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At book club last night (highly recommend Serviceberry) I had two realizations that feel important: 
1/n
1) bridging ideas (library economies) are super important to helping people move toward change
https://brightgreenfutures.substack.com/p/episode-25-library-economies-and
2) we had a discussion about “making friends with the neighbors” vs. “making your friends into your neighbors (co-housing, buying out the neighborhood etc)” (latter is a real trend people yearn for; former is something we struggle with).
My neighborhood has many conservatives. My take: you’re not going to “make friends” w/ conservative neighbors without a lot of (probably fruitless) emotional labor on your side.
I see a lot of advocacy for this & I think it’s actually not the right approach...
3/n
"Work harder to connect w/conservatives" seems like moralizing (we *should* do it) or wishful thinking (we *wish* it was possible).
It’s posed as a solution to the fact that people love fascism, as if they’ll turn away if you just do more hard work to convince them...
4/n
You can make the effort to connect w/conservative neighbors but the culture doesn’t support it & it’s a honey trap for well-meaning liberals.
(No similar effort/push on the right—they’re cheering when their families lose their gov't jobs & when their neighbors get hauled away).
5/n
#fascism
So either you go completely counter-culture and import your friends to be your neighbors (this is happening more) or you look for opportunities/crisis and lean into that... like what happened recently with my HOA...
No way my neighborhood would come together for anything… but being sold out to a hostile corp HOA management company? That did it.
It disrupted the status quo enuf: people were roused self-organize & put aside any differences (politics literally didn’t matter) & work together.
7/n
#solarpunk
The critical difference: people were self-motivated.
This required no big emotional labor on the part of liberals, no hectoring & an actual problem to work together on.
Out of that grew the desire to get to know each other better, have block parties (again), etc.
(she/her) @susankayequinn@wandering.shopLess happily, climate disasters provide status quo disruption (ask anyone who's lived through one).
Or when the immigrant who runs the Mexican restaurant is hauled away by ICE&the community rallies: people may might not have much in common, but they all like tacos.
Disrupt the status quo in a way no one likes & they're willing to put aside differences to fight it/change it.
(Of course not everyone will, but it doesn’t matter—you only need a majority to change the character of a town).
10/n
But be alert for when the crisis (or status-quo disruption) hits & be prepared to lean into it—because that's the real opportunity for change (and you'll be ready to meet the moment cuz you've been practicing).
If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s we’ll all be having crises going forward.
12/fin
@susankayequinn
Interesting thoughts.
In Germany we talk about similar strategies using the #solidarischesPreppen, I think.
I feel like it is beneficial to at least know your neighbours before the crisis hits.
Collaborating with complete strangers may be harder.
@Hippie I disagree, mainly because I *know* folks who have been through disasters and the neighbors who were strangers before *became friends* in the disaster
that's how that works
Would it be great to know your neighbors before a crisis? Sure. But the crisis is actually the *way* that people come together in reality (unless you already have some commonality).
Not saying don't try if you want — I'm saying don't feel like you have to or that it's necessary