On "community for it's own sake" Amongst other organizers, it's sometimes said that community-building for its own sake is destined to fail. I actually can’t disagree with this more strongly 🧵 1/

I’ve been a part of social movements and the bonds of shared purpose in those “communities” turned out to be weak, as instrumental bonds almost always are. Likewise for most bonds from mediation groups, dance workshops, bootcamps, etc 2/

If you’re lucky, you form a lasting bond with 1-2 people, but after the social container dissolves, even those bonds will be strained – they’re not enough to keep people in one place 3/

On the other hand there’s a *form* of community for community’s sake that’s even worse. It’s where you come up with some cute name like "Nexus" or “Tapestry” and invite lots of lonely ppl to come hang out 4/

Unfortunately, this demographic is typically looking for some abstract idea of belonging, one that doesn’t entail forming relationships with specific people. There's often wounding that prevents stable attachment formation. (I used to be part of this demographic) 5/

However, there’s a different form of community-for-its-own-sake where the meaning of community is “a thing that supports close, enduring relationships.” These often form out of strong pre-existing bonds 6/

This was the case of @fractal_nyc, the community I help steward in NYC. It was started by a couple, @__drewface & @Prigoose, inviting their existing friends like me who they wanted to live within a 5min walk. 7/

In the case of Fractal Geneva, it was a friend group that had known each other for something like 10 years. (The main drivers in this case were also a couple, @chiaragerosa & @praeterpropter) 8/

@chiaragerosa @praeterpropter In sociology-speak, these are “affinity-based” communities sustained by natural chemistry or existing bonds For affinity-based communities, introducing a common purpose will typically strain the network 9/

@chiaragerosa @praeterpropter If the majority of Fractal NYC wanted to go Buddhist, or Effective Altruist, or even just generically become about “making the world a better place,” then it would stop being about relationships 10/

@chiaragerosa @praeterpropter Instead, it would start being another urban idealist culty thing that alienates the community members who are, eg, more normie, like people’s parents or college friends 11/

@chiaragerosa @praeterpropter For affinity-based communities, community is something like an extended friend network. And it would be strange to say something like “friendship for friendship’s sake is a dead end.” We intuitively know this isn’t true 12/

@chiaragerosa @praeterpropter I think it’s a weird fact of modernity that we mainly use the word “community” to point to “a thing which brings together people who mostly don’t know each other very well” 13/

@chiaragerosa @praeterpropter That said, common purposeS (capital S) is in fact the thing that gives fractals their secret sauce – the thing ppl are drawn to. A fractal contains an ecosystem of common purposes 14/

@chiaragerosa @praeterpropter A fractal has subgroups for tech, meditations, etc without any one purpose dominating the whole. This is not a newfangled thing, it's a rebranding of a very old thing. It's what we used to call “civic society,” common to my grandpa’s time 15/

@chiaragerosa @praeterpropter Civic society basically built America's social infrastructure. Then it started falling apart in the 1960s as traditional bonding forces started to loosen (religion, locality, etc) 16/