The Future is Local: Network Error
A timely reminder from MLK
"Men hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don't know each other, and they don't know each other because they don't communicate with each other, and they don't communicate with each other because they are separated from each other."
-Martin Luther King, jr., at Cornell College, 1962
We live in a world where the importance of individual effort is energetically downplayed. Here on MLK day it is worth taking a quick look at this phenomenon, so we can name the problem and consider steps toward a solution.
The chattering classes love to talk about things “we” should do. It’s a classic expression of the we-trap; no single individual loudly harping on how important it is to “help people” or “effect change” actually wants to do anything as a single individual. Rather, the desired action is collectivized. “Everybody” wants it, but nobody wants to do the work of getting it. Among left-authoritarians, this translates into faith in bureaucracy: the institutions of “democracy” that would bring utopia if only we cheered for them harder. Among right-authoritarians, this translates into faith in strongmen: the “fighters” who would bring utopia if only we cheered for them harder.
Missing from both is faith in friendship and community connections, the essence of libertarian voluntaryism. If you’re inclined, it’s not hard to see why authoritarians of any stripe would hate community connections. If individual people connect to figure out ways to solve problems, neither the bureaucracy nor the strongmen would be needed. So supporters of authoritarian programs of all sorts and on all sides actively denigrate individual effort between normal people. In the authoritarian-cheerleader view, normies just have to wait to be told what to do by the leader(s), and “connection” is a LARP where everybody just agrees with each other about how important it is to wait to be told what to do next, and gleefully hates on their political foes. It is imperative to this crowd that normal people stay atomized, unable (or even better, unwilling) to establish meaningful connections to each other. Correlation may not be causation, but today is also the first day of the World Economic Forum’s annual four-day conference in Davos. I’ll just leave that there.
Meanwhile, individuals who are willing to act individually and engage in voluntary cooperation with the similarly inclined are out there networking to, you know, improve life in the community. They won’t ever get any supportive attention, because individual effort isn’t something the chattering class authoritarians will let themselves see. But they’re out there. And they need help. This year, if you want to genuinely do something, find them and help them.
This year, network in your community. Find real people locally doing real things locally, with missions you can support, and join them. Maybe you can get on your city economic development committee. Maybe you can join the Friends of the Library. Where you start networking only matters insofar as it needs to involve something you care about (don’t network so you can manipulate people, do it because you care about people). You will meet people there you don’t agree with on everything. That’s okay. The only way forward is actively engaging with people you don’t fully agree with on a mission you both support. If that kind of networking ever stops, all that will be left is tribalist hate, and that’s when the body count starts.
The principles of individual liberty are, frankly, hated by many. They are hated because they are feared. They are feared because nobody is communicating them in the places where they need to be heard and learned and understood. Those places are where you need to be. Local networking will get you there.
This year, get in there. The future is local.