It is always one thing to gain identity from opposing society at large, and quite another to sustain ongoing commitment.”ĭepressive Realism: Interdisciplinary perspectives The key problematic here, however, for Jesus, the early Christians, anarchists, beats, hippies and DRs hoping for a DR-friendly society, is that intentional communities require some sense of overcoming adversity, having purpose, a means of functioning and maintaining morale in the medium to long-term. There are certainly some overlaps but one distinctive dissimilarity: the DR has no illusory better world to look forward to, whereas the Christian had (and many Christians still have) illusions of rapture and heaven to look forward to. Since that fantasised world has never materialised, we can only wonder about the likeness between early Christian communities and theoretical DR communities. Jesus and others did not expect to find fulfilment in this world (meaning this civilisation) but looked forward to another world, or another kind of existence. Along with Diogenes, many anarchists, and latter day hip-pies, Jesus has been regarded as a model of the be-here-now philosophy, and hardly a champion of a work ethic and investment portfolio agenda. Rather, he espoused an ascetic lifestyle, nomadic, without possessions, possibly without sex, without career anxieties (‘consider the lilies’) and at best paying lip service to civic authorities and traditional religious institutions. Yet the Biblical Jesus was clearly anything but a facilely happy consumerist, bureautype or bovine citizen. “On the face of it, most people do not think of Jesus as a depressive realist. (We haven’t, however, made a popular hero out of Diogenes, the ultimate dirty Greek hobo.)” Strangely, though, society also makes an idol of Jesus, apparently a nomad who had no possessions or family ties, who walked away from a promising career in carpentry, a hobo if ever there was one. Society is right to fear such people because they embody the sane rejection of many insanely onerous “civilized” values that would collapse under scrutiny. They have absconded from the pressures to compete, to perform, to sell out, to join in the dance of bureaucracy, money worries, cohabitation, housekeeping, procreation, you-name-it. Many such people have turned their backs on a society they don’t understand or can’t cope with. They offend simply by “opting out”-of property, commitments, beliefs, relationships, expectations. If there is one group of people our majority population fear and despise it is rootless, nomadic individuals with no stake in society.
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