Random Thought Of The Day #579 - Beautifully Fractured Edition

Day 579

Oh, I think Doctor Whiskey is going to have to write me a nice prescription this evening after how this week has gone.

And on an entirely unrelated note...

@TwistedView wrote 2 posts recently that kind of resonated with me. I think they kind of go hand-in-hand with each other rather than being 2 different topics though. One was regarding community dynamic and structure and the other on the whole @ElitistFucks group.

I've kinda realized over the past 2 years or so that I've grown increasingly cynical about the concept of community. Mostly the Unity portion of that word. But also with what it implies.

Community, to me, implies organization. It implies leadership and rank & file. And all that implies politics. Either in elections or in a form of monarchy or oligarchy or something as simple as a dictatorship. None of those are, by definition, a bad thing... but they're all historically and observably corruptible. It creates an artificial power and, yes... privilege. And I don't mean the name of my penis. It's a ceding of control to an authority.

And we all know how much I like authority.

But what I'm getting at here is that community creates these things. Because someone inevitably ends up becoming the decision maker. And as time goes by, people become more and more accepting of granting that decision making person more authority to decide more and more things. It almost becomes a form of D/s in a strange way. A submission by everyone to a person or persons who begin making the decisions. And they begin to play the role of ship captain at some point. With an implicit and explicit authority in virtually all organizational and directional aspects of the group.

Could they be trusted to do so with the best interests of everyone in mind? yes. Does it tend to work out in a benevolent way forever? No. Inevitably, it ends up going south. At least from my perspective.

But with granting a person or persons that authority, it creates a class system. But not one based on anything tangible like skill or knowledge or anything. But simply by authority and lack thereof. Artificial authority at that.

Classes will exist. They have to. Because not everyone is equal. Some people have more to offer in this particular community or any community. Either in intelligence, logistical ability, skill, knowledge or whatever. Those variables create a legitimate hierarchy. And people can climb that ladder or not. It's tangible. They're incorruptible. You can't make someone any more skilled or smart or knowledgeable than they actually are. But you can give them authority they don't deserve. It's a slight distinction, but it's a distinction. There's an inherent corruptibility to power and authority. And it often takes people far too long to rebel against that corruption.

I'll get back to that though.

But there's another aspect of this I want to look at. Inclusiveness.

I'm not saying that being inclusive is a bad thing. It's not. But complete inclusiveness is impossible. That's just common sense. You can't have 2 people that are diametrically opposed in the same community and expect it to end in anything but tears or blood. Lines have to be drawn. It's a matter of where those lines are drawn that is the issue. And it's been a topic that I've brought up in the past once or twice. But for other reasons.

No, what I'm saying is that I don't think the community has really set those lines in the proper place. The line between "mostly inclusive" and "exclusive" is pretty clear. We know how far the spectrum can spread. We know that the whole spectrum can't fit in any one group. Hell, some of the fringes of each side of those spectrum are hardly even the same species as the other. So we draw the lines. And as long as we're on the upper side of including 50% of that spectrum, it remains inclusive. Below that 50%? Exclusive.

Simple math, right?

What I'm saying with all of this is that not everyone can get along with everyone. It could be because of beliefs or simply because they don't want the authority that the more central organized group submits to. The spectrum provides for that kind of diversity. And sometimes that diversity clashes with other parts on the spectrum.

And that is where the groups that pop up to fill in those voids in the spectrum not serviced by the established central authority come in. They fill those voids. They create a natural diversity. As nice as homogeny is for milk, it's not so great for people and groups. These diverse groups are amazing. They provide something that their members are not getting elsewhere. And they spring up out of nowhere. They're organic. They're disorganized or organized, depending on how the members want them to be. They are as big or small as their structure permits them to be. They can grow until they collapse under their own weight or they can be 5 people sitting in a restaurant wanting nothing to do with anyone else or ever bringing a new person into the group. And all of that is perfectly fine. The fractures and splinters in the spectrum are shown. The needs of each person is met by the groups that they draw themselves into.

And those groups interact with one another on whatever level they are compatible to do so. They simply work or they do not. And when they do not, they do not intereact. Or at least that's how it should go...

But where we get into trouble again has to do with the the interaction between different parts of a spectrum. When one part of a spectrum is compelled to absorb or grow their authority over more and more. To provide structure for those who don't want it. When their position on the spectrum is one that believes they need to bring authority to the anarchy, to bring homogeny to the diverse, to bring centralization to the decentralized or otherwise bring as much of the spectrum under one umbrella as possible, they become the evangelical. Because it's forced. It's inorganic. It's artificial. It's fake.

Which is where the whole @ElitistFucks thing comes from for me. Some of us might see it differently and I definitely don't speak for everyone or even the group itself.

But I'll tell you a secret about it. It's a joke. The whole thing. It's a big joke.

And the joke is on everyone. Ourselves included.

Even the name is a joke... because Elitist implies status. And if there is one thing that actually matters the LEAST to any of us, it is status. We could care less about status, about privilege, about victimization, or maintainting equality or anything else that doesn't simply WORK. We simply all treat each other exactly as is appropriate. No more. No less.

It's an organic group that was no longer being served by the centralized group. That came together for exactly that reason. That's not casting fault on the centralized group. Simply a statement of fact.

It's a group that exists solely for those that don't want the authority. That's why there's almost as many group leaders as there are group members. For those of us that don't want to submit to that authority. We don't even want the paper authority.

It's for those of us who don't want to measure our words for fear of offending someone. Maybe because we simply don't want to fight about pronouns or proper titles or whatever anymore. Not because we're assholes or uncaring to the feelings of others... but because we simply just want to be able to understand each other in simple terms and figure out our dynamics with each other on a one-on-one basis. We don't want our interactions to be mandated by seemingly arbitrary rules where others could be offended when they even overhear how we interact with someone else. We just dont' want to need to try so hard to appease everyone that it becomes work.

It's for our weird, disfunctional, diverse little family.

It's for people that don't take themselves, their kinks, their lifestyles, or anything else too seriously. Because if you can't laugh at yourself and let other people laugh at you, then you really do just have a massive stick up your ass. And that's no way to live as far as we're concerned. It might work for others, and that's cool... but demanding that we live with that stick up our asses is no different than us demanding that you laugh at yourself. It's simply an extension of being accepting without validating someone else's kinks.

And it's for people that don't always get along and don't always share beliefs but can always care about one another. Hell, there's more diversity of opinion and arguments and disagreements within our group at one munch than I've seen or heard about at any group discussion that I've ever been a part of in my many years around this community.

The only real common ground we all share? It's a shared set of ground rules that we all believed in when it comes to dealing with other people long before we came together. We didn't have to set up the rules... the rules were already shared before the group ever came into being.

And finally... the biggest part of the joke? Is that we're underscoring the exact same thing that every other small sub-sect of the community does with splintering into cliques or groups of close friends that spend a lot of their time together. But the one thing we are doing is being honest about it. We're not singing "kumba-fuckin-ya" about how united the community is while spending most of our time with small groups.

That's the only thing that separates us from the greater community. We just named it. No different than any leather family does. Except we're not all leather. We're just a family.

I could go on and on about this, but I think I've put together enough words on the topic right now. I might talk more about it later. I don't kow.

But in the meantime... I'm going to continue to reject the idea of authority and enjoy the beautifully fractured nature of the kink scene in this city.