecological evaluation as the natural way to make decisions, whether they are managing communal resources, developing infrastructure, or resolving disputes. By regularly practicing this form of evaluation, they would develop a richer sense of how their choices impact not only their immediate community but also the wider world. This would mark a profound cultural shift, one in which people come to value complexity and interconnection over efficiency and reductionism.

Communitaria thus represent more than just an alternative lifestyle. They are spaces where people can relearn both the lost skills of civic engagement and the lost art of evaluating holistically. In contrast to the alienation and isolation of capitalism, communitaria provide environments in which members can actively participate in the governance of their own lives, practicing solidarity and sustainability as intertwined processes.

Cultivating a New Culture of Solidarity and Evaluation

By combining participatory governance and ecological evaluation, communitaria offer a blueprint for rebuilding public life in a post-capitalist world. As these communities proliferate, they could create a new culture in which people not only engage in collective decision-making but also approach every issue with a broader understanding of value—recognizing the interconnectedness of social, environmental, and personal well-being.

In this sense, communitaria are not merely alternatives to capitalist living; they are crucibles in which new ways of thinking, acting, and evaluating can be forged. Over time, as more people experience these new systems of incentives, constraints, and values, they may begin to shift away from the capitalist lifestyle without even consciously opposing it. Instead, they will simply adopt new habits of life that prioritize cooperation, sustainability, and collective well-being.

The Communitarium Project, therefore, offers not just a critique of capitalism but a vision of how to build something better—one community at a time. By embedding civic engagement and ecological evaluation into everyday life, it provides a practical path toward creating a more just, sustainable, and meaningful world.

The Communitariun Project, Part I: Living the “Capitalist Lifestyle” Without Knowing It

The Communitarium Project, Part II: Imagining a New Way of Life: From Capitalist Erosion to Real Utopias

The Communitarium Project, Part III: Combatting “Idiotism” and Rebuilding Our Collective Life Through the Communitarium Project

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Communitarium Project – III

Combatting “Idiotism” and Rebuilding Our Collective Life Through the Communitarium Project

One of the greatest challenges in building alternatives to the capitalist lifestyle is confronting the way in which our very ability to participate meaningfully in society has been eroded. Neal Curtis, in his book Idiotism: Capitalism and the Privatization of Life, describes how capitalism has systematically “privatized” our social existence, reducing our capacity to engage with others and view ourselves as part of a collective. Curtis argues that this privatization creates what he calls idiotism—not in the pejorative sense of the word, but derived from the Greek idiotes, meaning someone who is concerned only with their private affairs and removed from public life.

In this post, we explore how the Communitarium Project seeks to combat idiotism by rebuilding the collective sphere of life. In a world where our attention, relationships, and communities are constantly commodified, communitaria offer an alternative that reclaims these basic human needs for collective good, restoring meaning to our interactions and relationships beyond their market value. Through this process, we can confront the capitalist forces that keep us isolated, hyper-individualized, and disconnected from our ability to act collectively.

Idiotism: The Privatization of Life

Under capitalism, we are increasingly encouraged to live as isolated individuals. The idea of being part of a community, or seeing oneself as responsible to and for others, has been replaced by the imperative to compete, consume, and maximize personal gain. Curtis’ notion of idiotism captures how capitalism shrinks the scope of our lives, directing our energies inward toward private concerns—our careers, our purchases, our individual successes—at the expense of any sense of broader solidarity or public responsibility.

Idiotism is more than just a retreat from civic engagement; it is a fundamental reshaping of how we experience the world. As consumers, we are trained to view everything through the lens of individual utility. Our relationships, attention, and time become commodities to be bought, sold, and optimized for personal benefit. Even basic human capacities like trust, cooperation, and care for others are reshaped into transactional, market-driven interactions.

In this way, idiotism dovetails with the capitalist lifestyle. Under the current hegemonic system, people are often unaware that their daily choices and actions—far from being “free”—are deeply shaped by capitalist ideologies that prioritize individualism, consumption, and competition. Our sense of solidarity and shared purpose is eroded, replaced by a world where public life is minimized, and we retreat into our own private spheres.

The Communitarium as a Solution to Idiotism

The Communitarium Project seeks to confront this privatization by rebuilding public, collective spaces for meaning generation and social life. In contrast to idiotism, communitaria offer a lifestyle that is rooted in community, cooperation, and shared responsibility. Rather than seeing themselves as isolated consumers, members of a communitarium experience a way of living that is grounded in mutual aid, collaboration, and care for others.

Within communitaria, people actively engage in the governance, management, and nurturing of their communities. The spaces themselves are designed to foster these connections. Whether they are physical, digital, or a blend of both, communitaria provide a platform where people can contribute to and benefit from collective life. From shared resources to cooperative decision-making, these communities offer a radical alternative to the privatized existence that capitalism promotes.

One of the key ways the communitarium combats idiotism is by providing structures where people can see the tangible results of their cooperation. For example, instead of relying on corporate-owned services to meet their needs, communitarium members might collectively grow food, run community kitchens, or develop shared housing. This fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility that goes beyond individual consumption and helps people recognize the power of collective action.

Reclaiming the Intimate Processes of Social Life

In the first post, we discussed how capitalism has “fracked” the most intimate processes of social reality—our trust, attention, and ability to cooperate—and turned them into resources to be exploited at scale. This not only commodifies our relationships but also distorts the very nature of what it means to be human. Under capitalism, our ability to connect with others is repurposed into something transactional, which strips away the deeper meanings that can only be found in genuine, non-market-driven interactions.

The Communitarium Project offers a space to reclaim these processes. By building communities that prioritize human connection over market value, communitaria restore the capacity for trust, cooperation, and solidarity. Members of a communitarium are not competing with each other for scarce resources or trying to maximize personal gain; instead, they are building a community that supports collective well-being. This restores the schmooze-level social reality—the day-to-day interactions and meaning-making processes that form the bedrock of human life, but which have been so deeply exploited under capitalism.

Communitaria create the conditions for these basic social processes to thrive by removing the incentives for competition and consumption. They offer a space where people can focus on mutual support, shared goals, and collective decision-making. In doing so, they actively counteract the hyper-individualism that capitalism encourages and create a culture where solidarity and cooperation are valued over personal gain.

Resisting Hyper-Individualism Through Solidarity

One of the most insidious effects of idiotism is the way it isolates us, making collective action seem impossible. The idea of solidarity—of acting together for mutual benefit—feels foreign to many people who have been trained to see themselves as competitors in a zero-sum game. This hyper-individualism not only impedes our ability to work together but also leaves us vulnerable to exploitation, as we are less able to organize and demand better conditions for ourselves and our communities.

The Communitarium Project directly challenges this by creating spaces where solidarity is not just a theoretical concept but a lived reality. In a communitarium, members see firsthand how their collective efforts can create positive change. Whether it’s through shared governance, resource pooling, or mutual support systems, communitaria provide a model for how people can come together to meet their needs without relying on the market or the state.

Over time, as more people experience life in a communitarium, the capitalist narrative of hyper-individualism begins to break down. People start to see that cooperation is not only possible but preferable—that solidarity can provide security and fulfillment in ways that capitalism cannot. The communitarium becomes a seedbed for new forms of social organization, where people learn to trust each other again, where mutual aid replaces competition, and where collective well-being is prioritized over individual gain.

Toward a Collective Future

Ultimately, the Communitarium Project represents a bold vision for combatting idiotism and reclaiming our collective life. By creating spaces where people can reconnect with one another and with the deeper, non-commodified processes of social reality, communitaria offer a real alternative to the privatized existence that capitalism promotes. They provide a model for how we can live differently, rooted in solidarity, cooperation, and mutual aid.

As these communities grow and proliferate, they have the potential to erode the capitalist structures that keep us isolated and disconnected. The more people experience the value of collective life, the less they will be drawn to the hyper-individualism of capitalism. In this way, communitaria offer a path toward a future where idiotism is replaced by a renewed sense of shared purpose and public life—a future where solidarity and cooperation are not just ideals but realities.

In the next post, we will explore how the Communitarium Project can scale up these efforts and create lasting, structural change that extends beyond individual communities. By building networks of communitaria, we can begin to lay the groundwork for a new way of organizing society—one that prioritizes human connection, collective responsibility, and the common good. Stay tuned for more on how we can bring this vision to life.

The Communitariun Project, Part I: Living the “Capitalist Lifestyle” Without Knowing It

The Communitarium Project, Part II: Imagining a New Way of Life: From Capitalist Erosion to Real Utopias

The Communitarium Project, Part IV: Cultivating Civic Engagement and Ecological Evaluation

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