I was listening to a podcast recently and the guest said something that stopped me mid-thought.
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I was listening to a podcast recently and the guest said something that stopped me mid-thought. He was talking about the ultra-wealthy, people who feel most at home on a plane because they don't actually belong anywhere, not even in the multiple houses they own. And then he named it: these people have networks. Not communities.
Before the host could ask why, I already knew the answer.
Accountability.
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I was listening to a podcast recently and the guest said something that stopped me mid-thought. He was talking about the ultra-wealthy, people who feel most at home on a plane because they don't actually belong anywhere, not even in the multiple houses they own. And then he named it: these people have networks. Not communities.
Before the host could ask why, I already knew the answer.
Accountability.
People in community are accountable to each other. They develop shared goals. They sacrifice for each other. They stay, even when staying is inconvenient, because their survival is bound up in the people around them. Community is not a feeling. It is a structural relationship with real stakes.
Networks operate on a different logic entirely. A network is a collection of useful connections you activate when you need something and maintain only as long as the exchange benefits you.
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People in community are accountable to each other. They develop shared goals. They sacrifice for each other. They stay, even when staying is inconvenient, because their survival is bound up in the people around them. Community is not a feeling. It is a structural relationship with real stakes.
Networks operate on a different logic entirely. A network is a collection of useful connections you activate when you need something and maintain only as long as the exchange benefits you.
No one in a network can truly hold you accountable because accountability requires that you care what happens to the people around you when your choices affect them. And caring that way requires belonging somewhere.
When you design your entire life to exist outside of accountability, when you have enough money, mobility, and insulation that no community can hold you to anything, you do not escape the myth. You become its most concentrated expression. You begin to treat the world like a market:
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No one in a network can truly hold you accountable because accountability requires that you care what happens to the people around you when your choices affect them. And caring that way requires belonging somewhere.
When you design your entire life to exist outside of accountability, when you have enough money, mobility, and insulation that no community can hold you to anything, you do not escape the myth. You become its most concentrated expression. You begin to treat the world like a market:
something to negotiate with, to buy options on, with no commitment required and an exit always available. The promise is not that you will show up. The promise is that you will, if it benefits you, if you feel like it.
That is not solidarity. It is supremacy with a portfolio.
And this is not just the ultra-wealthy. This is the logic the myth installs in everyone it touches. You cannot build a practice without belonging somewhere. Networks will not save you. They will not save anyone.
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something to negotiate with, to buy options on, with no commitment required and an exit always available. The promise is not that you will show up. The promise is that you will, if it benefits you, if you feel like it.
That is not solidarity. It is supremacy with a portfolio.
And this is not just the ultra-wealthy. This is the logic the myth installs in everyone it touches. You cannot build a practice without belonging somewhere. Networks will not save you. They will not save anyone.
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I was listening to a podcast recently and the guest said something that stopped me mid-thought. He was talking about the ultra-wealthy, people who feel most at home on a plane because they don't actually belong anywhere, not even in the multiple houses they own. And then he named it: these people have networks. Not communities.
Before the host could ask why, I already knew the answer.
Accountability.
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I was listening to a podcast recently and the guest said something that stopped me mid-thought. He was talking about the ultra-wealthy, people who feel most at home on a plane because they don't actually belong anywhere, not even in the multiple houses they own. And then he named it: these people have networks. Not communities.
Before the host could ask why, I already knew the answer.
Accountability.
@KimCrayton1 this was super enlightening. Thank you
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R relay@relay.mycrowd.ca shared this topic
