103 power struggles, again

From: starstuffharvestingstarlight [e-mail] Date: 2010-08-13 00:28:02 Title: power struggles, again

as predicted, and as i was saying before, the residents have been sinking into their own habits. but they have begun to feel their status is threatened, and therefore began a power struggle with the currently perceived alpha. R has been shouting and disrespecting random guests, and today did that to T.

considering this is out of bounds, we've summoned a house meeting tonight. it will have to be made clear that this kind of anti-social behavior cannot continue, as well as the freeloading. it was what got P and M out of the house, and it's what might get them out too.

often it is referred that i don't care or since i don't say anything it's because i'm ok with it. fact is, after my 8 hour work day, i have little patience and time to deal with these issues. but i do notice the weight on my wallet, and comment that in private with T. she ends up protecting me and showing the face for the global issues, which has been somewhat unfair to her.

i'm spending about 600€ a month on the house and the guests/residents. even when only residents are around, this would mean a 100€ cost a month for each resident. for residents that cannot afford, they've been paying with work. T and (now) D work all day at the house. that means they contribute what they can, in a basic sense of reciprocity.

on the other hand, S, R and O have no sense of reciprocity at all. if there's beer, they drink it. if there's food, they eat it. if there's money in the box, they take it. their contributions to the community are the drugs they sell, the loud music only they enjoy, and the obnoxious attitude towards guests. what saddens me is that i get lied to to my face every day. be it about drug abuse (which is higher than ever now that (I) isn't here), work-for-show (like cleaning a bit in front of me, a technique i first recognized at my old place), or simply empty compliments without any honesty behind it. these are easy techniques to cloud my judgment. if i'm working all day, and see two people working when i get here, it's easy to assume the both of them had been working all day, when in fact it's usually the opposite. they are working mostly because it's the ideal time to show work done.

i am no leader in this community, but i am the funding. in that sense, i'm more of a commodity than an authority. i fix the plumbing, electricity and get the food, among other things. so i'm payed tribute by the freeloaders in many forms. what is perceived as reciprocity (i give food, you give thank you) is usually just politeness. if i feed you every day, and every day you say thank you, i effectively did all the work. the man-hours spent in saying thank you are not even remotely close to the work hours spent in getting the food on the table.

the issue is that the perceived reciprocity (thank you = food) is not reciprocal at all. it is a one way gesture of consumption. and the irony is that not even a thank you is uttered anymore. everything is assumed to be there. these are just symptoms of very individualistic habits.

what is also very ironic, is how the failures of the current house organizational system are exactly the ones predicted by me and T since day 1. which means that the incompetence of the people behind the original organizational choices (A, L, S), our community (and myself personally) has suffered tremendously. an organization cannot be designed by the ones that exploit it. a working community cannot be designed by lazy people. it's that simple. but i guess the people that fucked up the design aren't here to deal with it, which is another great irony of our endeavor. we've been working with and defending a system we did not design, with people we did not choose to live with, for the simple fact of being the minority in the house. almost everyone that believed in everyone having an equal say has left, or is abusing the free goods. it seems obvious: if you're lazy, you design a system that protects your laziness. if you're a worker, you design a system that protects your work. it's the old lymbic response again.

i'm tired of defending behavior that has no possible defense. it will be a key point of my opinion in the meeting today. i'm tired of anarchists that define anarchy as chaos and disorder, tired of freeloaders that want to be part of the decisions, even though they do very little to help. we need a better system and better people, or this ship will sink.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆