this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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I don't know if this is the right community, but I need an answer, I've been thinking of this for months.

Twice it happened to me, to meet people who say they are interested in X (generic topic), just like me. So we end up creating a group, all motivated, bold, and hopeful to exchange material (productions, ideas, etc.) about topic X. And twice it happened to me that I was the only active person in the group, ending up being associated with the figure of "head" of the club. Not that I don't like taking charge of the thing, but evidently I'm not good at it at all: because no one even responds to what I share.

Of course, you can tell me to propose activities; but first of all I have no idea of what it is to be done in a club, having never been in one before; secondly, people simply ignore, or are busy with other things, and I'm not talking about people who have a career, i talk about students during holiday.

I've been thinking about it since January and I came up to this: the beauty of a collective entity like the club is that it allows for exchange between peers, but it only works if the peers make it work, if they "self-manage". And I'm not talking about running a factory, I'm just talking about being able to discuss and propose recreational activities.

This led me to observe that (at least) my generation is brain dead; and I'm not saying this to be edgy, if taken as a whole these people can't function.

Let me explain myself: when I tried to find a solution, I only found vertical realities, very similar to the school one (note: I'm from italy). Where I, or someone, give the "lesson"; where inevitably there must be a sort of messiah who brings the solution, the information, and there is never a collective construction. In one of my two experiences I noticed how in a "debate" people inevitably ended up (or just straight up answered) agreeing with me ("I think it's like you say it is"); not because I was exhausting them, but because I was giving a complete opinion: so the “debate” died there, at the beginning. There is no verve. They are all dependent on an entity/element that thinks for them. And if i were there to "conduct" a discourse, I'd feel like the teacher who needs its pupils to develop a thought, i don't think its fair.

And now I feel like a bit of an asshole, like Heraclitus, asking you how to wake people up; how to activate them and put them on their feet.

P.S. My two experiences involved Poetry and Politics

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Most active clubs that have stuck around started as folks who were getting together regularly around a thing for long enough they decided to formalize it. The one exception was there was a freethinkers club that I think started as a guy putting a meetup notice at a restaurant for brunch for freethinkers at an establishment that had enough extra space and where fine with pushing tables together. When it got to big it started meeting at his home. I think he figured he would go for brunch and if people showed then bonus.