Here’s an anecdote from real life - because theory is always light to throw around: a guy moves in with a girl, is excellent for a few months, then starts doing psychedelics, lots of psychedelics, and over the period of a few weeks starts imagining being the lord of his imaginary empire and starts being violent, first towards her pets, then her.
She calls her friends for help.
In current dystopia: Friends talk to him, no change. She calls the police next. The response is painfully slow, as in several weeks slow, she goes into hiding, he destroys her things, goes on a rampage through the nearby communities, threatening people and destroying more stuff. Ends up in psychiatry eventually. Says he doesn’t remember being violent, wants to move back in with her. Psychiatry says they can’t do anything because he’s all nice and normal and release him again. Some more rounds of the same. Eventually she has to move away.
You might have heard similar stuff, it seems unfortunately to be not all that uncommon that a partner goes on a substance rampage and turns monstrous.
What would happen in a solarpunk society?
What would I have wanted to do? In the heat of the situation when the impotence of all ‘authorities’ became apparent and I was triggered by current situation and past memories: get a group of people together, tar and feather him with chewing gum and glitter and put him on a train to far away.
In hindsight: After friends talk to him part 1, add a friends talk to him part 2: making him know her decision and make clear the community stands behind her. Tell him to leave.
After that, if he still refuses? Maybe back to the glitter and chewing gum solution? Probably. In the current world, in almost all situations of domestic violence the victim ends up moving away, and frankly, that fact alone makes me shiver. Which is why ‘send them away’ is a favourite solution of mine - and this does give the perpetrator a chance to try again in a new community and do better next time. Which I’m sure they want to do as well.
I also have no better answers. I know that in current dystopia, part of people chickening out in a community conflict like this is the idea that authorities are there to help, so we expect them to. And also, we don’t want to get involved in something that could escalate in violence - because none of us is violent, because it could get us into trouble, because we could get hurt. That’s the unfortunate truth for me and quite a few people I know.
In a solarpunk future, I would want to know the power of decision about such cases is brought before and decided by all the community, but with something like a veto right for victims. Victims should never be forced to share a community with their offenders, or leave their home while their offender gets to stay. That’s just not right.
This illustrates the importance of neighbourhood communities. In today’s dystopia those have been replaced by pseudo social online communities and shallow entertainment. The latter also makes us being used to constant dopamine rushes so serious stuff is avoided.
Hence, a functioning society requires closer and caring neighbourhoods. If course introverts need to be respected and everyone has a different comfortable distance but usually problem households like the one you mentioned try to go isolated because of shame or secrecy.
Here’s an anecdote from real life - because theory is always light to throw around: a guy moves in with a girl, is excellent for a few months, then starts doing psychedelics, lots of psychedelics, and over the period of a few weeks starts imagining being the lord of his imaginary empire and starts being violent, first towards her pets, then her. She calls her friends for help.
In current dystopia: Friends talk to him, no change. She calls the police next. The response is painfully slow, as in several weeks slow, she goes into hiding, he destroys her things, goes on a rampage through the nearby communities, threatening people and destroying more stuff. Ends up in psychiatry eventually. Says he doesn’t remember being violent, wants to move back in with her. Psychiatry says they can’t do anything because he’s all nice and normal and release him again. Some more rounds of the same. Eventually she has to move away.
You might have heard similar stuff, it seems unfortunately to be not all that uncommon that a partner goes on a substance rampage and turns monstrous.
What would happen in a solarpunk society? What would I have wanted to do? In the heat of the situation when the impotence of all ‘authorities’ became apparent and I was triggered by current situation and past memories: get a group of people together, tar and feather him with chewing gum and glitter and put him on a train to far away.
In hindsight: After friends talk to him part 1, add a friends talk to him part 2: making him know her decision and make clear the community stands behind her. Tell him to leave.
After that, if he still refuses? Maybe back to the glitter and chewing gum solution? Probably. In the current world, in almost all situations of domestic violence the victim ends up moving away, and frankly, that fact alone makes me shiver. Which is why ‘send them away’ is a favourite solution of mine - and this does give the perpetrator a chance to try again in a new community and do better next time. Which I’m sure they want to do as well.
I also have no better answers. I know that in current dystopia, part of people chickening out in a community conflict like this is the idea that authorities are there to help, so we expect them to. And also, we don’t want to get involved in something that could escalate in violence - because none of us is violent, because it could get us into trouble, because we could get hurt. That’s the unfortunate truth for me and quite a few people I know.
In a solarpunk future, I would want to know the power of decision about such cases is brought before and decided by all the community, but with something like a veto right for victims. Victims should never be forced to share a community with their offenders, or leave their home while their offender gets to stay. That’s just not right.
This illustrates the importance of neighbourhood communities. In today’s dystopia those have been replaced by pseudo social online communities and shallow entertainment. The latter also makes us being used to constant dopamine rushes so serious stuff is avoided.
Hence, a functioning society requires closer and caring neighbourhoods. If course introverts need to be respected and everyone has a different comfortable distance but usually problem households like the one you mentioned try to go isolated because of shame or secrecy.