Living Off the Grid

This was my suggestion, for a number of weeks, so now that it's finally under discussion I find myself obligated to sub for the Leader.  Crawl out into the roasting Saturday streets, yuck.  At least our discussion area is pretty airy and quiet.

Maybe being raised American gives people a sort of romantic view of a life separate from the Big Brother-like providers of utilities and services, since it's a "dream" floated by a number of Americans, but not, in my experience, by many others.  We remember our pioneering ancestors and think we could do as well or better than they did.  We are from the same stock, after all.  However, we do understand too that living off the grid is no simple matter.  The "grid" generally refers to the network of utilities or services provided to homes or businesses, especially the electrical grid.  Water, gas, and internet/telephone service can be included as well.  Why would people want to remove themselves from the convenience of these services?  There are two sides, as I see it.  On one hand, there is a certain amount of pride in being self-sufficient, in finding one's own food and creating one's own shelter.  There is also some paranoia, shown in how much these people want to escape the eyes of the government or any authority by leaving no official trace of what they use and how they use it.  The rugged individualist and survivalist needs no handouts, no aid.  Another push towards isolation is the sense that society and civilization are "corrupt", which can lead people to retreat to preserve their religious feelings, or nurse their fear of social change and evolution.  Still, is what they sacrifice by cutting themselves off worth the price?

The Actress found the idea as a whole ridiculous and even distressing, due the probabilities of people living off the land having more health problems and difficulties to survive.  She went so far s to say that living off the grid is an impossibility, at least in these days.  Governments will simply not allow people to have such autonomy, acting in the best interests of the body of citizens, of course.  Some governments are less hands-on, with the US allowing parents some leeway when it comes to making medical decisions for their children and Mexico not disturbing settlements of fundamentalist Mormons, for example.  The Actress was sure, however, that European countries would not allow their citizens to take such risks or reject their places in the social safety net.

Out Doctor was also of the opinion that living off the grid was a fantasy, with only some twisted versions of the dream being brought off.  He mused that being on the grid is our normalcy, while off is considered abnormal.  At the same time, being on the grid indicates a capacity for competition and an ability and will to contribute, except for a few who are not physically or mentally capable of these tasks.  Those few receive a free ride, more or less, through the goodness or abundance of their society.  He also commented on the rejection of comfort and return to the struggle for mere survival that off-grid lifestyles entail.  Still, there are groups who technically live off the grid while benefiting from it, like gypsies or squatters who illegally connect their dwellings to electricity or water supplies.  They are not on the lists of clients, their names are not known.  And yet, they receive their benefits from society while living below its radar.  Here he also touched on the amount of selfishness involved in leaving the greater society behind, since we leave with the goal of escaping the requirements of collaborating and sharing with the rest.  He doubted that people could survive on their own, for the most part, since most of us do not actually like to be our own people.  We need tyrants to direct us and to be our scapegoats.  It is necessary to defy the system, he mentioned the True Philosopher's use of the word "rebel", but leaving it behind completely is out of our grasp.  His final thoughts were that feeling sad about one's own comfort is, at best, stupid, but we can never be sure of how long our comfort or our sadness will last.

The True Philosopher insisted that living off the grid was by no means a fantasy, and was in fact the daily life of many people.  He focused more on the existence of off-grid communities than individuals, mentioning the Amish as a prime example.  They are also people who, while they do not receive a direct benefit from the society around them, do interact with it to some extent; they are not completely isolated.  Later he scoffed at the idea of a nature/technology dichotomy, saying that the "back-to-the-earth" movements espoused by so many off-grid movers held the real fantasy - that culture is somehow unnatural.  All human cultures have developed as a result of our contact with nature and our environments, so there is no reason to believe culture or social evolution to be a separation of the human from the natural.  In his article, he mentions the disenchantment many suffer with their society and the ideas that develop, the nostalgia for a simpler and less complex life, exemplified for many by Thoreau's Walden.

A Sometime Participant mentioned the complications of a highly technological life as well, saying it may provide some comforts but also creates stress for most people.  She also wondered if a simpler way of life necessarily meant more moral in the sense of equal treatment and respect for all the members of an off-grid community.  In many cases, equality is a moot point in the face of the need to just survive.  However, some utopian communities did try to make themselves havens of equality and we continue to believe any social rebellion must have an element of that.  This is, of course, patently unture.  While there is a large amount of romanticism, nostalgia, fauxstalgia, and idealism behind many decisions to drop out, there is also plenty of rage and fear over changes in society that can be interpreted as personal attacks when there is nothing personal about them, merely the shifting of boundaries to rights to include a greater number of people.  She pointed out that there are some ecocommunities not far from this city, where people have developed their lifestyles to be kinder to the earth and the environment, and supposedly to each other.  Her comment was that many of them left large cities after being disillusioned with the coldness and lack of human connection they found among such large numbers of people.

The Leader was not present for this meeting, having social events to document, but managed to get a few thoughts on screen.  He also commented on the desires to get out from under the thumb of government and the inherent dangers of being jacks-of-all-trades in the wilderness.  One point that had not occurred to me was the situation of involuntary off-gridders, who have been forced into homelessness or nomadism by unemployment, disability, or addiction and out of most of "normal" society.  Their situation, though, is clearly different in that the choice was not really theirs but was forced upon them by the circumstances.  While important to remember when talking about social problems and what we owe as a society too all members, the mindset of the voluntary drop-out is what interested me more at the time of suggesting the topic.

We as a group do not seem to be in any danger of falling victim to the siren song of "Nature"; we love our internet and social entertainment too much.